Family Days #2: We are either brave or dumb.

Why are we either brave or dumb, you ask? Well, because we took our three kids age five and under tent camping for four days.

They all survived and actually had a great time!

Owen enjoyed eating flashlights...

The girls pretty much lived in their swimsuits the whole time...

We camped at Unicoi State Park in Helen. They had a great area at the lake where they had created a "beach" with sand and roped off a shallow part of the lake for the kids to play in...

The girls would have stayed there all day, every day, if they could.

Owen did great. He slept in his pack and play in the tent, and aside from a rough first night with some noisy neighbors keeping him up, he actually ended up sleeping pretty well.

He ate a lot of grapes in his fresh food feeder and he probably ate some small rocks too.

Claire and AK loved helping find sticks for the fire.

We got to hike up to Anna Ruby Falls and see some beautiful scenery that made us very wistful for our days living in the mountains.

It was a pretty long uphill, so we had to take plenty of water breaks.

Daddy cooked us breakfast every morning! We had eggs, sausage, and oat bran.

Our campsite was a great location - it was very close to the restrooms (extremely important), a playground, and a creek.

Owen enjoyed getting his feet wet in the creek!

We also tubed down the river in Helen one day. Spencer had his tube attached to Claire's and AK's tubes, and then Owen and I shared a tube. It was called the "Lazy River," but it turned out to be not incredibly lazy, as Spencer's tube did flip as he went over a rapid. He fell out and his shoulder dislocated in the water, and by the time he got his shoulder back in place and was able to stand up, the girls were already too far away for him to catch them. So he called for Claire to get out and pull the floats over to the side of the river to wait for him, which she did as calmly as the 40 year old that she actually is. When Spencer finally caught up to them, Claire looked at him and said, "Daddy, you're not as good at tubing as you think you are."

Sleepy heads...

AK: "Look at this stick I found, Mom! Here, you can hold it!"

(gee, thanks)

The best daddy...

Super silly girls...

And this is how I looked pretty much all week - with a seven month old strapped to me!

The girls' favorite part of the experience? Roasting marshmallows and eating s'mores, of course!