Family Camping

We just came home from a lovely weekend camping with some other sweet families!

We were at the Briar Bottom Campground near Micaville, NC.  The kids loved exploring the woods and finding all sorts of mushrooms and creatures.

We all went on a waterfall hike.  The little ones stayed at the bottom of the falls, while the older kids hiked to the top.

Reed even got in some push-ups and a refreshing shower!

A neighboring campground offered ranger programs, so a few of the parents and all the kids walked down to learn about "skulls and skins".

General resting and silliness was had, late night rummy and spades were played, campfire songs and good food were shared!

I was sad to leave and I'm already looking forward to next year's campout!

Fire Station!

I started a Young Homeschoolers Play Group a couple months ago and it's going really well!  I find around age 4 and 5 that it's hard for homeschoolers, as most of the friends they have made go off to school.  So, I started this group to build community for Blossom's age group.

We do a couple park days and a couple field trips each month.  One for this month was the fire station!

Kids got to climb in and explore the various trucks.  Then, they saw a firefighter put on all his gear so they won't be scared of him if he's in their house to rescue them!  This was everyone's favorite part.

This fire station was downtown.  Afterwards, we walked across the street to the big park and splash pad.  Blossom hasn't been here in such a long time, it was seemingly all new to her, and I was surprised that she jumped right in!

Great way to cool off on a hot July day!!  Hope you all are having lots of fun Summer adventures as well!

Banner Elk Holiday

Blossom and I went to Banner Elk for the 4th of July holiday.  We stayed at Grandma's condo with her, 2 uncles, 1 aunt and a couple sweet cousins.  The parade was very cute!

There's something you don't see every day - a sheepdog pulling a pig!

Most of the floats and walkers were tossing candy out to the kids.  They were quite pleased with their loot.

When the parade was done, everyone walked down the main street to the park where there were games and an art fair.  The cousins did none of that and stayed completely entertained with playing with each other :) (great photo from my sis-in-law Julia!)

We love cousin time!  Blossom also got to see the swelling belly of her aunt and daydream about holding her new baby cousin, though we have to wait until November for it to make an appearance!