Monday, May 9, 2011

our home away from home

We hadn't been camping since January so recently we took a couple days and headed up north.  We have a favorite site we like to stay at up near the Blue Ridge Reservoir--we must have camped there at least a dozen times!

Sean got a little 3-man tent for Christmas, so we set the boys up in that, separate from the adult tent.  :)  It was kinda fun. . . at first . . . but for whatever reason, the boys went to sleep like that *snap* but Dan and I were awake and freezing for hours.  Just. Could. Not. Sleep.  It was so frustrating.  The night seemed to last forever.  Who knows why. . . Mountain Dew on the drive up?  *shrug*  Who knows.

Other than that, it was perfect.  It was around 80 degrees during the day--I spent the days in my swimming suit.  And severely burned the top of my head.  I always forget to sunscreen that bit.

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Sean and Cameron pretty much set up their tent by themselves.

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IMG_2758 While Little Buddy collected firewood.

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How Ethan's shoes looked 90% of the weekend.  Those suckers do not like to stay tied.

IMG_2776Then some games.

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Some gratuitous self-shots.

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And the kids did a little exploring.

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Dan did a little tree climbing.

IMG_2862Can you see him?

Sean was freaking out.

Then, as the sun was setting, my kiddos were in a picture-taking mood so I just started clicking away.

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There's my troll doll.  :)

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Double chins n' all.

Ethan was off collecting more firewood and as you can tell from my pics, the light was fading, so, none of him this time around.

Later, we told scary and silly stories while eating s'mores and drinking hot cocoa *love!* and then as I mentioned before, the kids went right to sleep, which shocked us.  They were warm and cozy in the 3-man tent, and we were freezing and felt drafty in our large one!  Whodathunk?!

The next morning we had a treasure hunt, complete with map and all, but darnnit I had forgotten to charge my camera battery before we left, (it died just after the photo shoot) so I didn't get any pics of it.

On our way back home, we stopped off at Montezuma's Castle (had been talking about doing that for years, and finally just did it) and were pleased to find it was National State Parks Week, or something, and so admission was free.  We were sweating and warm--I was still wearing Danny's socks from the night before and of course we were all still in our long sleeves and pants, but it was cool to see the Native American habitat dug into the side of the mountain at least once.  I hadn't been there since 8th grade back in yesteryear.  ;)  (really wishing I had my camera charged up for that!!)

Weeks later my scalp is still peeling.

6 comments:

heather said...

you make camping look like so much fun. But i know better, and won't fall for it. ha ha

miss that beautiful dry warmth right about now. we just had our first hit of the humidity today. ouch.

Jenna said...

Sounds like a great weekend, I do want to check out that site sometime! We never sleep while camping which is why we don't go often...

laurie said...

looks like a beautiful spot! last summer the tops of my ears got sunburned while my hair was back in a ponytail! ouch! live and learn... :-)

Danny said...

"double chin"... what double chin? You look smoking hot.

Lorie said...

*sigh* I miss pine trees!!

Liz said...

You are so silly You look great girl.
Looks like a lot of fun glad you got to go!