An Overnight Hike

While I was away helping my aunt pack up her kitchen for a remodel, M took the girls to Kentucky Falls for their first backpack camping trip. They hiked in about three miles and found a place to set up their tent.They each had their own backpack. The girls packs were pretty light, M carried the bulk of the items needed.

 Here is Upper Kentucky Falls.

Hiking along the trail.

Lower Kentucky Falls.

North Fork Smith River Falls.

I love this picture M took of North Fork Falls and Smith River.

K lazing in a tree reading her kindle. She looks just like M.

Their tent snugged in between the two falls. It is a two man tent but

they were all able to fit in it.They slept head to toe.

Roasting marshmallows. 

They also ate Mountain House meals and loved them.

North Fork and Lower Kentucky Falls.

The girls had a great time and only got a little tired when hiking in and out. At one point M had to carry L's backpack for her because it got too heavy. They were well behaved and M had a good time with them. I think this may be the beginning of many backpacking trips for our family.

Clay Creek and Sweet Creek Falls

On Sunday we took the girls to Clay Creek to play in the water. It was really busy and the water wasn't very clean looking so we didn't stay for long. While we were there the girls built a castle with a moat around it.


After cleaning up from the creek and having a picnic lunch, we headed to Sweet Creek Falls. It was a beautiful hike in the woods along the creek. There were so many falls on this trail, each unique in it's own way. We spent a large part of our afternoon there and didn't end up leaving until 6:30. There were a few more falls up the road from this one but we decided to save them for another time. M is amazing at photographing the falls we see. I had a hard time narrowing down the pictures, so just sit back and enjoy the serenity of these photos.

Weekend Camping Trip

We took the kids to Loon Lake for camping this weekend along with four other families, a total of ten adults and fifteen kids 9 and under. We had a fabulous time playing, swimming, hiking, and hanging out together.
We showed up about noon on Friday and went to our group campsite which was HUGE! We fed the kids lunch and then went to work setting up the tents. All the husbands but mine had to work and showed up around dinner time along with the last family. M set up our tent and bed while the rest of us worked on the other tents. When it was all said and done, there were 7 tents and one mosquito tent set up. One of the tents was a mammoth of a tent and took us a while to figure out, but we got 'er done.

Here are most of the tents set up. This shows about 1/3 of our site.

In the late afternoon we headed down to the "beach" to play in the water. It wasn't very big or very nice looking but the kids had some fun splashing in the water. None of us brought a camera so no pictures of the yucky beach.
After playing for an hour or so, we headed back to camp for dinner. M was in charge of getting the fires started. We had one fire pit and one grill going for cooking hot dogs and foil dinners. The kids had a blast cooking dogs over the fire.

My fireman:)

Don't they look cute?

Enjoying the tasty dinner they made.

After dinner we made s'mores which are a camping must. Kristan said she makes her s'mores with reeses peanut butter cups, so I tried it and it was very tasty! I definitely will have to remember that one for girls camp next week.
After eating dessert the kids ran around playing while the parents ate their dinners. Then we got the kids ready for bed and put them down. We got the girls new sleeping bags for this trip and they really liked them. I was surprised that the girls went down as easily as they did. It went a lot better than it usually does at home and they slept like logs. I on the other hand, couldn't get much sleep the first night and I was freezing all night.
On Saturday we made a communal breakfast and then went for a hike to Loon Lake Falls. It was an easy hike but we were so glad we did it. The falls are near a beautiful, spacious swimming beach and it was only $5 per car to get in to the park to do both.
The kids enjoyed going to see the falls. It made our family miss all those weekends last year when we hiked to falls. I think we will be doing that again in the weeks to come.

Below the falls.

On the rocks right by the falls.

After the hike we headed back to our campsite for lunch and then changed into our swimsuits. We drove back to the park and headed to an area on the sand and claimed it as our own. We stayed at the beach for about four hours playing and swimming. M and I have two blow up rafts we have had since we were first married. This was the second time out of their box and they were fun to play with. All the parents took turns taking their kids out in the water. I think we will be taking our kids on a floating trip soon. They really enjoyed sitting with us on the boat.

Burying J in the sand.

Hanging out in the shade.
All the adults got burned but none of the kids did.
Guess we did a better job lathering the sunscreen on them.

K doing a great job swimming around in the deep lake.

L playing with a water gun.

We all agreed we had a wonderful time and it wouldn't have been nearly as fun if we had done it by ourselves. There is just something about having friends around that makes camping more fun and easier to do. The girls are already asking when we can do this again. Definitely a weekend worth repeating.

Kentucky Falls

Today was another beautiful day so the family headed outside for a hike. We decided to check out Kentucky Falls this time. The neat thing about these falls is that two different water sources produce the side by side falls. This hike is 4 miles round trip and is the longest one we have taken this summer. The girls did a great job; L had to be carried about half of it, but she was a trooper. K gave me a run for my money but we both finished the trip, though we were completely exhausted by the end and M hardly broke a sweat.

A view of the valley, isn't it gorgeous?

A green pond we found on our way.
M wants to come back to camp here sometime.

A bug we found on our car.
Not sure what it is, but it was pretty big.

Upper Kentucky Falls.

Closer to the falls.

Daddy and the girls.

Lower Kentucky Falls.

North Fork Smith River Falls.

Here is a picture of both falls. Each fall is created by
a different water source. The left is N. Fork Smith River Falls
and the right is Lower Kentucky Falls.

The family in front of Lower Kentucky Falls.

A peak M thought was cool looking.

K loved this view of the valley.