Super Sevins: My Idea of Stress Relief

These are just a small smattering of pictures that I took of our camping trip three weeks ago. I think I actually took about 750 pictures over four days. There was a lot to take photos of!

In January Abby emailed the group (7 families!) and asked who would be interested in famping....that's fake camping....which technically means we slept in cabins instead of tents. Crawford Notch Campground which is in between North Conway and Mount Washington is the campground to end all campgrounds. This place was beyond perfect. The cabins were clean with bunk beds for the kids (they loved it!). Each campsite had a fire pit and we designated the Lindholms for the kitchen/eating area and the Reidel's became the firepit/s'more/drinking after the kids went to bed place to be (hello- maple syrup shots!! I tried one and it is strong!! maple syrup and vodka- yikes). The Saco River was a five minute walk through the campground and we spent a lot of time there. The river was cold but extremely refreshing. I can't say enough about this place and the good times we had there. It was perfect!

Climbing over the rocks on the first day we were there I landed in the water with my clothes on....so I just went in. Ah, if you can't laugh at yourself....

Saturday was Cole's birthday! I can't believe this kid is six. Good-bye baby years. Good-bye toddler years. Good-bye preschool and even kindergarten. Here you are schoolager. Life goes by too quickly. When did I come to the point where I went from wanting my life to speed up to wanting it to slow down? I'm pretty sure it was when Cole was born. I really feel like I just experienced fall and Cole going to kindergarten and now here we are with the weather turning cool already and Cole days away from 1st grade. It doesn't seem right or fair! Can I stop my feet and cry and make time stop? Hummm....

Some of the gang at the swimming hold. You can see how clear the water is. Just beautiful! I was banned from posting close up bathing suit shots and early morning shots. :) Hahaha.

Ah, this is the life. There was a stream with small rapids that the kids so enjoyed riding down again and again.

View from our cabin to the Lindholm's. They brought their pop up tent and are truly experienced campers! On one lazy afternoon San wanted to tour the campground and see how big it was. He took Meisee and Charlotte with him and driving about 5 miles per hour they were allowed to be in the car without seat belts and wave out the windows like royalty. The boys having been playing previously with some kind of tag/ninja/shooting/treasure game then realized how cool it was and made San take all of them again!

Going to the White Mountains is not complete without a hike! Ripley Falls was only 10 minutes away from the campground. I had hiked it as a kid but didn't really remember it. Lori and Rick had hiked it tons and knew it would be great for all of the kids- ages 3 to 6! It took us about 30 minutes to get there and every kid loved it! The falls were amazing and probably would have been more so if it hadn't been such a dry summer!

With this many kids there is no way we were going to get a perfect photo op. There were half naked girls, boys goofing off, and just general silliness!

It was so nice and cool under the falls. It's a small area but really great. There were some people there when we arrived but they evacuated when our clan arrived. We bombarded the place a bit!

Ever since Jake took Charlotte out on the lake in a boat a couple months ago, Charlotte has grown fond of him. She is always ready to give him a hug or a high five!

Only Zach had the forethought to wear his bathing suit. All of the other kids stripped down to shorts and went for a slide into the bottom of the falls.

We were the slowest family to make the way back. Now we have two people in our family who need to stop every five minutes to take a photo. Luckily Brendan and Charlotte tolerate us. :)

Time for cake!

This location was just completely ideal. The kids freely ran around to every cabin or to the Lindholm's pop-up. They played games. They had a fabulous time.

We made our way to Attitash on Sunday but it was closed because of rain. Brendan was extremely disappointed. They also have this gravity roller coaster thing that was open in the drizzle. It was so fun! I went up with Charlotte twice and you have the choice to make the "sled" go faster or slower depending on the use of the break (it's a lot like the slide I guess but more structural and more twists and turns and it seems safer!). I wish I could have bottled Charlotte's glee and laughter and her "Make it go faster!"

There is no clean way to eat this size cone. Of course she just wanted the ice cream and threw away the cone.

And there was Euro-bungy. Both kids had a blast and Cole loved the flips. I love Charlotte's belly sticking out!

On Sunday it was just the Hynds, the Lindholm's, the Chau's, and us left. We had a dinner with leftovers from the previous night...steak tips, grilled potatoes, salad...it was awesome camp food!