Camping at the Lake

Every year my family goes car camping at the same lake.  This year we reserved our own site for tent camping as well.  It was lots of fun.... but after 4 nights EVERYONE, including the mama, was pretty tired! 

Morning coffee and oatmeal at our campsite

Daddy spent some good time working with the boys on swimming.

Water guns were a hit for sure.

This little lady was able to do it herself....so Mama got hit quite a bit!

We did a little fishing.

We tried to ski.

Spent some funny time on the boat...

We did some tubing with friends we met.

And by the last night the boys watched CARS in order to not melt down before bed time.

It was honestly a great trip.  And we came home before the weekend to give ourselves several days to recover!  Unfortunately, Nana and Sam came home with strep throat.  Oh, the joys of kids!

So, on recovery day Mama worked on canning some things from the garden!  The spoils of a good night's work.

10 Years and Counting

Steven and I decided to go backpacking for our 10-year anniversary trip.  His mother was kind enough to keep our kids and we headed up to a section of the Appalachian Trail near Roan Mountain on the border of NC and TN that is supposed to be one of the prettiest sections of the trail.  Unfortunately, the weather was not ideal, so we didn't get the views we could have, and it shortened our 3 night trip  to a 2 night.  But we still had a great time.  And it gave us the ability to come back home and go out together downtown and grab breakfast together in the morning before heading to get our children!  And I must admit that I was thankful to have a pillow again.

It stormed on us both nights, and this is the view we had as we started.

On top of Round Bald.  You SHOULD see a lot here.  We took a picture of this "view" for its irony.

The Rhododendrons were finished blooming, but the flame azaleas were beautiful.

They put goats up to help keep down the underbrush on the bald (as they like to eat the briars).  Here is a link to the story about the goats.

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We found a beautiful shelter to hang our tent dry and have a warm lunch and coffee!

The weather cleared midday and it was a beautiful place to rest with a view of the valley.

The coffee was SO invigorating!

There are shelters all along the AT where you can stay.  This is one of the biggest, and was well worth going to see!  Beautiful place!  It is right off the Over Mountain Trail, which is the trail that the NC/TN mountain men used in route to fight the British at Kings Mountain in the Revolutionary War.

After a horrific storm... the view was a bit worse the next morning. 

Atop Jane Bald (goat pen behind me) - elevation 5,807.

At the end of the second day we dropped our packs at the car and kept hiking to the top of Roan High Knob.  This is the shelter there.

Roan High Knob itself, elevation 6,285.

Overall, the weather was not ideal.  But we had an awesome time.  And it was a great time to be reminded of how very powerful God is and how very fragile we are!  Thanks for keeping the kids, Nana Sally (and Millie)!

Tenting it!

This weekend was our first "real" camping experience as a family.  We decided to start small, car camping close to home.  So we picked a beautiful park about 20 minutes from our house and invited Nana and Poppy.  It was so much fun. 

We went for a "hike" with the family.  It was about 3 miles total

 This was Eliza by the end of the hike.  It did help that she hadn't slept the night before!

 Our campsite was right by a beautiful mountain river.

 This is our dinner cooking!

 Smores!

 Morning hot chocolate

 Bacon and biscuits!

 Holding Daddy's Rainbow Trout!

What a fun weekend we had!  We still aren't caught up on sleep, but it was totally worth it!