Family Camping Trip

Those who know me well know that I'm not a camper.  Never have been and never pretend to be.  However, Robby LOVES camping and has been talking about wanting to take Handley camping since before she was born.  The weekend finally arrived and somehow it turned into a whole family camping trip.

The original plan was to go to the mountains for our camping adventure.  My only requirement was that we go somewhere with a bathroom.  Apparently this was a popular weekend for camping because there were not sites available at any of the state parks when we checked on Thursday night.  That lead us to check into camping at Stone Mountain, which turned out to be a great compromise.

When we arrived on Saturday we learned that the campground was hosting a fall festival complete with crafts, a magic show, a hayride and pumpkin decorating!  I was thrilled that we would have some fun activities to do during the day.  After picking out our spot, we got our campsite organized and as soon as the tent went up the girls didn't want to come out of it.

After feeling organized we set out to explore and took part on some of the fall festival activities before heading off to find the Stone Mountain playground.  It was AMAZING.  I'd go back just to spend the day there.  After playing and a snack we went back to the campground we were able to hop on the final hayride for the day.  They took us to a little "pumpkin patch" where the kids got to choose their own pumpkin to decorate.

Handley concentrated very hard to make her bead bracelet.

She hasn't taken it off since she made it.  She is so proud of it!

Harper needed one too.

Showing off their pumpkins from the hayride.

It started getting close to dinner time so Robby took the girls in search for some things to start our fire.  They thought that was so much fun and were proud of their finds.  

Searching for fire starters.

Harper was SO proud of the stick she found.

Smores

 When it was time to get settled in the tent for bed the girls got to watch Dora on Robby's iPad before trying to get to sleep.  "Trying" being the key word in that sentence.  Turns out our nice camp spot was right beside a boyscout troupe who were not interested in going to bed.  Between them, the guy snoring so loud that it sounded fake and the dog that kept barking, it's a wonder any of got any rest.  Harper tossed and turned most of the night, but eventually settled into a deep sleep sometime early this morning.

Handley was the early riser so Robby got up with her and started on our breakfast of hot chocolate and oatmeal.  She kept unzipping the tent to give me a play-by-play of what he was doing.  She was most excited to let me know that he let her put a marshmallow in her drink.  :-)  By the time Harper and I finally made our way out of the tent, Harper was ready for oatmeal. 

Robby asked me today on our way home how I thought it went.  I said it was great until we got ready for bed.  He laughed and said, "Well that is when the real camping began.  Up until that point we were just hanging out at Stone Mountain."  Ha! True, but we did have a great time and it was fun to spend the weekend together as a family enjoying the gorgeous weather.  I told Robby though that it's going to be hard to take Handley camping some place else because she's going to think every place should have all the "extras" we got to enjoy.  Both girls had a lot of fun though and I'm sure there will be more camping for them in the future.