surPRISE!!!!!!

There may not be many things more fun than sneaking up on your grandparents while they're on a quiet camping trip all by themselves.

Troy's parents go camping a time or two every summer, and they have a handful of very favorite camping spots with which Troy is very familiar.  He knew his parents were heading up the Mirror Lake Highway this weekend and decided that it would be really fun to surprise them.  He was right.

We packed a few things into the car - some extra firewood, hot dogs and buns, s'mores makings, sweatshirts, bug spray....you get the idea.  And we hopped in the car and made for Kamas.  Troy was just guessing on what camp site his parents would be using, and he was right on his very first try.  We pulled slowly around the campground, spotted first their truck and trailer and then the two of them sitting peacefully in the cool mountain evening.  It wasn't peaceful for long after that, but hopefully we were a welcome disturbance.  It was pretty awesome to see their faces register first recognition then surprise and delight as we pulled in next to their truck.

We hauled all our gear down to the fire pit and got dinner going - sausages and dogs, chips and soda - truly a dinner of champions.  And it was just the most pleasant and wonderful evening.  I felt a little guilty for arriving with our whirling dervish of constant chaos, but since we were only staying for a couple of hours it hopefully wasn't too bad. Their little dog Rascal certainly seemed rapidly burned out on the attention of my children, most notably the dog-obsessed four-year-old, but one can not deny that he got some good exercise during our stay. The rest of us had a great time munching and walking and finding rocks to skip on the lake.  It was a great evening, and it made me really look forward to our camping trip in a couple of weeks.

How many walks can one dog take in one night?  On a quest to find out.

Love the top-down approach to hot-dog eating

Bitty asked for BIG marshmallows so I got BIG marshmallows, which created s'mores that were a little hard to conquer