4th of July Camping Trip

We celebrated Independence Day a little differently this year by going on a family camping trip! There is a lake down in NC called Kerr Lake that we absolutely love to go camping at, and we hadn't been in a couple of years so we decided to make a long weekend out of the holiday and camped from Thursday - Sunday on the water!

We had the most perfect weather - warm enough during the day to enjoy floating in the lake but cool enough at night to sit around a campfire and and breezy enough to sleep comfortably in our tents at night. (As comfortable as one can be 7 months pregnant and on an air mattress!)

Here's a little taste of our family time together on the lake...

A few of our tents that created the perfect little village for a few days...

Oh Yes. While others partied on their jet skis and motor boats in the middle of the lake, we stuck to the man powered, good ol' canoe! We enjoy canoeing, but we all agree a jet ski would be super fun!

Hammocks were the #1 choice for napping and relaxing...

My sister Erin made all of the girls matching tanks for the 4th of July! We definitely consider ourselves to be a patriotic family, and we sure are proud to be Americans!

Our growing family!

Literally. I think my belly gets bigger every day! :)

We enjoyed taking nightly walks around the campground with the pups after we had dinner...

Piper slightly ruined our picture by having to pee ;)

Just some camping shenanigans...

 

The guys loved to go out on the little john boat in the morning and evening to do some fishing.

Campfires. S'Mores. Starry Nights. Perfection.

 We enjoyed just floating in the lake together, talking, reading books, and goofing off!

Piper spent from sun up to sun down swimming in the lake. She didn't even need anyone to throw her ball for her, she would just hold the ball in her mouth, swim around and explore to her little hearts content. 

The other dogs didn't love swimming but they would play in the shallow water with Piper.

We cut up and ate about 1 watermelon per day. This was a must have on the camping menu for this pregnant girl! And oh my word, it sure was delicious!

Thursday marked the 30th week of pregnancy for us! No chalkboard update for this week, but baby girl's skin is getting smoother, brain is getting wrinklier, and she could now grasp a finger! Hard to believe that we are only a little over 2 months away from her due date.

We enjoyed our camping trip and just having family time together without any distractions!

And right as we were getting ready to leave, we got the call that Mark's sister had gone into labor! 

It was an exciting trip home as Mark and I anticipated the arrival of our first niece - more on that later!