How wonderful it is to just pick up and head out-of-town.  Leaving all the stress, chaos, and monotony behind you in the town you love to hate so much.  Vacations allow you to appreciate where you have set your roots.  Allowing you to realize once you have been gone a while what you truly enjoy about where you call home.  Our everyday lives consume so much of ourselves that just hitting pause and stepping out to slow down a moment is inviting and quite frankly a must.

I took this opportunity last weekend with 3 of my best girlfriends and my little Miss {ABM} ♥  We decided to go rough it in the Great Outdoors!  That’s right with real tents, fires, NO SHOWERS, and NO BOYS!  Did I mention the extremely awkward amount of spiders and BEES!!  Now some had a bit of a chuckle at the thought of us 4 girls and a 7-year-old going camping without the assistance of a man but what they failed to realize is I grew up camping and to my surprise ;) so did the other girls.  I say surprise because I consider myself and outdoors(ie) kind of gal…but some of my other ladies (to include my mini) can be a little high maintenance.  I say that with all the love in the world ♥!!  I am talking coach bags galore, more than 30 (ok …an hour!) minutes to get ready, make up to go…well anywhere , and just overall not very bug friendly.  Needless to say we had many boys checking on us to make sure we were all still alive.  We certainly removed the doubt from our doubters

Our trip went like this:

2 cars, 5 gals, 1 tent, & a weekend of fun!!

Driving up to Shenandoah we detoured into Old Town Fredericksburg by accident and what a marvelous accident that was!  We discovered our dream homes and an overall indescribably beautiful little place with a little treasure around every turn! 

Two of the gals arrived an hour earlier than us and set up the tent (in the downpouring rain & the dark…oh and in HEELS…Bravo ladies) to get the weekend underway.  Saturday we all got up and took a hike through Overall Trail to a wonderful waterfall that we were able to climb down to and scale up the face of the falls about 50′ or so until it became too steep to go further.  Miss {ABM} pleasantly surprised all of us on this 5 hour hike up and down steep grades of the mountain and even joining in our trek up the waterfall.  As this was her very first time camping ever she rolled with anything and everything we put in front of her.  Bugs were not an issue, for once, to this little princess (this is huge considering she had a more than mild panick attack once over flies)!  We had a wonderful photo shoot on the way in and a nice little ‘one with nature’ moment for myself on the way out . 

♦Green parrot to Red Parrot all is clear.  Watering Leaves is on the go, I repeat Watering Leaves is on the go.  Stand by for further instruction♦ 

 

 

All in all the camping trip was amazing and better than expected.  Of course you can’t have a vacation without a few little inconveniences… but these make for the best memories usually.  Ours go like this…. Due to the flash flood warnings and the excessive amounts of rain our firewood was more than a pain to get lit.  In all honesty I would like to say it took us 2 hours to get our sausage, eggs, and bacon cooked’ If cooked is even what you can call it.  By the time we were plating up breakfast it was time for lunch!  We enjoyed the dirt of the earth on some of the food due to the 5…maybe 10-15 second rule .  Ahhhh the Great Outdoors!  During our 5 hour hike I proceeded to get attacked by a bee or wasp or hornet…not quite sure what it was… I just know it hurt like the dickens and my ring finger is on its 4th day of being swollen.  Some may think I am over exaggerating, but I beg to differ!  That thing went at my face as I swatted it away and not even a minute later it zeroed back in on me and dive bombed my finger planting its stinger right into me.  After that it was like every bee had it out for me!  With that aside still the only thing left was one popped mattress :(  Apparently you should not jump on air mattresses…

All I can say is once it came time to leave we were just settling in, and a week camping trip may be in order for the next time to fully emerse ourselves and enjoy the moments.  Upon leaving we decided to drive south down Skyline and stop at Big Meadows Lodge and relax…more   It was simply fabulous.  The lodge was gorgeous and jazz was streaming through the building as Miss {ABM} and I enjoyed a giant game of Checkers and the other gals rocked themselves endlessly in the rocking chairs set out to overlook the mountain. 

The only thing we were looking forward to by this point was a nice clean shower to freshen up in…otherwise a little more time would have done us good.  It was nice to get home and not sleep on an air mattress.. but when I arrived at work the next morning… I realized my mind was still camping and I should be too ♥

{I love dresses and looking girly, but I also love ponytails and flannel and being able to sleep outside, unkempt, and feeling prettier than when I am put together.}

{love loudly.}