Camping Adventure!

Over Columbus Day weekend, we decided to take the kids camping for the first time. Rush grew up camping a ton, and I've gone a few times (although it's been a LONG time) but we've never gone together as a family. We knew they were calling for it to be pretty chilly with a chance of rain, but we decided to take our chances and head to the mountains.

First of all, I had no idea how much STUFF you had to pack to take kids camping for 3 nights. Holy cow....I felt like we took everything but the kitchen sink. Amazingly, we (and all our stuff) fit in the vehicle.

We arrived to the campsite, finally got set up before it was too dark, and had a great dinner of hot dogs on the campfire. The first night was pretty warm, so there were bugs everywhere. Jonah would prefer to run into oncoming traffic as opposed to be around large bugs, so that made for an interesting eating experience. Later that night, Reagan decided she didn't like sleeping in a tent for the first time, so she decided to scream and flail about in the tent all....night....long.

After a LONG first night, we got up, had a great breakfast, and headed to Natural Chimneys. It wasn't as impressive as I expected, but still pretty cool. The drive itself was gorgeous....winding roads through some old small towns and farmland. The leaves definitely weren't at their peak yet, but just the hint of color was still beautiful.

We came back and listened to Virginia Tech smack Boston College on the computer (the campsite had free Wifi...how cool is that?!?!). That evening and most of the next day, we just hung out at the campsite, and had a great time.

We definitely had other ups and downs including our lantern falling out of the car and smashing at the beginning of the trip, our shelter's stake getting stuck in the ground, the car battery dying, our stove-top popcorn having a hole in the bottom and catching on fire thanks to the oil on the propane stove....ahhh, memories. :)

We also went apple picking on our way home....

Regardless, we had a great time overall and will definitely go again. Now if I can only finish unpacking....