Mission Fire Lookout Tower...

Adventures... are few and far between as the kiddos get older... I've realized this now more than ever over the past few months as the kiddos (especially Ainsley) have had more solo life adventures than family adventures.

So to head out on a family adventure to the Lookout Tower was a great start to our summer vacation.

To be out of cell service is both a blessing and a curse for all of us but to have moments of uncontrolled laughter, tons of card games played, and nature all around that changes right before your eyes was pretty awesome!

We set the alarm one night to get up at 1am so we could watch the stars overhead... to see the milky way that "close" is something I will always remember. Other awesome memories I will hold close are the boys making our meals... us girls first introduction to freeze dried dinners!

Ainsley wanting to bring my old SLR camera to practice some photography skills... be still my heart on that one!

Other things that I will remember about this adventure... the storm that blew in shortly after we arrived and how we all hunkered inside searching the sky for lightning while counting the rumble of the thunder.  How freaked we first felt when the wind came to the tower and seemed to ever so slightly sway the tower... that same wind also rocked us to sleep that first night.

There was the 49 stairs that had be climbed to get to the top... the trap door that had to be secured at night so the pack rats didn't come up to the tower and the mosquitoes that loved feasting on Bug and myself... even after multiple layers of bug spray!

One last picture... little Bug so excited to have this birthday adventure...