Ward campout

Friday the 20th we had a ward campout. Scott took the day off and we headed out there about 10am. The campsite was only an hour away on a reservoir. We of course went geocaching. And I of course found it :) Addilyn loves finding and opening caches. We always bring something to trade and she is very willing to take it all. But we of course keep it to one. The name of this cache had dragonfly in it, and there were a bunch of toy dragonflies. There are actually several more pictures that I have, but for whatever reason they didn't upload. And for my times sake they aren't going up.

We headed to our campsite and set up. While the babes and I attempted to nap in the tent (note, attempted) Scott went out to find his first 5/5 geo cache. AKA the hardest ratings- 5 for terrain and 5 for difficulty finding. He has pictures, but you wouldn't know what you were looking at. But he did find it and thought it was really fun.

 For dinner we made dutch oven for ourselves. It was delish. That night we did dutch oven cobbler for the whole ward. Addi had so much fun playing with her friends. I ended up putting my headlamp around her waist so that 1) she could see and 2) I could see her. It worked wonderfully. Addilyn was filthy as you can see in that picture. People would look at her and then look at my sympathetically. Well, her and Scott both took showers that night. Unfortunately we didn't plan that we would take one and we didn't bring any towels. But we did have a bunch of hand towels in our camping bin... Also that night we had some campfire singing. I was amazed at how awesome Addi was since she didn't nap. We didn't get to bed until about 11. Scott and the scouts participated in a flag retirement ceremony. And for those who don't know, you have to wait until the ashes are cool so you can burry them. That took fooooooreeeevvvvverrrrrr. As a side note, Levi did great the entire time. Like most babies, he loved being outside.

 During the night Addi woke up at 4AM saying she needed to poop. Yaa.... to start the night off, Addi was next to Scott and Levi was next to me. We had a hard time sleeping because we didn't bring the air mattress. That was on purpose sadly. We figured it would be really awkward to try and all sleep on it in our tent together. So we sacrificed and slept on the ground. ehh. Well, I slept on cushions and Scott forgot his roll up air mat. But don't worry, it was still really bad for me. So after this whole, "I have to poo" incident, Addi wanted to sleep next to me. So she was in between us. Then in the wee morning hours I had to feed Levi on that side and when I was done feeding them, this is how they were. Sooooooooo adorable. For a moment they both had their arms above their heads, but I was too slow at getting my camera for it. After we left the campout, Scott wanted to go back to the cache he was trying to find (ya, he found it the day before but didn't realize it and had to go back to get it). While we were there there was a pow wow going on. It was pretty neat. I really like the guys doing their chants and banging on their drums. Cool.

When we were planning our food for the trip, I decided that for lunch on Saturday we were going to go to this creamery I'd found. The ice cream was really the best part about it. The food- not so much. Oh, but that ice cream...

Grayson Highlands!

Thursday after work, Scott and I high-tailed it out of Winston-Salem to Grayson Highland State Park in Virginia. We had made reservations originally back when we went and did the Virginia Creeper Trail last fall but canceled on the camping portion. We couldn't get our money back so we reserved it for Friday night. We went up a night early and stayed until Saturday afternoon. It was awesome!

They have a gazillion different trails you can go on. In fact, the first trail we took hooked up with the Appalachian trail. I was rather excited. Being from the west coast, I've only heard about this famous trail and the people who spend months hiking it. Well to our luck....we met one of those courageous hikers! He'd been on the trail since the middle of MARCH!! He was taking it slow. Apparently 1/4 of the trail is in Virginia. Who knew?

On our first trail there were wild, WILD, ponies. We heard that they were fairly friendly, or as friendly as they could be for being wild. Since they hang around in this area they are used to hikers for the most part. The sign said not to pet or handle or anything like it. But we couldn't help ourselves. We dared each other to get as close as we could. You can see how the photos progress we got closer and closer....

I saw how close Scott got, so I got even closer. Close enough that the horse came right up to me. I PETTED a wild pony. I was really high on adrenaline when he started coming at me, you could only imagine. But it was awesome.

Since I pet that pony, Scott figured it'd be safe enough to try it too, especially with Addilyn. He said after I had pet one, "Well, I didn't want to get too close in case they nipped at her." Ya ya ya...but he went and pet that one too.

Of course we had Cabo with us. What a great trail dog. I've mentioned this in our blog before, but he's a spectacular dog.

We got creative with how we fed Addilyn on this trip. It was her first time camping and she did incredibly well. She's a natural. The first night the 3 of us went to bed together (we brought Cabo's kennel) and slept great. The 2nd night Addi was beyond tired and went to bed early. The only real classy thing we do when camping is use an air mattress. I was super skilled and put her to sleep early and even on the air mattress managed to get out and zip the tent back with her still sleeping. The best part was an hour or so later when we went to bed. Scott and I got into our bed with out waking her up! She slept in the middle of us both nights. What a trooper.

In the early afternoon we went on another hike to a waterfall. This park is famous for it's wild rhododendrons. They weren't blooming yet, not until June. But I was just mesmerized imagining all of them in bloom. It was absolutely beautiful.

I had to add this picture of Cabo. He is by far not a water dog. But on our hikes he gets so hot and thirsty he just walks right into whatever source of water he finds.

I was hoping I could photoshop these two picture together, but they were taken at such different angles it wouldn't fly. The waterfalls were so pretty. They were lined with the rhododendron bushes. Could you just picture these waterfalls surrounded by millions of massive blossoms?!

The tree was falling, so I assisted it.

Scott kept pointing at the map and so Addi started to follow suite.

This morning we went and hiked the twin pinnacles. What's funny is the picture above shows 2 mountains. Or at least that's what people out east call them. Mt. Rogers on the right is the highest peak in Virginia. (I am hysterically laughing at the idea of this). It has an elevation of 5,729 feet. Washington's (where I am from) highest is Mt Rainier at 14,410 and Idaho's (where we just moved from) highest is Mt Borah at 12,662. By the way, Scott hiked to the top of Borah.

Don't mind the wind blown look.

Overall we had a wonderful camping trip. I thought it was especially great because I packed everything and did a great job of it. I only forgot to bring myself a sweatshirt. But I brought Scott two. We love our van. And Cabo again, was a fabulous trail dog.