Byer's Lake in Denali State Park

 Ila babysat for us while Jon and I put up the tent.  She's such a good big sister!

 The chair babysat sometimes too.  Aisley couldn't crawl yet, and couldn't even roll over fast enough to get hurt.  We always stayed close by when she was in the chair alone though.

 Our home away from home.  Ila slept in the smaller tent and Jon, Aisley and I slept in the bigger one.  The cool thing is that the two tents are connected by a "hall" type of a thing.  It was nice to be all together but still have separate spaces.

 Star brought one of her friends camping with us.  They had a wonderful time.

 Gone fishing!  We tried to catch a trout but no one had any luck.

 I loved this view!

 And this one...

 Ila caught a stick!  It was the first thing any of us caught.  Pretty exciting.

Ila took Aisley out for a ride in the blow up boat.  Ha ha...yeah right.  Jon was right next to them to make sure they didn't capsize.  I thought it was hilarious how Aisley's face got squished by the life jacket.

 We did catch some minnows in Ila's net.  Good thing for barbie nets, they seem to have the best luck with minnows.

Ila caught a minnow on her hook!  She was so excited to catch her first fish. 

 We rented a canoe and took a stroll around the lake.  It was nice and peaceful until we got out in the middle of the lake.  It's pretty deep water and canoe's are not all that stable.  I was too nervous to enjoy myself so we rowed back towards the shore.  It was much calmer water when we weren't out in the middle.  We ate lunch in our canoe, what a fun picnic!

You can also hike all the way around the lake.  We went about 1/3 of the way around the lake and then turned back towards our camp.  The weather was starting to look like rain.  We didn't want to get caught out hiking in the rain with two kids tagging along, it would have been miserable.

 Aisley really did have a nice time.  She was mad I stopped to take a picture of her overalls instead of feed her.  I have never seen footy overalls before.  I found them at a thrift store and thought they were the perfect camping overalls and they were the perfect size for Aisley.  It was nice to keep her feet and legs protected from the mosquitoes.  I didn't have to worry as much about her getting eaten alive by the little buggers. 

If we have time next year we'll definitely be going back to Byers lake.  On clear days you can see Denali, which is HUGE, and just so beautiful.  We saw a black bear about a mile from our campsite on our way into the park.  Camping in bear country was a bit of a pain to put all of our food back in the car after each meal.  We didn't have any unwanted guests though, so it was all worth it.