Our First Family Camping Trip

We took our FIRST family camping trip the other day and honestly had the best time EVER!!! When we are at the apartment in Little Rock Dorian can't run outside, she can't be with out mommy or daddy, and she just can't be 'free'. I am always afraid of cars coming, or that someone could take her, or something else that is bad!

We had been talking about doing a trip like this but Niles' schedule has been to strange and he gets random days off un-announced that it made it a little tough to plan. Niles just found out that he has 9 out of the next 10 days off! So we QUICKLY made fast plans, hopped in the car, and headed to the closest state park we could find! ha ha

Lake Catherine is located in Malvern, Arkansas. (It is right next to Hot Springs) We figured that with it being a Sunday that we had a good chance to rent their Yurt. We have never heard of a Yurt until we moved here, but honestly they are awesome. It is like a mini-circus tent! It was big enough to hold three bunkbeds, a small table, three nightstands, two coolers, two pack and plays, and all of our extra stuff. A huge plus is that they are build on wooden decks. Dorian must have ran around that 'yurt' a hundred times within the first 10 minutes of getting there! It was awesome, she could be outside with NO worries of any of the things mentioned above! She was in her glory for the past two days!!!

We went on long walks to get the girls to take a nap, lost shoes and had to retrack our steps, went hiking on nature trails, swimming on the beach, and playing at the parks! It was so nice to not have a computer to stare at all night or cell phones ringing and just be outside!!! The lake was beautiful and the people we met were super nice!

This is definitly something we will do more often, and maybe even just buy a tent of our own one day!!! I LOVED IT!!!! And I really believe Dorian loved it more than Niles, Addeline, and Myself combined!!! She is definitly an outdoor girl. I truly believe she could be outside forever if you let her. She had the biggest smile on her face for the past two days and that alone makes all the work that goes into trips like this totally worth it!!!!

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