Camping and Josh's Birthday

We went camping for Josh's birthday weekend, which was a month ago now. So I'm a little out of order here, but I got some really great photos that weekend so I wanted to get them on the blog. Seth was home from the island, and he and Beth came along too. It was such a fun weekend! I wish we could camp more often...it just seems like there is something going on every weekend in the summer.

We camped by the mouth of the Gratiot River, up on the west side of the Keweenaw. It was beautiful. The bugs didn't seem too bad, but Willow did get three big black fly bites right on her face. For about 2 weeks afterward it looked like she had the chickenpox or something.

Here's Willow getting up close and personal with some bushes.















Willow and Dada by the river.















Reading books in the tent.















The guys did some fishing, and I don't think they caught much. A fellow fisherman caught this fish and didn't want to keep it and couldn't toss it back because he hooked it in a bad way, so he gave it to us. Josh and Seth cooked it over the fire on a stick. It was pretty tasty, actually. Don't they look like rugged mountain men? Ha.















Willow with Seth and Beth:















Josh blowing out the candles on his birthday cake:















We had a beautiful sunset. Earlier in the day, there were quite a few daytrippers hanging out at the park, but by this point, we pretty much had the place to ourselves, and it was very peaceful.

















The next morning, we drove to a hiking trail I've never done before. It led to the mouth of another river, the Montreal River. There were some great waterfalls. The guys went upriver to fish and us girls hung out on the beach. Willow had a blast.

















After that, we all went to my parents' camp for dinner, the perfect end to an awesome weekend. Josh had another birthday pie, and Willow helped him blow out the candles.















I love this picture of Willow, Scout and and my dad.