"And the green grass grows all around all around.....

... AND THE GREEN GRASS GROWS ALL AROUND!!!"

What is more fun than sitting around a campfire singing songs and roasting s'mores? NOTHING! That's why we decided to go CAMPING last weekend! But we should have been singing "and the white sandy beaches are all around all around...". We went camping Friday - Sunday at Camp Malaekahana! I've always wanted to camp on the beach in Hawaii, but most of the beaches can get dangerous at night. So I was thrilled when I heard about this campground.

We decided to take advantage of the 4-day weekend that they gave us because of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And, of course, we invited the Hite's to go along :o) They agreed :o)

So we made our reservations, took the kids straight from school, and camped Friday night, Saturday night, and went home sunday morning.

Here is our campsite! It was right next to the beach!

And here is our view of the beach from our campsite!

THE FERGS READY FOR THEIR CAMPING ADVENTURE!!

Two happy campers:

It was a beautiful sunny Friday afternoon, so we couldn't help but play in the sand on the beach, even though we weren't in our swimming suits.

It was a little bit breezy, which is normal for the beach,
so we busted out our awesome 3D kite that we bought from Costco.
It's a fire breathing dragon!!

with a 6 foot wing span!!

Here's Daddy showing Kenzie how to fly the kite:

Mommy had fun drawing in the sand:

Nathan likes to draw in the sand too!
We're not sure what he drew, but it's still picture-worthy:

Here is a video of Mommy's beautiful "shaka" she drew in the sand
and Natalie singing a random song:

We played in the sand until the sun set!

It got dark quick!

And we all know what to do when it gets dark....

BUILD A FIRE!

We had foil dinners the first night, and they were WONDERFUL!

For those of you who don't know what a foil dinner is, here ya go:

It's just a hamburger patty, chopped vegetables, and soy sauce (for steamy flavor).
Then you wrap it all up in foil, throw it on the fire, and it about 20 minutes everything is cooked and ready to eat! They were DELISH!

Everyone enjoying their foil dinners:

Natalie was totally grubbin'!

And we all know the rule, that you can't have a campfire without having

S'MORES!!

That was #1 of probably about 10 s'mores for Mommy!

Nathan loves his s'more too!

I think Natalie just loves FOOD!
(she takes after her mama)

Daddy teaching Kenzie the 'right way' to roast a marshmallow.

(i didn't know there was a 'wrong way')

Matthew gettin' his chocolate & graham crackers ready:

Ahhhhh... the food was SO good.

After stuffing ourselves, we decided to go out onto the beach, and you'll never guess what we found!!

CRABS!!

They were teeny-tiny and EVERYWHERE! Their little pinchers were too small to pinch us so even the kids weren't afraid to pick them up.

Here is Kenzie with the little crab she caught:

After pestering the crabs on the beach, we went back to our campfire just to have a little bit of quiet time, when all the sudden, IT STARTED POURING!!!!

Aaron & Reina dashed inside their tent, not to be seen until the next morning, while Matt and I scrambled to decied what to save first from the rain! Electronics first, food second, and all the other crap just got thrown in the tent.

It was a TERRIBLE NIGHT! The rain didn't stop! And it was WIIIIINDY!!

I'm pretty sure I remember being awake the whole night, while Matt slept like a baby, of course.

It rained and blew all night long, and at times, the wind would blow the side of the tent onto our faces! LOL! Kinda funny to think about now, but it wasn't funny at the time. We were scrambling for towels to catch the dripping water in our tent, while matthew just covered his face with daddy's cool Army sleeping bag that he was using.

FINALLY dawn came. The rooster was crowing and it was beginning to get light. Yes, it was 5:30am, but I also had a full bladder from just jumping into the tent in the pouring rain without going to the bathroom first. So my crappy night of no-sleep was finally over. The kids were awake too.

