Friday, June 08, 2007

Family Vacation in the Wilderness

Our family spent last Sunday-Wednesday in the Jefferson National Forest. It was about a 5 1/2 hour drive over to far Western Virginia to the Mountain Lake Region. We woke up Sunday morning ready to shove off in the pouring rain (never a good sign for the start of a camping trip). Nevertheless, we had a wonderful time and managed to stay pretty dry.


All Packed up and Ready to Leave


Our campsite

Fun in the Tent!
We got in to our campsite with very little day light left (due to car problems along the way and other ??? reasons). It was also still raining, so we set up as quick as we could and went straight to bed at 8:30 (which made a VERY long night!)
We decided to bring along the pack n' play for Luke so we could actually try to sleep without chasing him all night.

HIKING
We did LOTS of hiking. Ethan did GREAT walking and we carried Luke in a backpack

Stopping for a little drink.
We found a caterpilliar!



On our way home, we decided to hike up to a waterfall. It turned out to be a 4 hour/ 4 mile hike. It was a pretty difficult hike, but worth all the effort at the top. I must mention that my burley husband carried both boys during the tough sections of the hike to spare his pregnant wife. My HERO!!


A rest in the rocks!


Along one of the trails there were Blue Bird boxes that you could open and look at the babies!

Camping Life
Tying up daddy

Pancakes!

Roasting hot dogs!
Daddy pumping our drinking water
Driving in daddy's lap - Not mommy's favorite of ideas!!!

Packing up to go home!


Nothing a little bleach can't fix, right??