Great Smokey Mountain Camping

May 14th to 17th we finally made it out to the Great Smokey Mountain National Park to go camping.  Uncle Ben flew down to North Carolina from Baltimore to drive out with us along with the Gasper de Albas and Cranes.  We were all able to set up our tents in a nice little campsite next to a small river.  The kids enjoyed running around playing games.  Blake, crawling but not quite walking, spent time playing in the tent but really wanted to crawl on the ground and chew on sticks.  We put him in one of the plastic tubs to keep him out of the dirt.

Blake snuggled up to Ben right away.  Kylee sat down next to the campfire with Aunt Katrina for knitting lessons that she had been anxiously awaiting.  There was a water fountain at the restrooms where Julia and her gang played getting themselves wet.

Justin Crane put up a rope swing that was a big hit.  There was a constant line to get on the swing.

We were able to rent inner tubes from a little shack downstream from our campsite.  The river was only a few feet deep in most places, but was fast enough to make pretty fun rapids.  We hiked upstream a quarter mile and tubed down in groups.  The water was freezing cold but wasn't too bad once you went numb.  Brayden only went down once, screaming, "I AM GOING TO DIE, I AM GOING TO DIE!" the whole way in his typical dramatic fashion.

In the middle of the second night, after helping polish off a bag of strawberry Twizzlers earlier in the evening, Brayden woke up and barfed chunky red vomit all over his and Kylee's sleeping bags.  Fortunately the rest of the kids slept through the whole ordeal and tedious middle-of-the-night clean up.  Kylee woke the next morning none the wiser, which was essential to getting her to continue sleeping in the tent the rest of the trip.  

We got rain several times but were somewhat sheltered by the patchwork of tarps we had set up.  

We all enjoyed the beautiful hikes through the woods, over bridges, and along rivers.  

The rest of the gang that was with us.

These are few of our favorite things about the camping trip:
Blake - crawling and eating dirt and sticks
Julia - Uncle Ben pushing her on the  swing
Brayden -the swing and marshmallows
Kylee - tubing down the river
Mom - the pretty hikes, walking over the bridges on the river, hanging out in the hammock
Dad - cooking a stew in the dutch oven, tubing with brother Ben
Ben - tubing and hearing Brayden scream, "I'm going to die!" and getting climbed on by the kids

It was nice to have Ben at our house briefly before he had to head back to work.