Here are the kids waiting for the rain to stop:

Here's Natalie & Mommy killing some time:

Watch this video of us wondering if the rain will ever stop,
along with an ADORABLE solo performed by Natalie Grace:

To our surprise, shortly after that video the rain stopped and the sun started shining!!

We all emerged from our tents all groggy from the crappy sleep we had that night.

Then I looked around our campsite and realized that we should have put our tent in front of a big bush to use it as a wind breaker!! DANG IT! Why didn't we think of that before?

Oh well.... so we rearranged our camp a little bit:

MUUUUUCH better!

We were all starving, so we whipped out the cook stove and cooked up some bacon and pancakes!!

Here is Reina cookin breakfast:

After breakfast, since it was such a sunny day, we decided to go play on the beach again!

This is Matthew, Kenzie, Natalie, Aaron, & Reina on the beach.

Aaron & Reina were sinking in their chairs every time a wave would come up on the beach! LOL!

Here is Daddy flying the kite again

And here is Mommy, doing what she does best on the beach...
GETTIN SOME SUN ON HER WHITE BUTT!

Playing on the beach always makes you hungry, for some reason, so we went back to our campfire for some HOT DOGS for lunch!!

Nathan enjoying his hotdog:

Here's Matt double doggin' it!

The Hites

Here is a video of Matthew enjoying his hot dog:

After lunch is when the real fun started!! There were a bunch of wild chickens and roosters running around the campground, and they were terrible!! They'd get into your garbage and even steal food right off of your grill!!

The devil!

So Matt set up a snare on the ground to the left of the tree pictured above. And there was a nail in that tree, so he put his snare on the ground, and hung the cord on the nail, so he could pull down and the snare would snag a chicken!!

So I crushed up the Doritos and threw them in the snare and all the chickens came! It took a few tries but we finally GOT ONE!!

NOTE: NO CHICKENS WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THESE PHOTOS

Stupid thing.
Of course I felt sorry for it the second I held it and felt it breathing,
and said, "Awwww.... it's scared. Let's let it go."

So we kept it in a box unti Aaron & Reina got back to see it, and then let it go.

The dumb thing was back 5 minutes later.
I guess chickens aren't known for how smart they are.

Here is a random video of Natalie telling us what the "Magic Word" is
(along with other opinions on what it is):



AH! So that was our day of the beach and chickens!

Later on, we threw a few more logs on the fire and made POPCORN! Jiffy Pop, of course!

Here is our smokin' hot fire!

Then, we just sat around the campfire and visited.

Cute Kenzie

a Video of Matthew Crazy Dancing :


Silly Nathan & Kenzie

Mommy resting her feet on a tree that SCORPIONS were climbing all over

I like to walk on the wild side ;o)

Aaron having a good laugh!

Then it was bedtime. It was the BEST SLEEP after the past night of sleeplessness!

I think we ALL slept like babies. No wind, rain, or anything!

Just a beautiful calm night listening to the roar of the ocean!

Sunday greeted us with a beatuiful sunrise

We started packing up camp, because we had to be checked out by noon. So we ate breakfast, and then Matt took the kids out on the beach to fly the kite one last time. Little did we know, that this would be our LAST picture of the dragon kite:

Everything was going fine. The kids were flying the kite on the beach, and the adults were all packing up camp, when all of a sudden, Matthew comes FLYING through the bushes yelling, "I ACCIDENTALLY LET GO OF IT!"

We look back, and that kite was FLYING through the air, while the reel is getting stuck in trees on the way!! LOL! We laughed! Poor Matthew thought he was in trouble. We told him it was just an $11 kite, and that we had $11 worth of fun already.

Camping was great!

I wanted to drive home "the long way" around the other side of the island.

I finally found CHINA MAN'S HAT!!

I was so excited! And we ended it all off with a big BANG on our trip back to civillization, with a quick stop at MICKEY D'S for lunch!!

SHAKA Nathan!

SHAKA Nata!

Kenzie & Daddy

Here's a cool video of Matt playing with his food:

AND THAT CONCLUDES OUR CAMPING TRIP