This year for our annual family vacation we chose to tent camp again. I trusted Tom to plan the vacation and he trusted me to pack. To quickly sum up our vacation it was wet and cold much of the time thanks to Ike, thus making it difficult for me to think about much else other than being wet and cold. But after getting home and looking at our pictures I realized that we did indeed have a great family vacation. Just as we mamas for some strange reason tend to forget how dreadful childbirth can be after meeting our new little ones, I am also finding myself forgetting how terribly miserable I was. Now that I am dry and warm again I am able to focus on the wonderful memories we made. Yes, they indeed were wonderful memories. I'm going to break my vacation post up into several posts. Today I'll feature our traveling and campsite pictures. I'm keep you on pins and needles keeping you in suspense on where we went. I'll reveal our first stop in my next post.

Don't they look cozy? When you've got a seven-passenger mini-van that has been reduced down to a six-passenger mini-van so the family horse mastiff dog can come with us, things do get rather tight cozy.

Sleeping beauties...We weren't really traveling here, rather the kids were playing in the car. I think Della is suppose to be the "baby" here since she is sitting in a booster seat. They look so sweet and innocent here...especailly TJ. Or maybe that is a mischievouslook. Hmmm...Look closely and you'll see a caravan of orange utility trucks. On our trip we saw numerous caravans, some big caravans, of utility trucks heading down south to Texas to help repair the damage Ike was about to do. Little did anyone know that days later we'd need these trucks to come back home to restore electric to Northern Kentucky after Ike came through. Camping sites... TJ and Claira kept busy while we set up camp and settled in.At this campsite horses were welcome to camp also...on the campsite. The horses weren't suppose to be in the area of the campsite that the tents are set up in, but obviously there was at least one horse that didn't read and follow the rule. So Grace is shoveling horse manure so we can set up tents. The kids enjoyed helping cook...especially when it came to making s'mores.Take note of the tent flies that are draped on the picnic table and post in the background. Ike dumped some rain on us the previous night so we had to move camp to drier ground...which didn't last for too long. However, we did get our tents dried out.