Our family weekend!

This past weekend we decided last minute to take a family weekend down to the Black River (our favorite!). We had a good time overall. There were some fussy times in the evenings with Adam, but otherwise we had a good time. Normally we would camp in a tent, but with a 10-month-old baby along we decided that wouldn't be a good idea. So, we stayed in a one-room log cabin at one of the campgrounds that we haven't ever stayed at before. It was a nice, quiet campground (although not a river front one). Turns out we were the ONLY people there in the whole campground that weekend! It is one that was just renovated & reopened this year, so I guess not a lot of people know about it?

Anyway, Friday night we got there around 7pm and basically just unloaded our stuff and hung out around the cabin & campground. The cabin was really hot at first, no ac, but we asked if we could borrow a fan and that made a world of difference. Joe put the fan in the window and it soon was tolerable, and even a little chilly in the mornings.

Saturday we went to Elephant Rocks, which Brendan thought was cool. We climbed around on the rocks, and then had a picnic lunch there. Adam happily rode in the baby backpack the whole time. Then we wanted to play in the river, but since our campground didn't have river access, we were trying to think of where we could get to the river without having to go to another campground, and we ended up just going to Johnson's Shut-Ins. We didn't want to take the boys in the actual shut-ins since there are some pretty strong fall flows on part of that, but we went in the water above the shut-ins where it is just basically still water, and played there. Adam did good in the baby float, he enjoyed floating in the water. Then we went a little closer to the shut-ins, and there were some smaller "shut-ins" that were very shallow and not dangerous...like a shut-ins area for preschoolers! haha! So we played there for awhile. Brendan had a blast. Then we drove a little ways and found a place by the river to play, but shortly after we got there, Brendan said he needed to go potty, so we drove back to our campground. That evening we roasted hotdogs on the campfire, followed by smores, and played on the playground, ran around a little racing back to the cabin from the bathroom, playing "tig and tag" (that's what Brendan calls it), and a game of "I Spy" (Brendan's favorite thing to play right now). Then we all slept good that night, even Adam!

Sunday morning we packed up, and then went back to Johnson's Shut-Ins. This time we walked part-way on the walking trail throug the woods, and came to a really pretty spot along the river where noone else was. We knew that was just the type of setting we were looking for. So we baptized Adam there, just like we did Brendan when he was a baby. We took some pictures...I hope they turn out, because it was a really nice, pretty spot!

So, anyway, that was our weekend. It was a lot more hectic with a baby & a 4 yr old than the old days of camping (& floating) by ourselves with friends, but it was still a nice change of scenery and good to get out as a family to do something fun together.