Camping in the Smokies of North Carolina

Now, don't get me wrong.  I loved my children as babies and toddlers.  They were always so cute and very fun to be around, but I love it even more now that they are a little older.  We are able to do so many fun things like camping.  We decided for fall break that we would take the kids camping to the Smokies in North Carolina (for you Hunger Games fans, we were very close to where they were filming the movie)  We were so lucky to go when the leaves were changing colors.  The weather was amazing, the colors beautiful, and the time was fantastic.  

After we got the tent set up and settled in a bit we were ready to start the camp fire so we could cook the food.  Now I have decided that this is the best part of camping.  For some reason it tastes so much better cooked over a fire.  

Funny thing about these smores.  Megan likes them without the marshmellows.  Emilee likes them without the graham crackers, Hunter likes them with the marshmellows, chocolate, and the graham crackers.  My kids are for sure their own person.

                       

Hot dogs and Smores.  That is what was on the menu.  Of course, what would be better on a camp out, right??  Now, remember when I said the weather was great.  Well, that is true, except when the sun went down.  It got real cold.  Megan not only wore her flannel pajamas, but her sweats over that and I think she might have had a fleece jacket on as well.  We weren't freezing, but it did get down to about 38 degrees at night.  Brrr, Chill, Cold, Freezing!

Before we went to bed, we even told a few ghost stories.  Megan told this one that made me laugh.  There were these boys and they went into this spooky old house and what did they see, but a floating coffin chasing them.  One of the boys decided to throw some cough drops at the coffin and sure enough, the coffin went away.  The other boy asked, "how did you know that would work?" and the boy said, "because cough drops always stop the coffin"  HA!  I love it!  

It was time for bed after that and boy was I tired, but we did get real cold in the night, but we all survived.  I did find out that my kids talk a lot in their sleep and the second night I woke up with the feeling that someone was looking at me.  When I looked up, it was Hunter standing above me.  I asked him if he had to go to the bathroom and all he did was get back in his sleeping bag and fell back to sleep.  OK, that might be just a little bit freaky and could be the plot to a scary movie.  He didn't remember a thing the next morning.  Crazy kids I tell ya, but I suppose I will keep them.

                 
                 

The next day we walked around town, shopped in some of the cute touristy shops.  The kids got to ride a Mechanical Bull, which was totally fun for them.  They rode Go Carts, Bumper Cars, played Laser Tag, and when we got back to the camp site they went swimming and after we cooked and ate our dinner they watched a movie they were playing in the middle of the camp grounds.  When we got back to our site the kids put on a puppet show for us with the puppets that they bought that afternoon.

Megan really wanted to get this picture.  I don't blame her.  When I was a kid, I always thought it looked like so much fun, so we decided to let Megan and Emilee dress up for this photo.  Hunter didn't want to.  They actually took some pretty good ones and some that I thought were totally funny.  

But in the end, we chose this one.  

After a good night's sleep, we woke up to a beautiful morning.  We decided to go on a small hike up to the falls before coming home.

                     


                      
                     

It was a good trip.  It is so much fun to do these fun fun activities with the kids.  I hope that they will always remember them.  We don't have plans for another camping trip for awhile.  We were thinking maybe for Spring Break.  There is a camp site in Kentucky that Jeremy wants to try out.