Yes, you’ve read that correctly. We took the girls out camping. In nature. Like, IN THE WOODS, where we use BIFs (bathrooms in the forest), sleep in a tent and collect three days of dirt under our fingernails.
We didn’t have too much time to plan the complete details of our trip, but had put it on the calendar a couple of months ago to go with our friends, Dan and Amber. We hadn’t counted on moving into our new house TWO DAYS before camping day, but we did. Our household items arrived on Tuesday, we unpacked until noon on Wednesday and repacked camping materials to leave on Thursday morning. Yes, we are a little bit crazy, too.
We headed north toward Big Sur and wound up camping just east in the Los Padres National Forest at a small campsite next to a small creek. It was perfect for the girls first camp experience. But I should mention two things here: First, I grew up camping- but on the beach or in the desert, most definitely not with a potpourri of trees and running water. And secondly, if you’ve hung around here long enough, you know that I’m paranoid of “severe” weather. It probably will not come as much of a surprise then that I am also paranoid of all living creatures that are more dangerous than a squirrel. I spent the weekend recounting the growl I heard outside of our tent’s nylon lined walls on our second night, looking for the coiled sight of a rattlesnack I had been warned about crossing toward our camp and being on five senses overload with an alertness that would tire any highway patrolman out (but not the one that caught me going eighty-one in a fifty-five on our way home, but I digress).
All in all, the girls attracted a lot of dirt and had tons of fun doing so, Andy got in touch with his rusty Boy Scout skills and taught me to start a fire and we were blessed to catch up and spend some quality time with our dear friends and their boys. Once I get over my paranoia of woodsy creatures, and maybe get a few more essential items for a weekend long camping trip, we’re hitting the open road again (and abiding by the speed limit)! Stay tuned!
2. April 18: 
3. May 8: 
5. May 16… 
6. May 23: 
7. June 6: Strawberry Festival… 
9. June 16: 
I currently don’t have anything on our list of things to do this summer (except to move) – and with the busy spring we had, I’m okay with that…
To make matters worse, the storms that had come through the week before left a muddy mess in the walking area. Ick. Yuck. Gross.
My three-year-old had a heck of a time wearing flip flops (she calls the “sip sops”) in the muddy mess. She did not want mud on her toes thankyouverymuch. Poor thing.
To be honest, Ashleigh was having a pretty rough time at the festival. She didn’t want to share a strawberry cheesecake dessert with the rest of us… but at $5 a pop, we’re sharing.
Susan knows me well, though and she got me to jump- which is a natural high for me (pun intended) and a smile might have crept up on my face.
The girls got to do a ring toss and win flimsy toys, as well as get super cute strawberries painted on them that wiped off almost immediately:
Two views that made me smile- the view of the booths lined up above the Miami River and woodcut letters that were being sold individually made for an aesthetically clean line of design in this old Coke crate:
Are you wondering where the strawberries are at the infamous Strawberry Festival? They were there- just under disguise: strawberry salsa, strawberry burritos, strawberry butter, strawberry cheesecake.
In the end, I’m glad we went because bumping into my friends led to Strawberry Festival Round II at Susan’s with dancing and a wonderful vodka sauce pasta (sans strawberries)
Infamous Strawberry Festival Adventure: Fail.
The girls and I have a sweet tooth. I don’t know how to suppress it, so I give in to it. I can control it most of the time, as to not overindulge, but it’s still there.
We headed up to 
We headed outdoors for a walk along the trail. I would call it “hiking” but we exerted almost little to no extra energy so a walk it was. The paths were surrounded by a gorgeous mixture of Virginia Bluebells and other greenery.
We later drove over to the farm to see the baby goats, lambs and pigs that were born recently. Here’s Sarah doing another activity she loves: Cartwheels.
Oh– Lauren, too. Hey, keepin’ it real here. We’re not always sunshine and smiles…
2. Opry Mills was a perfect destination for dinner and right next door was the famous Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center. This is just a shot of the INside – Sarah totally requested that we stay here during our next visit to Nashville. We’ll start pinching our pennies now!
3. Top destination point on the girls’ list was the 
4. We wound up at 
5. The 
6. The Nashville Zoo has nothing on the San Diego Zoo as far as animals on display, but it did have this hungry giraffe that made me laugh and the most oversized outdoor play structure that I lost my kids in. Multiple times.
7.
8. Did I mention that I wanted to go somewhere south that was (hopefully) warmer than Dayton usually is during Spring Break? They are about 3-4 weeks ahead of us on plant life blooming, I was happy to see so many beautiful flowers at 
9. It was a perfect spot to do a 2nd annual Spring Break photo of the girls and me:
No night is complete without my oversized laugh trying to take out someone’s face. Sorry, friends. I didn’t mean to scare you.
This is so classic- I love that you can see the mask peeling off so clean:
If you would like to see the individual pictures in the mosaic, you can visit our 
Down the street some, there was a 9/11 remembrance stop that we ducked into. It has a pictorial rendition of the events that occurred that fateful day. A moment that brought tears to my eyes was seeing the ephemera of notes and photos on this makeshift memorial representing many firefighters that had lost their lives fighting to free many more. When I saw a man’s wedding band at the foot of this statue, my tears welled over. It was well worth the stop to remember our fallen heroes.
While in the financial district, I made Andy visit the famous bull for his obligatory photo (all decked out for Christmas, nice!):
Since we were visiting the city right after the big blizzard, snow on the sides of the road were plentiful. Here’s Sarah enjoying a good old fashioned snowball fight- right there in the city!
In order to get everything in we wanted to do (and keep the girls warm!), Andy masterminded this great plan: travel, walk a little, do an indoor activity and then back to traveling. So, we’d walk, take the subway, walk, take the subway etc. The girls LOVED the subway.
And they loved being indoors! Each day we had at least one hot chocolate, but on this very special day, we waited (and waited) at the famous 
Luckily 
Just around the corner off 5th Ave. was 
Around the corner is one outdoor stop I’d like to visit with a few more degrees warming the air, but we made do and the girls had a blast at Central Park:
This sign made me laugh out loud:
Our only family photo that we didn’t pay for:
We were very touristy in our visit- neither Andy nor I had ever been to the Empire State Building, so we went to the 86th floor to see the city lights at night. Impressive, New York, impressive:
It sure was chilly on the viewing deck, so we headed back down to the street level and saw this on Christmas Eve Eve:
On the evening of Christmas Eve, we found ourselves at Time Square with about a million other people, eating from a hot dog cart and visiting Toys ‘R Us. It was pure craziness. This was our last sight from Manhattan as we headed back to our hotel on Staten Island. I didn’t even mention that we got to take the ferry in and out every day and pass the Statue of Liberty. No one minded except when we were five-ten minutes late for the ferry. Or as Andy said, just 20 minutes early for the next one. ha.
In the end, NYC is doable with three kids if you’re willing to hunt for bathrooms along your route, squash between hundreds of people and put up with long lines and sometimes, rude folks. We had an amazing experience and everyone we asked in the subway or on streets were more than willing to help with directions. New Yorkers get a bad rep, I think.
The older girls enjoyed ice skating at Rockefeller Plaza with Andy while Lauren and I stood on the sidelines and cheered:
We pit stopped at this famous shop for what seemed like four hours.
But with the holiday window displays and Santaland attractions, it was hard to leave (oh! And they had bathrooms, very important when traveling with three kids):
My personal favorite: the ornaments hanging from the ceiling inside Macy’s- LOVE the red, love the ribbon.
We took the girls to a charming children’s book store: 
Darling, right?