Camping

This past January, I was looking through lots of clearance items and found a tent 75% off. I find it so hard to resist clearance sales, but a tent seemed like a family with two young boys should have. I showed it to Brian and he agreed we should get one. We've been talking about taking the boys camping for a couple of years, and now we had no excuse not to go.

We decided to try out Holliday Lake State Park in Appomattox, VA. In the days leading up to our big trip, I made lists and lists of items that we would need to bring. I didn't realize just how much stuff was required to "rough it." We packed all our stuff and headed to the woods. We got the tent set up and explored the campgrounds. We wet a few lines in the lake and the boys played on the playground. Back at camp, we made a fire and roasted hot dogs for dinner and then made s'mores. The boys LOVED cooking over the fire.

Saturday, we got up and hiked 6.3 miles around the lake. It was a lovely hike (for about a mile). While enjoying our stroll through the woods, our pleasant jaunt was interrupted by my screaming at the top of my lungs. I happened to look at just the right moment to see the largest snake I have ever seen. I didn't care what kind of snake it is, it was alive, so it was BAD! It wasn't until a little while later that the truth was revealed. That snake just happened to be a copperhead! From that point on, I kept a close eye on the trail and it's inhabitants. We saw some lizards, a turtle, one more snake, and lots of ticks. Actually, the ticks were mainly on us, not the trail.

Sunday, the boys wanted to try out the paddle boats. It was a very breezy morning, so it was a bit of effort paddling around the lake, but it, too, was lots of fun.

*for some reason, I am not able to upload pictures to this post. I will post some pictures as soon as I can.