Tim and Doan invited us to go camping with their church group over the week end. Since we recently bought a second puppy (she'll post about that soon), Cristina wasn't keen on leaving the dogs alone. I couldn't refuse camping, given the limited opportunities with the weather starting to turn. The location of the camp was Kalaloch Beach, about a 3 hours drive west from Seattle.

Groups had been arriving at the camp site since Thursday while our group planned to get there on Friday night. We met at 6pm on Friday at one of the group leader's house in North Seattle organize car pooling. Tim, Doan and two of Tim's nieces would ride in the car with me. There were 4 cars in our group. Of the 4 cars, 2 of the drivers were named Peter and both drove Subaru Legacy GTs. What are the odds of that? :)

We arrived there late at night and the other groups were already on the beach around a camp fire. To get to them, we had to climb through a large pile of drift logs that had washed up on shore. We sat around the camp fire and there was a lot of singing. Since it was a church group, many of the songs were from their church which I didn't recognize. It kind of reminded me of when I was in Thieu Nhi (a Vietnamese Eucharistic Youth group) back in my younger years.

Some time after midnight we all left the beach and head back to the tents. Everyone had designated tents, each of which could fit about 5 people...tightly. Tim and I decided the car was probably going to be a little more comfortable and we didn't want to disturb people with our chatting anyway. I was actually hoping that the tents were going to be on the actual beach near the camp fire but I guess the possibility of drift logs washing in could start your day off pretty badly.

I woke up probably 2 hour before anyone else did so I headed down to the beach for a stroll. I also wanted to start a camp fire on the beach. I remember Tim wanted to try crabbing so I dragged him from the car with his primitive crabbing gear - a string and bait. I wasn't sure whether it was going to work or not since I've never seen this technique. It turns out the water was too cold for Tim to get out far enough to cast the bait. Oh well. Several fishermen turned up in full gear and they were catching fish left, right and center.

Since our plans for a crab breakfast feast were foiled, we headed back to the camp and settled for some coffee and kim chi flavored instant noodles. The rest of the day was spent doing various activities on the beach, you know, the sort of things you do on the beach like swimming, beach volley ball, beach soccer and settlers of catan.

I found out the people I met at Doan and Bessie's birthday were into board games and karaoke, two things Cristina and I enjoy. So the next game night we invited them over along with some of the regulars. Our new friends were as keen to help out in the kitchen and the BBQ as they were with the karaoke.

By using MP3 + CDG I was able to serve up the karaoke from the laptop attached to the plasma instead of having to repeatedly switch DVDs.

Oh, and we did have a celebrity join us for the game night too. Ben Huh (of icanhascheezburger fame) graced us with his presence and was honored with a rick roll at karaoke.

Earlier in the year, a fellow Vietnamese by the name of Tim did a short contracting stint at our company. He had moved up from California to be closer to his fiance, Doan. Tim was a graphic designer so I never worked with him directly but pho we had in common. Tim moved on to work at Real Networks but we kept in touch. Cristina and I met Doan over dinner and movie.

Doan recently had her 24th birthday. Doan combined the celebration with her roommate, Bessie, who also had her birthday about the same time. They organized canoeing on Lake Washington and then dinner in the International District. After dinner, a small group of us decided to visit a karaoke bar in downtown.