Yonah Mountain Campground in Helen, GA

Jeff and I have always loved camping and both grew up camping a lot. We registered for tons of camping gear for our wedding and got a lot. Sadly, we have never been camping here in Georgia! In fact, the last time we have ever been camping was when Cheyenne was about 6 months old and we went in Washington to Sun Lakes with Jeff's family. 

It is way too hot to camp in Georgia in the summer. I mean, the night time sometimes doesn't even get below 80 degrees. How would you ever sleep like that? Anyway, Jeff had a bye last weekend and we decided to go! We invited some awesome friends from church and they could only go one day, but it was so fun. Jeff took Friday off of school and we headed up after packing up the car that morning. Doyle, Chelsea and Eve arrived just after us. We set up camp at Yonah Mountain Campground. It was $28 a night and you couldn't share sites, so it was kind of expensive for camping. However, the campground was awesome. The bathrooms were so clean and you didn't have to put quarters in for the showers, the sites were right next to each other so it felt like we were all camping together, it was super close to Helen and the cabbage patch factory, there was a playground there, the hosts were super friendly and there was even a craft for the kids on Saturday morning.

 After we set up camp and ate some lunch, we were off to the cabbage patch factory! Cheyenne fell asleep in the 2.5 minutes it took to get there. She was not very excited about this picture on the giant head. The building was beautiful. I have a picture of us by it, but I have to get it from Chelsea.

 The family on the cabbage leaf!

 It was awesome, when you first walk in, there were all these 80s signed pictures of famous celebrities who had been to the factory. It was totally the thing back then, remember? There was pretty much every single celebrity/President up on that wall.

 This giant stuffed doll thing totally looks like my 9th grade drama teacher. Christine, did you ever have Mrs. Grimes? What do you think? Am I crazy?

 Cheyenne loved to pull the dolls out of the cabbage patch.

 It was pretty much just a giant toy store, which the kids loved, but it kind of sucked for the adults, because you had to follow them around just putting everything back where it belonged. 

 The whole point of the trip for me, was for the girls to get excited about playing with my old cabbage patch dolls and think they were cool. It didn't work. But, at least it was entertainment for the time being...

Meanwhile, back at camp...

 The Nelsons arrived! Cheyenne was so excited to see her friends:) We headed to the playground to play while the boys were supposed to start the fire. Well, they struggled a little and we almost missed out on our tin foil dinners! Finally, we got it started and kept it going enough to cook the dinners, and they were worth the wait!! MMMM.... I want one now!

 Campfire that night, Jeff couldn't stay awake:

 I think he was in a s'more coma because he ate about 12 of them, no joke!

 Doyle and Chelsea telling stories about each other:)

 Eric, we learned a lot about him, he is a crazy one! Poor Andrea fell asleep putting the girls to bed, and I feel so bad I didn't wake her up! She missed all the fun:( We slept on the ground without an air mattress which was a total mistake! I remembered doing it all the time as a kid, but apparently I weigh more or something now? Every part of my body that was touching the ground felt like it was bruised and I probably woke up 10 times.

 Cheyenne and Sadie really bonded this trip:)

 The next morning we had an amazing breakfast. Seriously, amazing. Pancakes with magic syrup, sausage, bacon, eggs, stone ground grits, grapes, orange juice, the works! Then the other families packed up camp while I showered and the girls went to the clubhouse for crafts. We all headed to the playground after that for some volleyball, football and playing on the toys. Then we roasted some more weenies and ate even more s'mores. We were so sad to say goodbye to our friends, but it was a great time! We couldn't have asked for better camping friends! It was perfect:) After everyone left, Jeff drove around to put Berkeley to sleep and she took a little nap. Then we headed to the tube the hooch!! There was like 1/8th of the people there from when we did this 2 months ago. It was so much better. We had to do the short route, because the long route was too shallow. I shared a tube with Cheyenne and Jeff with Berkeley. It was awesome! Cheyenne right away declared it was her favorite part of the trip and she really loved the whole trip. She started out pretty still, then she was leaning over catching leaves, then she wanted to get out and play in the water. We let them get out for a little while in a shallow area, but they never wanted to get back in the tube so we didn't do that again. Cheyenne liked to hang off the side in the water and I held on to her, so I was basically dragging her along. You get to float right in the middle of town and tons of people are on either side above you eating at restaurants or just looking down at you. I told Cheyenne to wave and it was like a parade. All the people were waving at her and she LOVED it! It was pretty cute. She also declared that she saved the day, by using her rock to get us unstuck and getting out and pushing us to the side at the end. She talked the rest of the night about how she saved the day. I was perfect temperature the whole time until about the last 20 minutes when we were in the shade and Cheyenne's icy little body was climbing all over me. So it felt good to get out in the heat again.

 Then we headed back to camp for more tin foil dinners and s'mores. The weather was PERFECT camping weather the whole time. I think it was like a high of 84 degrees and low of 58 or so. The Nelsons were so sweet to leave us their air mattress, so this night I slept like a log! It was heavenly:)

 The next morning we had pancake breakfast again and headed over to the playground after we cleaned up camp. It was the perfect camping weekend ever. Seriously, I don't think it could have been much better. We needed a little break to spend as a family, and I am so thankful we got it.

 The picture above is Berkeley watching Daddy on the Monkey bars, can you believe how long her hair is? She isn't even two yet!