Llama tongues and the Spit

Just to warn you, I'm feeling pretty detail-conscious right now, so this is gonna be a wordy post. Go ahead and skip to the end if all you really want are new pics. :)

So last weekend we went camping! It was tons of fun and something I have been really looking forward to for awhile. We knew we wanted to go, we just didn't know when it would work out. Well, Ben was able to take a Friday off and Sunday was Stake conference, so I had no church responsibilities that day, and we were able to do a three-night camping trip up in Sequim, WA.

We left about 3:45 Thursday afternoon, and experienced a long wait at the Ferry, but that was really our only delay and we got to our campgrounds about 7:45. We were a little worried about finding a site because it was first come/first served, and if we had arrived just a little bit later there wouldn't have been any left, but we got one and it was perfect. All we had time for was setting up the tent and making dinner (spaghetti, yum!), and then it was bedtime. Lily did NOT do well that first night. We accidentally had her on the downward sloping end, so throughout the night her little bed got smaller and smaller because we were sliding towards her, and she wasn't used to the outside noises, and she was probably colder than she was used to, plus sleeping on an unfamiliar and harder surface - well, she had to have woken up at least 15 times that night. We were not amused. Ben especially :).

Friday was fun because we visited the Olympic Game Farm. If you haven't ever gone there, you should if you're in the Sequim area. It's a lot of fun. It's a wild animal park where you drive your car through the animals that just wander around, though some of them are more contained, like the black bears, kodiak bears, prairie dogs and the rhinoceros. The animals that wander around your car are llamas, deer, peacocks, yaks, zebra, elk, and bison. The thing that makes it the most fun is you can buy bags of bread on your way in and feed it to the animals. Most of them just come straight to your window and their tongues are hanging out begging for bread. It's a little scary and kind of yucky, but fun all the same. (Warning: our car did get scratched a little, so if you do go, that's a big possibility - yak and deer and elk horns.) My favorite animals were the little European Fallow Deer. They were sooo sweet and angelic looking. Just makes you think of Bambi :). The Zebras were pretty cool too, but the yak was very insistent and a little scary. He was the one who scratched our car.

The Elk were also extremely persistent and determined to get as much bread from us as they could. In the park there are different areas for different animals so they stay somewhat separated, and some of the deer, the elk and the bison were all in one big area, with a big group of Elk being the first animals that we came too. They ate all our bread so that we ran out before we got to the bison. That was kind of sad, because I really wanted Ben to see the Bison's 18 inch long tongues (!!) but next time, I guess.

The bears would do little tricks for us if we showed them we had bread. The would stand on their hind legs, or clap, or wave. Mostly wave. They were really cute. Except there was one black bear that looked a little possessed. One part of the park had more caged up areas with lions, tigers, cougars and coyotes in them, and that was kind of fun too. We also took Lily into the petting zoo area, but she wasn't too impressed, though the goats did make her giggle.

That night we had steak and grilled potatoes and onions for dinner, and were able to put Lily down at a reasonable hour, and then stay up a little later and enjoy a fire and eat s'mores. That night Lily did a lot better, only waking up about 4-5 times. Oh well. It's not like it was the best nights sleep anyway, the ground was really hard (we were feeling kind of old for being so stiff after sleeping!).

Saturday we hiked the Dungeness Spit to the Lighthouse at the end. It's an 11 mile hike round trip, and we forgot the baby-carrier, so we carried Lily in our arms the whole way. We were pretty impressed with ourselves, because neither one of us has hiked that far in awhile. But it was actually very enjoyable, more so because of the sense of accomplishment we felt at the end. The Lighthouse was kind of cool, too.

That night we went into Sequim and got ice cream cones to treat ourselves for our stunning accomplishment (that is, the 11 mile hike). They had lots of weird flavors and almost half of them had lavender in them, which I wasn't too fond of. Other flavors included coffee and beer, so we were a little limited. A peanut butter fudge one was good though, so we went with that. We had fritos and chili for dinner, and more s'mores after Lily went to bed. It had been drizzling all day, and started raining again in the middle of the night, and it wasn't that bad but we still decided to go home as soon as we woke up. After the 2 1/2 hour drive we got home about 10:30 and immediately took showers and started cleaning up. The day you come home from camping is always not so much fun, especially when dealing with wet tarps and tents.

But we had a lot of fun, and it was a much appreciated little mini vacation away from home. Lily really liked being outside so much and despite not sleeping as well enjoyed herself too.

Ok, my novel is over, here are the pictures!

Nothing to do with camping, just enjoying her baby biter biscuit on the counter while mommy makes dinner.

 

First night, Ben cooking dinner. Still light out, not bad!

 

Lily all bundled up against the wind. She really enjoyed being outside so much and was constantly trying to get beyond the blanket to eat the dirt. She's not crawling yet, but still manages to roll around a lot.

 

Emily cooking breakfast in her PJ's. It was chilly in the mornings.

 

Prairie dog at the Olympic Game Farm- so little and cute!

 

Llama face!

 

 
Isn't he so pretty?

 

They were my favorite animals there.

 

  
The animals really got right in your face. The zebra was no exception. We didn't spend too much time with him because I remember from when I was little my mom telling me that they can be really mean and prone to bite.

 

The scary yak with his head in our car.

 

A better picture of his horns.

 

Cute bear smile! We didn't get a good picture of him waving, but he was very friendly.

 

These guys (elk) were really pushy. See, two of them in the window at the same time. Sheesh!

 

 
These deer weren't nearly as cute (in my opinion) as the fallow deer we had seen earlier. There were a lot more of them though.

 

 
The only bison we got relatively close to, but he didn't even try to approach our car. Honestly, we didn't mind. Those things are huge!

 

So I just realized that I have an extreme amount of animal pictures up... but I don't really care. It was a fun part of our trip, and they're pretty cute. More Lemmon family pics below. :)

Lily looks a little gangsta here, if you ignore the tiny piece of bread sticking to her chin. She likes bread.

When it got colder and started raining a little, I would stick Lily in my sweatshirt with just her feet and head sticking out. She eventually fell asleep like that. She did the same thing in Ben's hoodie too, only it was a little harder because his didn't have a zipper.

 
I wanted to put this picture on here, cuz I think I look pretty cute :)

 

 
Lily really liked being on Ben's shoulders. It was pretty adorable.

 

Ok, not the best picture of either of us, but it's the only one we have of us at the Lighthouse. Close to at it, anyway. We didn't want to take the picture right at it cuz it wouldn't fit into the screen with us. :) But we did make it, promise!

 

It was shortly after we finished the hike that I tried to take a good picture of the Spit so that we could see what we had walked, but alas, our cameras battery died. Anyway, it was a really fun camping trip and I'm already looking forward to our next one!