Fall Creek Falls

In case you weren't aware, yesterday was presidents day. The day we celebrate all the past leaders of the great U-S of A by getting a perfectly timed day off giving many people an unusually warm long weekend in February. The man and I decided to fill said weekend/president's day with a camping trip to Fall Creek Falls state park a few hours outside of Nashville.

We had originally planned the camping trip as an extended Valentine's Day celebration, but then we realized camping is always better with friends and Cynthia (my older sis), her hubby - JP, and trooper-3-month-old-niece, Annalee came along as well.

We circled all the possible campsites several times trying to find the perfect fit.

We saw a deer at the camp site Josh and I stayed at a last year.

We (read: the guys) chopped wood.

hott!

 Willow was cute.

 Sadie (Cynthia and JP's dog) was cute.

We (read: the guys) started a fire.

We made hot dogs and smores. YUM!

We made fun of our neighbors and suspected them of "hot-boxing" in their tent when we caught whiff of some sneaky drug like scents...

Josh, Willow, and I slept horribly the first night in our ridiculously small tent with no ground padding, 40 degree weather, coons rooting around outside our tent all night.

We made eggs, sausage, and toast over the fire. They were ridiculously dried out, but they tasted good anyway because they were made in the wilderness...over a fire.

The guys whittled things embracing their inner-Samson hoping to slay 1000 men with a donkey's jawbone.

We hiked to the main falls and were amazed at how Annalee slept the whole way there and gazed silently from her baby bijorn at God's creation all the way back.

We wondered at God's creation with her.

We let the quietness of nature soak deep into our souls.

We crossed a precarious suspension bridge.

Cynthia and Willow were cute.

We ate pie irons. (yup...there's an official website for pie irons...)

I made myself sick on them, actually...i can't resist a good pie iron.

We stayed up late watching in awe as the fire the men built raged on for hours without ceasing. I was quite impressed.

We ate more smores.

I'm a little too excited about that smore.

We slept better the second night when the temperature rose about 15 degrees and we realized putting the dog food in the car was the solution to our coon problem.

Josh, Willow and I hiked to the bottom of the main falls Monday morning and we talked about how we would hike this every weekend multiple times if we ever were training for a rim-to-rim Grand Canyon hike again.

you wouldn't think it, but she's a natural hiker!

We took the stereotypical breaking the rules picture.

We used up an Olive Garden gift card on the ride home.

And took the best nap of our lives in our California King upon reaching the humble abode.

In case you were wondering, this is what a sleepy-worn-out puppy looks like. (Sorry for the bad audio and awkward sideways view! I had the windows down and didn't realize the video needed to be the other direction!!)