Our First Backpacking Trip!

 

Warning this post has an insane amount of photos!

We've been planning a backpacking trip for about 6 months now, but last weekend we finally packed our bags and left modern civilization behind.

 

We knew hiking in with two smallish kiddos was going to be tricky so we prepared as best we could. Everyone got a pack. Mom and Dad got really big packs. Will, the pack he fell in love with at REI and would see none else and an itty bitty pack for Ben. Will and Ben had some water in their watertubes (aka camelpacks) as well as a beloved stuffed animal that couldn't be left behind.

 

 The original rule was everyone walks the whole way, but can call breaks whenever the want.... yeah that worked for about 1/2 a mile. Cue superdad! btw his pack weighs about 45lbs and Ben weighs 30!

 It took us about 3.5 hours to hike in 2.5mi. Slow and steady won the race, and we made it! (Found out later we stopped at the wrong lake and our goal was about 1mi further, oh well. We went on a dayhike out there the next day)

 

 Our tent and View from our tent!

 I recently bought a new dehydrator, so I made all of our backpacking food. Everything was dried and cooked simply by adding boiling water and waiting for it to soften. Sounds awful huh? It was actually pretty good. Our favorites were Stroganoff Soup, Bean & Rice Burritos, and Strawberry Shortcake!

 Will had a stick in his hand pretty much the entire trip! It was everything from a pirate sword, to a gun to shoot the old trees down so new ones could grow, to a walking power stick.

 There was some climbing, but...

 Mostly a TON of this! Ben loves looking at dirt, just not having it on his hands.

 Picture taken by Benjamin

 Ben's pretty proud of his seat.

 The scenery was beautiful, but my favorite was seeing all these boys, and holding their hands.

 When you ask Will what his favorite part of the trip was he'll say, "Sitting on the big rock with Dad"

 We packed up a day early to miss some bad weather rolling in, but everything else was pretty much perfect!