Happy Campers

We went on our first overnight family camping trip with Mimi, Paw-Paw, Uncle Matt, and Aunt Ashley to the Bear Den Campground in Linville, NC.  The weather was a little less than ideal…it rained all weekend long with a few short breaks between storms.  I have to say this crowd didn’t let a little rain ruin our fun…we were still a bunch of Happy Campers! :)

 

The kids managed to play for a little while on the playground before it started raining.  Evan loved swinging…I think just as much as his Big Sister does!!

 

Evan loved being outside in his pack-n-play.  He was a great little camper!

This is a rough looking bunch!  

Since it was raining, we decided to go gem mining!  We all went in together and bought a big bucket of gems to sift through.  Ella was so excited every time she found something!  She found a crystal and starting yelling, “I found a diamond!”  Oh how I wish it was a diamond!  We found lots of rubies, emeralds, garnets, amethyst, smoky topaz, citrine, and sapphires.

The gang looking for treasures!

Ella & Aunt Ashley’s finds…looks like lots of good jewelry potentials :)

After we were done mining, we took our gems in to see what we had found and if any of them were good quality…potential jewelry pieces!  The man went through Ella’s bag first and as he was removing the gems he would tells us what they were.  We found a lot of garnets so the man kept saying “Garnet, garnet, garnet” as he pulled out the gem stones.  Ella had a really sad/mad look on her face and she asked Cory, “Daddy, why does that man keep saying DARN IT about my rocks?”  The whole room burst into laughter!!  It was so funny :)  Ella found a beautiful amethyst that we had cut into a pear-shaped stone.  I had a citrine cut and Aunt Ashley had a smoky topaz.  Who knew that going camping could yield jewelry?!

  The weather was a little cooler than we anticipated…so, where do you go in the middle of nowhere to find some warm clothes?!  WALMART!  I was shocked that there was a Walmart so close.  The only thing we could find for Evan was this UNC one-piece fleece.  Kinda funny looking but Evan didn’t seem to mind :)  And we found Ella a jacket that was 2 sizes too big…comfort and warmth before fashion when camping!

We didn’t let a little rainy weather keep us from roasting marshmallows and making smores!

 Yummy!!!

I think food tastes better when you’re camping :)  I think that’s all I did the whole trip!  Uncle Matt made us chocolate chip pancakes…they were delicious!

My prissy little girl caught her first fish!!  When she first saw the fish, she threw her fishing rod…LOL!  So, Paw-Paw took over :)  After she realized it wouldn’t hurt her, she was so excited…but not enough to touch it!

 

Our first family camping trip was a success!  The rain didn’t stop us from being     Happy Campers!!