Shenandoah National Park

We have a goal to visit all of the national parks and we're making steady progress. Since Erik was headed to Virginia for work earlier this month, we decided to plan a trip out there a few days early to visit Shenandoah National Park. We flew into North Carolina and stayed with our friends the Ludlows that we met back in our early Massachusetts days. Our kids are the same age and they were such good little buddies. We all went camping together and it was the perfect trip to start off another season of camping. Our kids genuinely love the whole experience of being outside, exploring, hiking and sleeping in a tent.

4 year old boys are so eager to help. These two were good helpers setting up camp:

Ahh so peaceful and adorable asleep with her thumb. She slept in for the longest time even with the sun.

So happy to be riding in the car with a friend!

Our first hike to a little waterfall as a group:

Two little boys:

We split up and did a mom and son hike while Erik took J on a hike. J was pleased to have some time with her hiking buddy. M taught me all sorts of tricks on how to hike quickly which included such things as blowing air out of your mouth to zoom your self ahead like a rocket ship. He also enjoyed making arrow with sticks pointing to where we were going and helping to spell out our names below:

This kid loves to climb trees and he is pretty skilled:

He is also very trusting that we will catch him whether he is jumping out of a tree or off of stairs:

Sticks and rocks. A few of of our kids favorite things:

Such a beautiful sunset one night:

Checking out the deer. She loves animamls:

So happy about her little walking stick:

Also quite happy about his walking stick:

Two friends in a tree:

I have always wanted to hike part of the Appalachian trail and this particular hike utilized part of that trail so I can finally check that off my list. It was a great overlook of the valley:

Happy campers!