Camping 2024 Edition!

September 6, 2024

We went back to the same Sunnyside Campground at Cultus Lake this year. However, this year we weren’t lucky enough to get the group site by the beach. Instead, we booked multiple sites that were all next to each other. The location wasn’t nearly as convenient as the past 2 years unfortunately, for it was a 5 minute walk down to the beach, and just inconvenient overall. This year there was no fishing off the dock, and we only spent a brief time at the beach. No paddleboarding, no adult late nights beachside. This was our campsite:

We did spend an afternoon at the beach though:

However, we still had our big group of friends, and this year, I think we had the most people attend, with 30 people, and 3 doggos! 2 people being newbies (Jimmy T, and Nathan). Christina had camped with us before years ago at Manning, so I don’t consider her a newbie camper. The Wanger’s were also able to make it out this year! That obviously made Isla super happy since she would be able to hangout with Lia all weekend. Unfortunately, Kit, Erica, Riley and Tyler couldn’t make it this year due to Tyler’s prior commitments to baseball. Other than that though, all the families from last year returned this year. Stan and Anthony were back again this year too! Rosie and Lily from Germany too!

The best thing though was the weather. We had amazing weather, not a drop of rain. It made the weekend all the better! I hate the rain when camping, especially when having to pack up, it’s the worst! We played volleyball a few of the days, and the kids are getting so much better!

Again, meals were once again amazing. Here was the meal plan:

Gallery of our food over the weekend!

Here’s our joint spreadsheet list of stuff that people need to bring…

It’s kind of silly eh? Packing all this, and leaving our first world living quarters, so we can pack a lot of our first world comforts, and live in a third world tent. hahaha. Oh well, still fun!

We celebrated 4 birthdays too!

The kids are growing up way too quickly. This was just a year ago:

One other great thing was being able to light a real fire! It’s been quite a few years since we were last able to have a real campfire! In fact, they lifted the campfire ban just a few days prior to our arrival! Lucky us! Smores and roasting marshmallows, chopping wood and watching the wood burn! yay!

Here’s where we gathered at night:

Having the kids older, can be useful sometimes!

So the Wanger’s didn’t arrive until Friday (the 2nd night). I bring this up because they didn’t setup their tent until the day that they arrived. Not a big deal. We helped set up their tent in an open area, and they were good to go.

Later on that same day, we come back after some activities (can’t recall, but I think we were playing volleyball) and low and behold, the Wanger’s tent was now RIGHT BESIDE our tent. Literally, right beside it. You couldn’t walk between the two tents. We were now neighbours. I had no idea why this had happened! Well, it was Lia and Isla wanting their tents to be side by side. Not sure why, it’s not like they would be in the same tent, but hey that’s what they wanted. Turns out, they had asked James and Karen to move it beside ours, and that’s what happened. I knew that it would be a bad idea. In fact, when I saw this, I complained. hahaha. For I have had the fortune (sarcasm) of sleeping in the same hotel room with James (Wang) in the past… and he snores. James doesn’t quietly snore, or do some heavy breathing… he snores loud…like a bear! In fact, I had the fortune (won the lottery!) of sleeping in the same hotel with Jimmy T, and James (must be the name ‘James’) and Jimmy T also snores. It was like I was in an orchestra hall, except instead of listening to the beautiful sounds of harps, violins, cellos, cymbals, triangles, pianos, and brass instruments… I was exposed to the vibrations, reverberations, racket and cacophony of snoring… in STEREO! I didn’t get a wink of sleep that night.

This is obviously foreshadowing for the night that was to come. Lisa and I had earplugs that fateful evening, so it wasn’t terrible for us. Isla and Connor didn’t have that same luxury. It was good that the kids slept before the adults though, so they were able to fall asleep before James’ fell asleep. However, in the wee hours of the morning, Isla woke up pissed! She got out of her sleeping bag, and was whisper yelling at Mommy. Telling her that she couldn’t sleep because of Uncle James’ snoring! She was irate! She was exhausted! She was helpless! In fact, she got up twice to whisper yell at Mommy. This outburst by Isla woke me up too! That was the beginning of the end, for our night of sleep after that was, to put it lightly, interrupted. Trying to sleep after being awoken by Isla was a real challenge for us, for all you could hear was Wanger’s vibrating sound emanating through the night, echoing through the tents, through my ear plugs, and into my ear drums. The agony!!! Luckily though, the snoring kind of stopped around 7am, and we were able to get some more sleep!

That morning, we had a few groggy kids. However, it’s not what you might think. There weren’t just 2 groggy kids, but there were 4! Matthew and Lia couldn’t sleep as well! Wanger’s own kids! Matthew woke up so mad that morning, that he yelled at his parents. He screamed at them that he was ‘DONE!’. He was so frustrated by the snoring too, that even he was done. This was his own Dad!

So during that Saturday, this is what happened…

This is also another thing that happened that night… Lisa and I adopted 2 kids for the evening. Here they are 9am on Sunday morning.

All 4 kids said they had the best sleep ever. I actually slept right through as well. hahaha. At least this will be a story that will go down in lore! Right James? hehe

Movie night!