McPherson Marathon: Memorial Day Weekend

This year for Memorial Day Weekend we decided to get away as a family. I had heard of a rumored treehouse camping area. All my normal sources didn't have much on the place but there was enough that I could find through google translate to know it existed. When I called Kunigami Forest Park to try and reserve a spot it was well interesting. My few words of Japanese made it very hard to communicate since I do most of my taking by pointing to pictures. After a few minutes of saying treehouse over and over and over I finally said camping and got a HAI (yes) so I went with it. Not knowing if we would be camping in our tent or a treehouse we packed all our gear. We loaded our car down with about 1/4 of our house between food, cots, pool stuff, lifevests, stuffed animals and enough stuff to entertain 3 small kids in case of rain and headed out. We drove and found the park on the first try!!! A big success for us here and when I got to the front desk my normal point to the picture method of speaking Japanese worked! I pointed to the treehouse asking if they had any available and they did - well of course the entire campground was empty except for us. Rainy season is a little unpredictable around here. It was pouring when we left home but the entire weekend was beautiful. We loved the treehouse, it was perfect for our family. It was very bare minimum just a fan, light and bamboo things to sleep on but still we loved it. It was so nice to be in the woods - we hiked around a few miles and found a park, lake and geocache. The girls loved it but had a hard time sleeping since they were so excited about the treehouse. The next day we loaded up and headed to the north to Cape Hedo. It was a nice view but I am glad we did this on a trip when we were already in the north because it wouldn't have been worth driving the 5 hours total just for it. Afterwards we went to find another geocache and ended up finding a rock garden and hiking area that was so fun!! In the afternoon we headed to Okuma - the military resort - and played at the beach. While there we were so glad we found our little gem hidden in the woods because there were so many tents lined up and way to many people for us. To end the night we cooked kabobs and after 2 exciting nights the girls crashed! On our way home from the weekend we stopped at a playground we spotted on the way up and had some more family fun. Once we made it home and everyone got a nap we then loaded them up again for a waterpark adventure. To end the weekend we played in the backyard and had friends over for a bbq.

It was a nice time of family bonding and so refreshing just to hang out!