Labor Day in McCall

My family loves to go camping. Anytime, anywhere. But, if there is a bed nearby that I can sleep in, that's where I will be.

We have a group of friends that we go to McCall with every Labor Day weekend. It's grown quite a bit since we started this tradition a few years ago. In fact, I think we had over 70 people up there this weekend. Everybody camps at Ponderosa State Park except for our family. My in-laws bought a condo near the park when I was pregnant with Carter, so it's been about 5 years. I just can't justify the tent thing when there is a comfortable bed a couple miles away. So, we go into the park to join the other families for meals and to ride bikes and play in the lake. Then, when it gets cold at night we pack up the kids and head back to the warmth. I sit in a nice hot tub and swim with my kids in the pool, and then we head back the next day for more camping fun. Can you blame me?? Really, I don't think so. We had the Shane's stay with us this year. Elli's not much for the camping thing if there is a bed nearby either. It was fun for the boys to get to hang out together and Kennedy was really good with all of them.

Let's see if I can manage to name all the families. Feel free to let me know if I left you out:

Browns, Hodges, Nuttalls, Freemans, Larsons, Stauffers, Lines, Shreeves, Mechams, Wilkes and Walkers, Shanes, and of course, us, the Franz family. Quite a big group and the DeMonds joined us for dinner one night. Like I said, lots of fun.

It did get pretty cold the last couple of nights, with a couple of rain showers. The kids all seemed to have a great time, they ranged from baby Shelby (about 5 months) to teenagers just out of high school. They had a great time hanging around the fire playing games and just chatting.

Here's some pictures that Chris took up there and a few that I took on the way home.

One of the things I love about being at Ponderosa is that Carter can pretty much run around and be all boy without too many problems. I think we only caught him "watering" the trees a few times.

Michael Stauffer and his son Myles are into geocaching. He took Chris and Charlie along with all the little boys to do some searching. They found a few caches and were able to trade for some treasures. I think we might have found a new hobby.

Kennedy, Megan (from behind), Brooklyn and Kaiden in the Brown's trailer. It was warm.

The pictures above and below were taken at a lookout towards the back of the park. Ponderosa sits on a peninsula of Payette Lake. You can hike to the water and there are some fun beaches to hang out at.

These two pictures I took from my car while we were waiting for the flaggers at Banks to let us through the intersection. It can sometimes take awhile.

A view of the cars lined up ahead of us to get through Banks. I think we were stopped for about 15 minutes.

And a view of the cars lined up behind us from my sideview mirror. Both pictures are a little deceiving because you can see around the corners. There were ALOT more cars than you can see.