Leavenworth, WA - Camping Trip

OK, so this past weekend we went camping over to Leavenworth, WA (not the military base Ft. Leavenworth, KS) and we had a great time! We left Friday (7/31) and came home yesterday afternoon. The temperature over there on the east side of WA was high 90's - low 100's which is not unusual for this time of year...however, since the weather was cooling off here at home, it was kind of unnerving to know that we were going camping to somewhere where it was still really hot!!! Of course, the trailer has A/C...I couldn't imagine a trip like that without it:-) We are going to definitely make another trip over there since as we were 7 or so miles from the house, I asked Philip if he grabbed the camera, he said no thinking I grabbed it when in fact no one grabbed it! We didn't have anything really planned for this trip, so we kind of basically hung out at the campground, though we did make it into town to Leavenworth (it's a Bavarian town like Frankenmuth, MI for all my MI readers) and spent a couple of hours early morning after having breakfast at Sandy's waffle house. They were having a weekend music and art festival this past weekend so we got to enjoy that as well, but I'll have to say the BEST part of this trip was that the entire family went tubing down the Wenatchee River!!! Yes, the ENTIRE family to include Justin & Jordan!!!

It was a 2 mile stretch from the KOA campground down to where you got out of the river and the KOA van met and shuttled you back. Philip and Jordan were on one tube and Justin and I were in another tube...during most of the trip, Philip and I stayed connected by holding each others handles of the tubes; other parts of the river we were fending for ourselves since we had to protect our butts from the rocks in the river; actually more like boulders! Philip and I kept trying to dodge these rocks, but of course most of the time we didn't and our butts drug over and every once in awhile we got stuck on top of the rock with the tube and had to shimmy ourselves loose:-) At the very beginning of the ride, was the most rapid, choppy part of the river that threw water up onto us and right of way I was thinking what the hell have I gotten myself into with a 16-month old; I need to turn around somehow and get off and go back to camp, but of course after that was pretty much smooth sailing except for a few fast rapids (without the throwing up of water)...basically we had the boys in our laps between our legs. Justin basically sunned himself and enjoyed the entire ride, though when it was all over I asked him if he liked tubing down the river and he said 'no'! I'll tell you 'no' is his new favorite word which he basically says to everything you ask him, but it was cute...Jordan liked it, though I think he was unsure if he wanted to do it again either! Jordan was talking, laughing, and having a great time the entire ride...we saw a few animals along the river as well as fish in the river; all in all it was ANOTHER great adventure for our memory book!!!

Jordan also got to go swimming for the first time in the big pool at the campground...he floated (not too far out:-)) on his own and didn't seem at all too afraid of the water; I think I'm going to put him into swimming classes starting this fall, but first I've got to look around and get the logistics...I don't want them to be afraid of water, and I definitely want them to be able to swim on their own if the need should ever arise! Right now they wouldn't be able to save themselves out of a wet paper bag:-)

For all those of you keeping track, our next camping adventure is in a couple weeks back over to eastern WA towards Moses Lake for some fishing. We've got our poles (Jordan included) and can't wait to see who can catch the biggest one!