Camping at Loeb July 2011

Back in July we went camping at Alfred A. Loeb State Park near Brookings. Who is "we"? Me (Robyn), Alex & Austin, Rochelle (ZiZi) & Dominic, Sari and her three kids, Mathias, Annie, & Gracie.

We headed over to Cresent City to see the tide pools and the Light House. Above is Alex in the red jacket waiting to start our adventure. In the top left is ZiZi holding Austin. You can also see all the little munchins running down the trail.

From top left going L to R: Alex heading off into the great blue yonder, Dominic, Austin getting mad because i forgot his pacifier in the car, Alex showing us a shell, and Alex and ZiZi fixing a shoe.

Sari (in the dark blue hoodie) was acting as our local Tide Pool Expert and kid magnet, Rochelle (in the purple hoodie) acting as Sari's assistant kid herder. Mathias is in the red hoodie, Alex in the blue hat, Dominic in the red hat, Annie in the green striped hoodie, Gracie has the pink camo pants.

Heading up the steep hill to the lighthouse, the start of the trail is in the bottom middle picture. Seated on the bench from Left to Right: Mathias, Annie, Gracie, Dominic, & Alex.

Alex and Annie were fascinated by these buoys  hanging in this dead tree. Dominic thought they were pretty cool, too. Alex touched every one that he could reach with his finger.

The many faces of Alex and ZiZi exploring with Dom and Alex.

Alex showing Dominic and the other kids a dead crab (i think).

We went to the Redwood forest on our way home. The trees were awesome and fun to play on. The ferns made a nice jungle for the short ones. :) Alex is wearing the yellow shorts and Power Ranger shirt, Dominic is wearing the orange Nemo shirt. And, ZiZi is in the pink plaid.

We climbed on top of this HUGE stump. And then got inside of it.

The trail was really cool. The kids loved it. The group shot is Left to Right: Dominic, Alex, Annie, Mathias and Gracie.

Camping at the Coast

A couple of weeks ago, Paul went to Boy Scout Camp for a week, so my mom and I decided to take Alex and Dominic camping for a few days at the coast. We went to the Loeb Campground just outside of Brookings. Alex and Dominic really enjoyed leaping back and forth between beds and wrestling blindfolded...


They were shrieking with laughter, even when they bonked heads together.
The campground was beautiful, lots of trees and secret pathways.

The boys enjoyed hiding behind this tree. Peek-A-Boo!

We were camped right next to the Chetco River and had own own personal little path leading to the beach. It was a little to chilly to swim, but we had a lot of fun making echos and throwing rocks in the water...especially Dominic.
Alex loved the dinosaur house Zi Zi made. He insisted on going "inside" himself and "eating" dinosaur food.
Someone made this really cool tower of rocks. It was all Dominic could do to keep himself from destroying it.

Alex, on the other hand, began balancing little rocks on the top.

Riding a log in our campsite.

This next series of pictures are titled
Monkeys in a Tree.

We brought bikes for each of them and they loved going on rides around the loop. On one ride we saw these three boy playing in this tree. I said, "Look! There are monkeys in that tree!" Alex and Dom imeadiatly stopped and the look on their faces was priceless...complete and utter trust that what I was saying was true. To top it off, the boys in tree heard me and started acting like monkeys. Alex caught on to the joke and wanted to be a monkey in the tree as well, but Dominic did NOT want to have anything to do with them. It was hilarious. After playing with them for a bit, we heading back to camp. On the way back Dominic (who was making Zi Zi hold him) kept saying "Monkeys coming! Monkeys coming!" Just as my mom was assuring him we left the monkeys far behind and trying to convince him to get back on his bike, the monkey boys came up behind us oooing and ahing. We had to "feed" them bananas to get them to leave. Alex loved it!

Camp Inspection

Hugs and tickles

On the last day our "neighbors" moved out, providing access to this really cool group of trees.

Helping Mommy take down the tent.

Rochelle bought this really cool collapsible cart at a used kid stuff store. It was awesome and we used it everywhere we went!

This is the trail leading to our campsite---perfect for riding bikes.
This is the trail leading to the beach. Alex decided to go over the other side of this hill on his bike. It is really steep for about 10 feet, so needless to say he flipped the bike and landed on his head. I rushed to comfort him and he looked at me with big eyes and a small smile and said, "Bike fast!"


On Wednesday, we went to the beach all day. Sari and her three little ones, Uncle Randy, Aunt Pat, and Ethan all came up for the day.

The boys loved climbing the rocks by our cars.

Dominic is trying to jump down the hill.

Alex loved feeling the sand between his toes...and in his mouth unfortunately. I had hoped he had grown out of this stage, but I guess not. He spent a few days pooping sand. haha!

Helping Zi Zi build a sand castle...

And then destroying it!

Trying to fill up the buckets with water was a little intimidating, but it sure was fun to run from the waves.

Annie the sand princess was oblivious to it all. :)

Aunt Pat and Gracie

Alex and Dom inspecting what happens when water is dumped on dry sand.

Going on an Adventure!

We found this cool fort that someone built just for us. :)

Dominic

Alex

Annie

Look! Gracie is sitting by herself! Just kidding, my mom was helping her.

Sand Crabs

Alex absolutely loves Gracie. He was thrilled that he got to hold her and she was grabbing his face.

All of the little sand crabs!

Hmmm...cool toes!

Annie was thrilled to wear Zi Zi's sun glasses.

Mathias showing off the cool rock he found.

There is always more exploring to do.

Riding a log...Alex was making these clicky-galloping sounds.

Getting them all to pose on this log...a Miracle! Dominic thought it was really funny to fall off the log, and did it over and over....but I still managed to catch him sitting on it for a split second.

Sliding down a little sand dune.

Randy and Ethan were the only ones brave enough to get in the cold water.

Aunt Pat and Jared were playing Frisbee, when Alex decided to join in.

This, of course, attracted all of the other little sand crabs to the scene.

Jared was very patient and nice to play with them.

Climbing the big rocks! They are growing up so fast!

We stayed two nights and were all very happy, but tired when it was time to head home.
The car was packed pretty tight (notice the bike tied behind the roof top carrier), but we managed to get it all back in the car. That's me at the wheel by the way, proof that I was really there. :)

All in all everything was wonderful, even though it was little quiet camping for two nights with just the four of us. Dominic woke the whole campground up the first night crying for his mom. Nothing would soothe him, so we got little sleep. Luckily, Alex slept through it all. The next day a ranger came to our camp and told us people were complaining about a crying baby in our camp. He wanted to know what we were going to do about it, so that he didn't cry the next night. He even suggested that we hold him and comfort him.....CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? I looked at him in disbelief and told him that we did everything we could, but he just missed his mom and that was that. I went on to say (very nicely) that if he wanted us to leave, then he could refund us our money and we would pack up, but I could not guarantee that Dom would not cry the next night. He was a nice Ranger, but obviously had never had kids. He leaned down to Dominic and said very sweetly, "Are you the little culprit? Are you going to cry tonight?" Dominic replied very matter-of-factly, "Yes." It was great! My mom and I had a great laugh over that one after the ranger left. For the record, Dom only woke up once the second night and it was just a little cry that lasted about 10 seconds.