Loving Life as a Family of Four: Bull Trout 2015

Wow! we have been busy since returning from Bull Trout this year.

Okay here we go….

I sent Bridge off to school for the day so I could clean the house prior to camping and pack up everything. This was the first year that I was in charge of packing.

Thankfully I checked the weather prior becuase this year it was cold.

No swimming! Just a lot of fishing.

I picked Bridge up in the afternoon with Colt around 3pm and headed to Redline. On our way to Redline, while I was driving, the top of the cool in the back of the pick up flew off. So I tried to stop and get out but the traffic was flying past me at a high rate of speed so I decided to scrap it. Not worth getting hurt!

Off we went. We arrived, loaded up the camper, this time we got a pop up (more on that later though) and headed to Albertsons to stock up.

All the while remembering that we were celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary. So of course some wine and cheese were on the list.

We arrived in camp around 7pm. The drive was uneventful except for the fact that Colter was no happy in his carseat for 3 hours. Being 4 months old and camping proved to take a slight toll on the little guy. But we did it!

When we arrived in camp Rosie and Becky greeted us and took the baby so I could help Ben back up the camper and get set up before dark. Grandpa, Bill and the girls were out for a canoe ride and came around to pick Bridger up to join them. He was beyond thrilled. He had talked about this day for a very long time.

I quickly snapped the annual family picture, despite the groans and moans I hear from “some” of the family!!! But such a fun picture to take year after year.

Meanwhile ,we set up camp, unpacked in the trailer and tried to eat a little roast. However, Colt was not happy and had hit his limit so off I went to try and mother him and feed him in the camper. It was certainly loud at times. That boy has some lungs on him.

Finally he fell asleep, they rest of the crew roasted marshmallows and before we knew it, it was time for bed. We headed for the camper. Ben turned on the generator to heat up the camper and we played some card games, drank some wine and talked about the last 5 years of marriage and what the future holds! Love those talks. Off to bed we went.

Well not quite that peaceful…..

It got cold, I mean real cold, like 30 degrees cold.

The battery in the camper didn’t hold a charge for the generator so around 3am the battery alarm went off and it was loud. Woke both boys up, maybe even the other campers in the camp ground. Ben was a little frantic to say the least. We figure out how to stop it, by turning on the generator, however that is pretty loud so he didn’t want to run it too long. But I was so dang cold that I didn’t have much care (I know I was a little selfish, but I had a baby that I was trying to keep warm).

Finally around 5am the sun started to come up, we could tell that if we could just make it till morning we could try and figure out what all the fuss was about.

We ate Bill’s famous pancakes, got dressed for the day and headed for the fishing extravaganza. The brothers took the kids in the canoe, me and rog and colt headed in the truck to the other side and rose and becky stayed back to read. I really wanted to capture some great pictures over on the other side so I was determined to bundle Colt up and snap away.

So glad I did.

The kids had what seemed like a bite on every cast they threw right away. I snapped away.

We spent most of the morning catching fish, Nat caught a 19 inch rainbow which was the biggest catch of the day!

I think we ended up with 19 fish caught for the day!

Back to camp we headed to clean fish and get ready for lunch. Meanwhile the kiddo’s painted rocks for keepsakes and allowed the boys to clean out the fish in peace in quite.

We ate our sandwiches and the next thing you knew it was starting to sprinkle, then rain, then downpour. Off the the camper we went for nap time! Nothing better than a rainstorm in the mountains. Peaceful sleeping.

We awoke to Bridger who eagerly was waiting for his cousins to wake.

Off the went playing for the rest of the day.

Of course there were many warnings about the “Ring of Fire” that Bill and Becky created around the firepit but all in all no major ochies!

Dinner was made, thanks to Becky frying up the fish. We ate s'mores and enjoyed the warmth of the fire that evening. It was time for another round of sleep. This time we were much warmer and slept pretty well.

Sunday morning Bill’s crew packed up early and headed home while we stayed back and Ben, Bridger and Rog went fishing. They caught a few more fish, cleaned them and then it was time to back up and head home ourselves.