Well, we made it to another Friday! I don’t know where the weeks go, but they seem to fly by 🙂 But I finally wanted to share some photos from our camping trip this past weekend to the Oregon Coast!
Cam and I have done a fair amount of camping over the past few years, and it’s something we hoped we’d continue to do with kids. But last summer, our schedule was pretty busy with our trip to Europe for my sister’s wedding and we never got around to making any camping reservations. So this summer, we definitely want to make it a priority! Weeks ago, we made reservations at Nehalem Bay State Park near Manzanita for the first weekend of June, because it where we camped back when I was pregnant with Henry and loved it. As luck would have it, Portland was hit with a massive heat wave this past weekend and it was supposed to be in the high 90s/low 100s here. And since our house (like many homes in Portland) doesn’t have central AC, we were even more excited for this trip to the coast!
We got to the campground Friday afternoon, came home late Sunday, and I took a bunch of pictures 🙂 And overall, I’d say Henry’s first time camping was a big success!
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| One of the first things we did when we got there was head for the beach! Henry seriously loves the sand and the water and while he did seem to enjoy camping, I think he was most excited about just being at the beach! |
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| 20 week bump on display 🙂 |
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| With all of the other stuff we had to bring, I didn’t bother to stick in the “real” camera so all these photos are iPhone 🙂 |
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| When it was time to go back to our campsite, Henry was not having it… |
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| You can’t tell, but he’s hysterically screaming because he doesn’t want to leave the beach…ha 🙂 |
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| The path to the beach from the campground is kind of narrow through these tall grasses and I think it’s so pretty 🙂 |
Nehalem Bay State Park has a mix of tent and RV campers, and the sites aren’t super secluded by any means. But we like the proximity to the beach and enjoyed our time camping here once again. (However, if you’re going to stay here with young kids, I’d recommend staying in the B loop because there is a playground that’s more geared towards their age. We stayed in the D loop and the playground was definitely designed for older kids so Henry wasn’t able to get too much use out of it)
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| He loves being in the driver seat of the car (and admiring his reflection, ha!) |
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| And then he pulled my review mirror off…yeah… |
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| Henry is still a little young for s’mores and roasting marshmallows – I tried to let him help me, but he wanted to do it himself aka just run around with the hot roasting stick, which wasn’t going to happen 🙂 |
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| But he was pretty excited about getting to have graham crackers and that pretty much kept him busy the whole time 🙂 |
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| At night, he’d wear the slipper moccassins from Hanna Andersson and they worked great because they have a leather sole, but they’re basically just like socks. Plus I could just throw them in the wash when we got home 🙂 |
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| The other thing about camping this time of year is that the days are soooo long! Henry was up way past his normal bedtime since it stays light so late, but he was happy as a clam running around and exploring 🙂 |
Saturday morning, we headed straight to the beach after breakfast and it was perfect weather!
(Plus it wasn’t crowded at all, which was amazing considering how hot it was in Portland!)
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| Seriously so happy just playing with sand toys and running on the beach 🙂 |
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| We brought our kite and Henry loved watching Cam fly it 🙂 |
We ended up going on for a drive after our morning at the beach to get Henry to take a nap, and it worked like a charm! The car normally puts him to sleep, plus he had played pretty hard 🙂
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| Post nap pouch and showing off his guns 🙂 |
Saturday night, we went back down to the beach before sunset and it was also gorgeous!
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| Chasing horses down the beach 🙂 |
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| I know I already posted this one on Instagram, but I love it 🙂 |
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| When we were at this beach before, I was pregnant with Henry and Cam took some bump photos so I felt like I needed to get at least one this trip 🙂 I was just over 20 weeks here, yay for being over halfway! |
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| Taking in the rest of the sunset from our campsite 🙂 |
The first night, sleeping was a little dicey because Henry kept tossing and turning and couldn’t seem to get comfortable. But the second night went much better and we all slept great!
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| Most amazing bedhead ever 🙂 |
Sunday morning, we were just hanging out at the campsite and we were glad we had brought lots of books for Henry because that’s definitely what keeps his attention these days!
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| Making breakfast! |
Later Sunday morning, we headed back to the beach and had more great weather 🙂
Sunday afternoon, Cam’s family came up and joined us at the beach and I completely forgot to take any photos of that – whoops! But we had a really fun day before finally heading home!
It’s funny because lots of people here in the Pacific Northwest are super outdoorsy and take their kids camping as really young babies, so I was feeling kind of bad that Henry is just going camping now for the first time at 18 months. But then talking to other people, they’re shocked we took him camping already at such a young age and think it’s nuts – ha! So it all just depends on your perspective I guess! But we had a really great time, he seemed to really enjoy being outside, and although the sleeping took a little getting used to since we don’t co-sleep at home, it really wasn’t too bad at all 🙂 We’re definitely planning on doing some more camping trips later this summer and I can’t wait!
