We left right after school to head north to Bryson City, NC to go camping with the Koehlers. Our van was SOO packed that we were stuffing towels in empty holes. Jennifer even had to hold stuff back when Dale braked. Unfortunately, we were rear-ended on the way up. Fortunately, no one was hurt but the van. We were so scared that the rear gate wasn't going to be able to open up to get ALL that stuff out, but thankfully it did. And the kids were watching a movie and never even knew that we were hit. They had no idea!! Their first accident ever and they missed it...thank God!!
We got up there and set up camp. For the first time ever, the kids were not in the tent with us,which felt a little weird. I admit I like them with us better. But we had a tent, with a new double air mattress which was really nice. The Koehlers had their own tent. The boys had a tent and the girls had a tent. It worked out really nice for everyone. We had a dressing room in the big tents. And then we even had a tent for the food. How nice is that!
We stayed at a place called Smokey Mountain Meadows. Our campsites were right on the creek, so the kids spent a lot of time playing in the creek. They even made a dam at one point with all the rocks.
We spent Friday night through Monday up there and had a great time. On Saturday, both families did an outing. We drove around and found some things and saw some great sites. We went to Cherokee, NC and I had not been there since I was a little girl. It was neat to be able to see some of the same toys that I got in the stores there.
On Sunday, we all went white water rafting. This was the first time the kids had ever been. I will have to post the video with the pictures as it was hilarious. Dale and Chris decided we didn't really need a guide, but when we got stuck twice in the first ten minutes, I am sure they were rethinking that thought. They had to get off to push us off the rock and we just spun around on the rock. And the water was freezing!! I think it really was about 42 degrees. Jennifer didn't enjoy the stress of it all and Courtney didn't enjoy the Dads "yelling" commands at us the whole time. But overall, we had a great trip down the Nantahala river. We even stopped and had some pizza to warm us up riverside.
After we left Monday, we went and had hamburgers in a neat little place and then went to pan for gems. The kids had been wanting to do that all weekend. We also walked down and watched the end of the whitewater rafting where people fall out of the big drop. That was fun to watch.
The kids played soccer, baseball, and badmitton in a big open field. The boys enjoyed playing with Brandon's BB guns. They didn't have any BBs, but Justin thought it was so cool to pretend. There was a butterfly that stayed with us for over 24 hours. She would move but she never left our site. We even fed her strawberries which she enjoyed.
We had plenty of good food( I even made a peach cobbler over the fire!)and great company this weekend. As always, we thank God for our friends that he gave us.
Here is a video of us over the long weekend. If you can spare 3 1/2 minutes to watch, at the very end is the pictures from our rafting trip which are hilarious to watch the expressions of each person. I hope you laugh as hard as we did!!
1 comment:
Loved the rafting pictures...hilarious! Looks like you all had a great time! ;)
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