April camping trip to Garner State Park

Here is a slideshow from our most recent camping trip.  We camped again at Garner State Park.  This trip was my favorite because of all the hiking we did.

The Beck’s don’t start out simple We didn’t intend on hiking one of the most difficult trails with 4 children and a dog but it’s kind of hard to decipher easy from hard on the trails map.  Once we were about 1/5 of the way up I panicked a little.  But, we made it over the straight up rocks and I breathed a bit easier… for a while.

In the end, I was so excited that we had pushed through and finished the hike.  The fact that me and the girls were wearing skirts led some old people to think we were unprepared– that was funny.  I’m sure they were freaking out a bit that we were taking kids and a dog down a difficult part that they had just barely made it up.

The whole trip was fun and we only had 2 traumas.  Poor Sterling had the pad of his index finger torn off (it was attached on one end and has since healed crooked) and Haven busted it big time on the asphalt OUCH! He was fine though.

Every time we camp, I can’t help but wish we could share it with our family.  There’s no doubt that my parents and siblings (and nephews and niece) would love it as much as we do.

Oh and the s’mores this time were AMAZING!! No sub-par ingredients for this family–well, except for marshmallows.  We opted for German butter cookies instead of graham crackers and 70% Ghiardelli chocolate instead of a Hershey’s bar.  I can’t even begin to tell you how good they were.  I ate at least 6.

Haley’s homeschool assignment while we camped was to take notice of the birds.  I would photograph them and when we returned she would identify them.  This proved to be a difficult task and required that I join a bird forum to figure some out!  We got most of them identified and now we feel like “official” bird watchers.

Here’s a question for my fellow homeschoolers, when you travel and see a 12/15 passenger van with 6 kids do you automatically think, “homeschoolers!”?  We saw a family on Friday with a well-established campsite (meaning they had been there a day or more) and couldn’t help but feel so drawn to this family.  We said hi as we drove by but I’m praying for that encounter someday where I actually step out of my comfort zone and converse with someone.

I think it is funny that I assume that any family with many children homeschools even though I know this is far from true.  I went to school with a Mormon family of 6 kids and there are 7 children in my family

On to the good part.  There are 100 pictures in the slideshow so grab some popcorn.