Fun for Fall!

Lake Jocassee from an overlook. This picture doesn't do the view justice!

The trees were red, orange, yellow, green, and purple! I didn't get a lot of pictures because I was too busy taking pictures of the kids instead!

We are so glad that we decided to accept the invitation of our friends to go camping this fall. We were one of three families and we had a blast! Devil's Fork State Park is lovely and Lake Jocassee is beautiful. It turned out we were there at peak fall foliage time and the colors were magnificent!

We spent the entire time hiking and hanging out with our friends. We were not in a hurry to do anything and that was great. The boys went fishing every morning with their friend Alex and as soon as she was dressed, Isabel was out the door to find her friends, Abby and Abby. Claire refused to claim that she was enjoying herself but she did! She loved hiking on Daddy's back and she loved using her walker at the campground. She even learned to turn it when she wanted to go in a different direction. Plus, she got loads of attention from the adults and ate that up!

Our group, minus me, at the waterfall destination of our second hike.




I love being this close to waterfalls! Isabel wanted to get wet even though it was FREEZING! She "accidentally" got one foot wet and wanted to know if she could just go ahead and get the other one wet too.....you know, so they would feel the same! Goofy kid!

Climbing-the close up!

The zoom out! Yes, they are trying to give their Dad a heart attack. But this was nothing to what Mr. Dan did. Go back up to the picture of Isabel in front of the waterfall. See that large log wedged cross ways behind her. Yeah, he shimmied up that and back down. Yes, he fell in and got wet trying, but he made it to the top and back down anyway!

We did have a few interesting moments.....like when we discovered that our propane was leaking and we couldn't use our camper stove anymore. I thought I was going to have to cook over an open fire but then the Hickmans came to our rescue and loaned us their camp stove. They brought a HOUSE with them and didn't need the camp stove....because she had a whole kitchen in that thing!!! I'm sure we would have survived but I'm glad we didn't have to find out! Then we forgot to cath the baby before we left for one of our hikes. Fortunately I had packed catheters in the backpack......because who knows what might happen. What if we'd gotten lost for a while, right! We just laid her on my sweatshirt and cathed right there in the woods. I've cathed in worse places!

Our days were filled with hikes and our nights with friends and campfires. We had 'smores till they came out the kids ears and I got creative and got a recipe for a different campfire dessert too. It was really good and went over well- Pineapple Not So Upside Down Cake and the recipe is easy. Take a cake donut, cut it in half and put a few spoon fulls of brown sugar around one half. Then cut some butter and place a few pieces on the sugar and then put a ring of pineapple on top of that. Place the other half of the donut on the pineapple and wrap the whole thing in tin foil. I made 9 or 10 and then placed them on the fire grate for 10 minutes. They were YUMMY!

One of the funniest parts of the day was the campfire desserts, complete with entertainment! Mr. Sisco brought a notebook full of skits. He even got Paul in on one and it was hilarious! The kids, especially Isabel, had a blast with this! I think it surprised Mr. Sisco that Isabel wanted to be in every skit! I got some video on my other camera and if I can figure out how to get it on the computer I will try to add one of the skits. They were so cute.........Train tracks! LOL.....I guess you had to be there!

The girls worked very hard on this the last day. It is made entirely out of leaves and pine cones and such! They constructed it in the sand pit that the Sisco's tent was on after it was taken down....so the next campers will either be very blessed by this greeting......or really upset that it is in the way!! Oops! Please note that they incriminated themselves by signing their names.....in sticks!

We are home, we are unpacked.....mostly and we are halfway through the mountain of laundry we brought back with us! Now it's on to the Carolina Renaissance Faire next weekend! Anyone want to join us?