Carol Lake

 A few weeks ago, we went on our big family camping trip up to Carol Lake. We have gone three years now to this place, along with friends of ours, and we love it.

Carol Lake is a Forestry campsite, so the only amenities is the outhouse. (that's the type of camping my Hunny grew up doing. I didn't grow up camping at all, so it sometimes worries me, even seventeen years later! My only rule in finding a campground we like is that is has to have an outhouse! I only pee in bushes at night, in the dark when no one can see me and it's too spooky to walk to the potty!)  And one gorgeous lake surrounded by mountains! It is an hour outside of Lillooet, on logging roads, and way outside of cell phone range. (believe me, last year, when I blew the van tire we had no way of calling for help. It's a good thing my Hunny knows how to change tires on mountain passes!) It is so peaceful up there.


We spent a week relaxing and enjoying family and friends. And not once did the kids whine about a computer or a mobile device or movies! (usually we bring up a portable DVD player for rainy days, but ours broke, and we haven't replaced it yet.) They were too busy playing!

The boys even tried for the first time to swim in the lake! The dock was as far as Kai got, but Bryn tried a bit further, with Roger and Linda's coaching! Rhys was too frightened to attempt more than his experience, but it was a step!

We had an epic NERF gun fight the first night. That was a lot of fun! 

Abi became an Assassin-for-hire and attacked anyone.

Eden was recruited as well, by Linda, and had fun shooting Roger. He would pretend to cry whenever she did, causing much giggles from my sweet and compassionate girl! 

Roger had a blast!

Our friends bring up their dirt bikes each year, and so my kids got to go for rides on one with Roger. (except for Eden, she got too nervous before they left, which was ok with me; I was second guessing the idea too!) That was a lot of fun! Rhys managed to go several times because he is so darn cute when he is dressed up in the gear and asks so politely.

After a few rides, Roger taught Abi and Kai how to ride. That was pretty cool! They started off slowly "walking" with the bike, then moved up to both feet resting, and made their way around in a circle, testing their speeds. I was impressed with them! 

Abi practiced for about an hour, and then Kai took over, and he kept at it and didn't want to get off! He surprised me! I think this is the hardest he's ever worked at learning something! It was so great to see! He took off on learning so fast that he spent much of the week riding bikes by himself and with David.

I see dirt biking in our future!
  

 
Sadly, Bryn didn't get to learn since the smallest bike there was too big for him, but maybe by next summer we'll have that sorted out. Since returning, my Hunny has diligently been searching on Craigslist for dirt bikes to buy! (the prices are going down, but we don't have the money yet. Maybe in the spring...)

We did many trips in the boat. (our redneck boat pool was emptied and set to float in the lake) Kai mastered the pontoon boat, so he would go out in it, and David in his inflatable boat, for trips.

 We could tell that Bryn was getting lonely and restless, with not being able to do things on his own, so we decided to teach him to use the boat as well! We did for him what we did for the Olders a few years ago: we tied the pontoon boat to the dock on a long line and let him practice until he got confident. That took all of ten minutes before he was asking to have the line removed! (much faster than the Olders took to it!) 

 Linda followed behind him on the inflatable to make sure he was okay out there in the big lake.  It's neat to think that Kai learned to use that pontoon boat on that same lake at the same age of Bryn!

For a few days, we had the whole campground to ourselves, the whole lake to our family, and that was great!  All alone in the mountains, by ourselves, with no interruptions, no noise except our own. It was peaceful and like our own private oasis. 

When you have the place to yourself for a while, you start to feel grouchy about sharing!  But we eventually had to share with another family, and few other tenters arrived the night before we left. (I felt bad for the tenters as we had a thunderstorm that night! I was happy to be in our cozy trailer!)  It turned out great in the end, though. Our neighbours were actually quiet and other than losing our dirt bike practice ring, we had a lot of fun.

 
There is a small dock at our site, but we noticed that over the course of the week that it was starting to lose it's buoyancy.  The kids thought it was hilarious to try to sink the dock, and especially enjoyed it whenever an adult would stand on it and send much of it into the lake!

On the last night, while it was weighed down muchly with the kids, Roger and my Hunny, (I was attempting to look away since I get so nervous about kids falling into the lake) Eden took a step backwards and ended up falling off the dock!  In his haste to grab her, Roger twisted and fell in as well! Then my husband stepped in and took her from a wet Roger. It was quite the scene!  I wish I had it on video!  (it's easier to laugh after the fact! when it happened, my heart leaped! I knew she would be okay, but phew!... It was deep for her, but not for the men, and they were all right there, thankfully. It's just frustrating when I had a feeling it would happen; Eden and Rhys were more confident on that dock then I felt!)

Back on land, I gave Eden a bath to warm up in cooler we emptied!  Then, of course, I had to give Rhys one as well!  Then it was into jammies and settled for bed!

We can't wait for next summer!