We camp in style!

Our vacation this year was to a really nice cottage in the Mountains of WV (Isn't all of WV mountains? I don't know. That's all I saw anyway! Whatever.) It was called Faith Mountain and it's a retreat place for Pastors and Missionaries (with discounted rates - awesome!!)

It was so beautiful and peaceful (oh wait...it wasn't necessarily peaceful since we had a 3 and 1 yr old boys with us, but I can see where for anyone else it would be extremely peaceful!) 

I loathe putting pictures in posts. I'm either incapable of doing it the right way or it's a terrible system and I prefer to think the latter is true! So this is just a smattering of things that we did and saw. You won't be seeing pictures of the wildlife that visited our cottage (wild turkeys, deer, rabbits and the random bald man - oh never mind. That was just my dad!) because I'm too frustrated with putting pictures and they didn't make the cut.

This is the Cedar House where we stayed. It was totally the best way to camp. By day we had a campfire outside and a pond to fish in, trails to walk on and a beautiful view and by night we had an amazingly beautiful house to stay in complete with a full kitchen (even a dishwasher if that gives you an idea to how nice it was!) 4 large bedrooms, 2 bathrooms (one with a whirlpool tub!), wood floors - beautiful!! There is seriously no other way to camp in my mind anyway!

This is the earliest stinkin' campfire I've ever seen. This was probably about 6:30pm, but it was fun and delicious (s'mores!!) and the boys were bathed and in bed by 8pm. Doesn't get better than that, sports fans!

Caleb and Pop-pop at the campfire. You'll notice Pop-pop passed him off to me after this picture and when you see the next one you'll know why. Chicken!
Caleb enjoying his first S'more! He was such a sticky, chocolatey mess! And super cute!!

My parents came down the day after us. Dad stayed for 3 nights and Mom stayed the rest of the week with us. It was so fun to have Grammy and Pop-pop with us! We went exploring around the area and discovered there's really nothing to do! 45 minutes away we found Sutton Dam which was super cool. I don't remember ever being to a dam before, but some people are telling me I was at one in high school. I was in my own little silly world doing silly teen things then.  'Nuff said. Anyway, it was impressive and a really fun trip.

This is one of the views from the top of the dam. So pretty! Sammy spotted the playground down there on the left and asked to play for a bit so we drove down there. It's a beautiful park with pavilions for picnics, fishing, etc.

There was a spot for swimming so another day Grammy, Daddy, the boys and I went back. This time we swam with the boys (when I saw "we" I mean "I" because Grammy and Daddy were chicken!) Then we played at the playground and ate a picnic lunch before heading back to the house for naps. It was a great day!

The boys watching a movie. There was no tv, no internet, no phone, not even cell service at the cottage so we came up with things to do!

And here's one of the things Sammy came up with! =)

Daddy and Sammy fishing together. It was the first time for all of us and even though we didn't catch anything it was really fun (and nice to leave Caleb at the house with Grammy since we literally climbed down the mountain and back up again to get to the pond). I don't recommend it with a 1 yr old in your arms! In fact, I just plain old don't recommend it at all!

This was a very cool old, run-down barn we drove by many times. On our way home we finally stopped and took this picture. I think it would make the best postcard or a really cool puzzle. Or maybe I'll just do the boring thing and blow it up to hang on the wall. I don't know what it is, but I just love this old barn!

Caleb being silly and sweet on the ride home. We made it all the way with no traffic at all until we got to the smallest stickin' state (sorry, I can't bring myself to even utter the word - it starts with a "D") and mercy did we ever hit traffic there! We were stuck on 95 for what seemed like an eternity!  

All in all we had a great time and though I don't think we'll ever go back while the kids are young (I'm the kind that enjoys a quiet relaxing vacation every now and then, but really loves a place with stuff to do and see!) I could totally see us going back sometime when it's just the two of us.

Check out our Disney Slide Show!

We're back

We're home from Disney and finally getting settled. The boys are just about back to their normal schedules and the laundry is finally under control!!! =)
We had such a great time! Sammy LOVED seeing all of the characters! By the second one he knew the deal. He'd ask for his autograph book and pen to take to them. He'd hand them the book and pen, give them hugs and then turn and pose for a picture. It was really cute! He was pretty serious for several days when we'd take his picture so we finally told him he needed to smile really big and after that all of the pictures have him with a cheesey grin!
Caleb did great too. I was feeling bad that Sammy was in all of the pictures and Caleb was just in the stroller most of the time so I would snap a few of him in his stroller every now and then. Poor kid! He really just got little stroller cat naps all day so he seems to be doing really well at home again with long naps!
We left of Saturday morning at 4am and got to Savannah, GA at 5pm. We spent the night there and did a little sight seeing Sunday morning. I really wanted to eat lunch at Paula Dean's restaurant, but we got there at 10am and would have had to wait until 3pm to get in! The line was unbelievable!!! We drove about 4 more hours Sunday and got to Orlando by dinner time.
We spent 2 days at Magic Kingdom and Epcot and one day each at Animal Kingdom and MGM. It was so much fun! We were so impressed with the whole experience! Which was obvious by the number of pictures we took...617!!! Absurd! But we're glad we did!

DISNEY!!!!!

We are so excited to be going to Disney!! We leave at 4am tomorrow! I'm very nervous about the sleeping in the car thing, but we'll live! We will be driving to Savannah and plan to arrive there around dinner time. We'll spend the night and then go to Paula Dean's restaurant for lunch on Sunday!!!!! Yay!! I am so excited about that! Then we'll drive to Orlando and plan to get there around dinner time Sunday. All of this, of course, depends on the boys and how many stops we have to make. We're hoping to plan our stops around Caleb's schedule as much as possible so I can feed him, Sammy can run around a bit, we can gas up and use the bathroom. Pray that this works so we can make it as quick a trip as possible for all of our sanity! We're so extremely excited to go! We always said we'd go before we had kids, but obviously that didn't happen. This will be the first for all 4 of us! Sammy doesn't quite understand how soon we're going. We keep telling him it's getting close, but I don't think he can grasp time yet! Just about every time we get into the car to go somewhere these last few weeks he asks if we're going to see Mickey Mouse! So cute! I'm hoping he doesn't figure it out when we wake him at 4am tomorrow so that he'll fall back to sleep in the car right away, but he's a smart kid!
Anyway, all of this to say that we're super excited and hope you all pray for safety and that we'll miss everyone and expect a few babies to be born while we're gone!! =)
Did I mention we're going to Paula Dean's restuarant?!!! ;)

By the way, this is the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse from the Disney channel show that Sammy loves to watch. He has this toy at home and thinks that this is where we'll be sleeping when we're there!!