Camping at Dash Point

On Friday afternoon, Kevin and I packed up the car and picked up our nephew Nate for a weekend camping trip at Dash Point State Park. It's near Federal Way, and has a great sandy beach about a half mile hike from the campground. The beach is really shallow, so you can wade out a long way and not be very deep, and the water is a little bit warmer than elsewhere on the Sound since it is so shallow. We got in Friday evening, set up camp and had some hot dogs and s'mores for dinner.

Home, sweet home! Nate and I mug for the camera after setting camp.

Crazy boys and their hotdogs! They were quite delicious after a long ride in the hot car.

Nate was a big help around camp, lugging the water jug from up the road! Whew, that's heavy!

We worked very hard for our fire that night. The campground sold us some very green wood. Lots of kneeling and blowing on the coals. Kevin and I had very dirty legs!

Yeah, I like hotdogs too!

Mmmmm, s'mores! We did those up right!

After a good night's sleep in the spacious tent, we got up and had a delicious breakfast of pancakes that Kevin made, and then headed down to the beach for a day of sun and surf! We had a blast, building sandcastles, splashing in the water, burying children in the sand, reading under the sun, and enjoying having some time away from the city! Nate quickly made friends with several other kids on the beach, so we got to have fun with a bunch of kids!

The trail was quite nice in most places. Very cool bridges and stairs, and Nate enjoyed running around in the woods.


The tide was way out when we first got there. We mucked around, found a TON of sand dollars, and enjoyed the prospect of sandcastle building and destruction.

We got lots of help when the tide started coming in. Nate made some friends with some other kids on the beach, who were very excited to help out! They were trying to protect it as long as possible. Kevin was in his element.
Alas, the tide won out, but good effort boys!

Mister ShadeAnd Miss Sunshine!

Nate then found these two boys to run around with, and after they wore themselves out climbing the hills behind the beach we helped them cool down under the sand.
Yep, we love some child burials! Here's our two-headed monster!

Wiped out and hungry, we headed back up to camp to shower and get some dinner in us. Kevin (does anyone notice a pattern with the chef here?) made us delicious spaghetti with italian sausage! Yum!

Looks like we've got something on our faces.

Nate captures a lovey moment between me and Kevin.

Time to do the dishes! Did I do anything useful on this trip? :)

Nate takes pride in our much improved fire the second night! Whew, it was nice and warm!

This morning we had oatmeal, and after Nate ran around the camp with some of the other kids, we took a nice little hike through the woods. Nate really wanted to go up Heart Attack Hill, but Kevin and I nixed that idea in favor of a much less strenuous looking trail!

Getting up some energy! Chips and cookies, sorta like trail mix right?


I finally made myself useful and made a sandwich for Nate before we hit the road for home! What a great trip! We stopped in to see Jackson, though I left my camera in the car. He is getting huge and grinning like crazy for us, and is just as handsome as can be. He's looking lots like his mom these days, especially when he smiles. What a cutie!