We went on our sort-of annual camping trip this weekend at Butano State Park.  It was conveniently located only an hour from our house and in a redwood forest near Half Moon Bay.  It was cold so I was all covered up and there were no mosquitoes to bother me.  That was a nice change.

The campground was nice and they had running water in the bathrooms closeby.  Thank goodness!  We actually had flushing toilets and running water in the sinks.  I came prepared with a step stool and toilet seat for KK to use so she could go to the bathroom without my help.

We also borrowed MaryAnn’s tent, which was really easy to set-up and we were able to fit Jason and Jia’s full-sized air mattress and all three of us slept comfortably inside.

On Saturday morning, we took the kids to a nearby goat far.  They had some cute billy goats in the front.

There was plenty of space for the kids to run around and KK played with Rowan quite a bit.

They chased each other around and looked for banana slugs together.

I had seen a banana slug at the aquarium but never in nature.  They look a little gross at first but are actually pretty cool.

A lot of our time was spent around the fire burning stuff – including marshmallows.  This picture of KK and her flaming marshmallow makes me chuckle.

All the kids had a great time and camping with KK was much easier this time around compared to her first trip when she was 3 months old.

Here is this year’s group photo on our last day.  It was nice having just the 6 of us again (plus the kids of course).  As chaotic as it seems sometimes, it’s still fun to go camping with these animals.  Hopefully we’ll be able to pull it off again next year with Peanut in tow.

Here we are on our last trip without kids or anyone with a bun in the oven.  We drove all the way to Yellowstone in a minivan in 2006 with barely enough room for our feet.  I’d say this was still my favorite trip so far.  I can’t wait to take KK and Peanut there to see the bison and stinky springs.

I also found a photo of our first camping trip.  It was the four of us at Joshua Tree NP and it was SOOOOO HOT.  It’s hard to believe this was 12 years ago!  Good times…