Nephew time at Kelly Park!

Our second Orange County Park of the season was Kelly Park...I think this one might really be my favorite.  It has the absolutely beautiful Rock Springs, and the campsites are all huge and private.  A huge highlight of this visit is that we hosted my oldest (10-year-old) nephew by himself for the first time (that is, without either parent and without his siblings).  We've babysat all 4 kids a couple times, but this is the first time we've had just one for a dedicated fun weekend focused on him.

Our campsite at Kelly Park - the 'fun' area is tucked away
way back there behind the trees - nice and private!

Before I get into the nephew weekend...a couple of maintenance updates.  We had thought replacing the fuel filter a few sites back was going to fix the weird engine lag issue we experienced, and it went away for a few drives, but came back on our way here, so the fuel filter didn't fix it after all...it's also possible we got some bad diesel fuel, so we're going to wait for another fill up before pursuing any more expensive fixes.  Then our first night at Kelly Park our refrigerator went out in the middle of the night (why is it always the middle of the night for the refrigerator??) with an overheating error.  The next day Aaron diagnosed and figured out that the fan that is supposed to cool the outside heating coils was not working...because the thermostat that turns it on had died.  He rewired the fan before our nephew arrived so that we could turn the fan on manually and ordered the new thermostat, which arrived at the end of our stay - he got it installed and now everything is working great!  

Aaron up on the roof diagnosing the issue

With his new wiring apparatus to allow us to switch the fans on

Ok, now on to my nephew's visit!  We met him with his father about halfway between our campsite and their house to pick him up, and by the time we got back to the campsite it was getting a little dark, but he was still eager to have a campfire and cook dinner outside!  We had 'hillbilly burritos' from a campfire cookbook I had, cooked in pie irons my aunt gave us at Thanksgiving.  Our nephew loved it!  He assembled and cooked his own.  

Cooking dinner in the pie irons

Our nephew with the fruits of his labor!

We had a fun-filled Saturday, starting with cinnamon biscuits for breakfast - my nephew doesn't like raisins and always picks them out of the cinnamon raisin biscuits I make, so since it was just him, I left them out as a special treat!  We traipsed over all the trails in the park either walking or biking.  Aaron and I had been on the main trail in previous visits, but this time we went on ALL the trails.  It was fun and a little exhausting - we even temporarily wore out my nephew, which is hard to do!

Cinnamon biscuits for breakfast

Aaron was full of all sorts of good ideas...

Beginning our bike ride from the campsite

A much needed break after a long bike ride!

They invented a dogfight football game while I cooked - one
threw a football and the other kicked a soccer ball at the same
time (so they were both on offense and defense)

My nephew asked to go back to Blue Spring State Park, which happened to be on the way back to his house, so we stopped there on the way taking him home.  We'd had a bit of a cold snap and there were 444 manatees at the park that day!!  Wow!  We saw lots of babies, including one that seemed to be only about 2 feet long hovering next to his mother's back.  Amazing!

444 Manatees!

My nephew is attempting to point at the manatee

Manatees!  Including the baby one!

We went out on the boat with my sister's family to celebrate my niece's birthday later that day.

On the boat with my sister's kids

Our stay at Kelly Park was great, and we really enjoyed having our eldest nephew all alone for the weekend - we'll have to do it again!