"Camping"

Jared is on fall break today and tomorrow. Of course, he won't use either day for vacationing, especially since the whole policy program will be at a conference in DC Tuesday-Thursday. But having a day without classes in which he can do nothing but study freed up our week-end so we could finally go camping! I was too nervous to try camping in our small 3 man tent with Luke. I wanted to be able to close him in (fit in a pack n' play), so we found a cabin at a KOA near Lexington. Hence the "camping" as there are some people (like my brothers) who would swear that camping isn't camping unless you have to bury your own excrement and escape showers for a few days.

Despite the fact that I despise companies who can't spell, the KOA was really nice.

This is what our cabin looked like. I forgot to take a picture of our actual cabin.

Hey! Who are these people on our porch?!

Oh, right. Another internet picture.

Friday morning we got up bright and early, finished packing, and headed out. We got to our cabin about 12:30 pm, had lunch and then headed out for adventure. We were originally planning to spend all day hiking around Shenandoah Natural Park, but it wasn't as close to our campground as we originally thought and on our way to, we saw a sign that said (something) Lake National Park. Oooo. A lake. That sounded fun too, so that's where we went.

We took a hike through beautiful woods.

Luke actually loved the backpack (which I found at a consignment shop for $25!), but he rarely cooperates for pictures.

And we went to the lake. Even though it's October, it was around 80 degrees outside. The water was really chilly, but it felt good in the sun. For those of you who aren't grandparents, you'll have to excuse the crazy number of Luke lake pictures. There were too many cute ones!

From here we headed over to the Natural Bridge (see next post) and then home for dinner. Our campfire was somewhat not what a campfire usually is because Luke wouldn't leave it alone. So no family bonding around the fire. Luke and I played in the cabin while Jared made our tinfoil dinners and hotdogs and then we ate inside. Luke went to bed early and Jared and I read on the porch. It was so, so fun to have a whole day to do nothing but play.