Our next adventure was an all-boys camping trip to Tofino. I scored an amazing campsite at Pacific Rim national park which is right on the ocean beach near Tofino. Beth had too much work to go, so I took the three boys solo to go camping for SEVEN DAYS STRAIGHT.
A few moments:
The loaded car, the ferry ride, and the first night of hot dogs!
First evening on Long Beach: the kids were thrilled to be on the huge beach.
Hot chocolate: a camping breakfast staple
Family portraits: it's getting harder to fit everyone in the frame!
Chesterman's Beach: the daily Tofino outfit was a swimsuit on the bottom and a winter jacket on top for the wind. We explored many windy but beautiful beaches!
Wickaninnish Beach and South Beach: lots of tidepooling, big waves, and me scrambling to get us all off a rocky peninsula before the rising tide turned it into an island and cut us off from shore.
Biking on the beach: Long Beach is 10 miles long and we were right in the middle of it. The hard sand near the water was very bikeable and we rode for a couple miles exploring the beach.
Boat trip to hike on Meares Island: There were some truly amazing HUGE old growth trees here -- the biggest trees I've seen in my life. The boys looked like dwarves next to these things.
And to cap everything off, Obie lost a molar while eating an ice cream cone!!
Quite the eventful trip. The boys held it together amazingly well and were troopers. We stayed up until 10pm every night (watching the sun set on the beach at 9:30), explored a new beach every day, hiked and biked and boated. We did it all. Beth had a peaceful child-free week (of straight work....sigh), and there was a happy family reunion when we returned. I managed to come back with the same number of boys I left with, and everyone was mostly happy the whole time we were there. It was surprisingly manageable...guess the kids are growing up!!??