One Of My Favorite Summer Traditions

One of my favorite parts about summer are the traditions. Places you always go. People you always get together with. Food you always eat.  There seem to be certain things you  just have to do in order for it to feel like summer.

I have tons of summer traditions, because I am indeed a girl of the summer.

A somewhat recent one for me as far as my summer traditions go, is what we call "Family Camping".  Ever since the summer after college, I go camping with Dave, Bruin, and four of my close friends(oh and another dog). Three of them are our good friends from college, and the other is one of my best friends from high school, (who just so happens to be dating one of the friends from college. Isn't the way life works out just wonderful?) She actually has her own blog focused on design and coastal living. You can check her out here.
This summer was our fourth trip, and we decided to keep it a little more laid back than usual. No big hiking or climbing trips "scheduled". We brought our bathing suits, fly fishing poles, dogs, and a lot of wood and food to use around the fire.
After a tough week, and knowing there was going to be some stress in the week ahead, this trip was exactly what the doctor ordered.

Also, I was too busy relaxing to take out my "real camera" at all over the weekend. The following photos are brought to you by Mr. iPhone.

I traveled up in a totally packed Subaru with all of the girls and Bruin. I feel like my friend Rach in the passenger seat and my iphone properly captured the ride up for my main man and I.

Just getting some cuddles in.

We showed up to Mt. Blue State Park (one of my favorite and the boys were already there, setting up camp. We unpacked and of course set up all of our camp chairs to settle in around the fire for fire grilled pizza. (Hubby found that idea on pinterest! It was delicious and easy!)

It is important to note, that this was I think the first year in which everyone had a camping chair, we all brought extra tinfoil, each fire was started in probably 2 minutes, and there was enough bug spray for both nights. This might sound insignificant to most, but for me it was representative of the fact that I think our little family of friends are finally kind of adults!

We sat around the fire until the wee hours of the night. Bruin found a spot around the fire for himself, but then we reminded him that he is a dog and made him sit on the ground.

We stayed up late, chatted about life and who would survive the longest stranded on an island.
We went to bed late happy and relaxed.

You'd do the same if you were trapped in the body of a dog.

We woke up late, and did some more lounging around the campfire eating breakfast sandwiches.
We then headed to the park's beach on the lake. The girls lounged on the beach, swam, and gossiped. The boys threw toys for the dogs at the boat dock. We all reconvened for lunch at a private spot on the lake with a picnic table and place for us to swim.

Did I mention the lake is surrounded by mountains? Maine is beautiful.

One our companions decided to take a swim out to a rock in the middle of the lake, and made friends with some other man out that was just chilling on the rock.

And then he got spoken to by the lifeguard who paddled out from the main beach. Because apparently swimming to rocks is an issue.

Delinquents.

We made our way back to the campsite after swimming and tanning all day for some kabobs and napping.

Just delish.

Bruin was so tired that he forgot he was a person and passed out on the ground for a good part of the night.

After dinner we decided to take our lazy-campfire-smelling-buts to go fly fishing. I've only been a few times before, but it's one that the group enjoys. Plus I have a pink fly fishing vest. Sooo...

And guess what? I CAUGHT MY FIRST FISH! EVER!
(Sorry there are no photos, I was too busy fishing like a boss)

Not to mention, it was also on my first cast. What can I say, I'm super fly. (Pun intended.)
Now, it was only a white perch. But I didn't care it was my first fish. I grabbed it, got cut a little by his sharp scales, and let him loose.

Because there wasn't too much going on in the river we headed back to the lake. Waders and all.
We waded out in the dark and noticed as we got our rods ready that there were probably hundreds of mayflies swarming on top of all of us.

I made a couple of casts and then got another white perch. The fish were jumping EVERYWHERE. We were catching fish like crazy. It got so dark that we needed to break out the headlamps, but we kept going. There were so many hungry fish that at one point I put my rod down to untangle a bit of line, and with my fly just floating on top of the water a few feet away I caught another fish. Just out of control.

By the end of the night I had caught 8 white perch. I was super proud of myself. And I was glad to get practice reeling in and releasing so many smaller fish. So when I hit the big time next trip I'll totally be able to catch that bass/whale shark.
And did I mention that I looked great in my pink vest?

We headed back to camp, made s'mores, and reveled in the amount of fish that we had caught that night.

The next morning, we took our time got up and packed up camp.

While Family Camping is one of my newer summer traditions, it is by far one of my favorites. Nothing beats good friends and good times in good weather.

Have an awesome week and stay fab!