Fall Break

 I have never looked more forward to a fall break than I have this year.  Being in school has really been an adjustment for me and the family.  As much as I think they are trying to support me, they just forget and still have so many expectations of me, that I can not realistically meet.

With that being said, I worked hard to make sure I could spend time with the boys with their whole week off even if I only had two days off.  We all needed a break!

Grandma and Grandpa have been trying to take a few grandkids at a time to Universal Studios while they are still moving strong.  Liam and Tipton got to be the two to go this year and had a great time.  Thinking that two full days would be enough, I think they would have stayed another two.  On top of that, I believe they got to hear lots of Grandpa stories...that could be a good thing or not.

While they were gone we decided to take the younger boys camping.  We went to Talulah Falls Gorge in east Georgie.  It's the Appalachian region and so beautiful.  We had amazing weather.  Even better, our boys got along with each other so well.  I wanted to note some of the things I observed:

• They all played so well together--in the woods, at the playground, or card games.
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  Jarom showed Bret how to make rings out of these big acorns we would find along the trails.  Hyrum broke his first one, but quickly found a new acorn and made him a new one.  Then they were all making them.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• The boys just seemed to be happy.
• When we got home, within hours Bret said he was bored.  All the toys and technology available and they would rather be out in nature (even if they complain about the hikes).

Bret was determined to make a torch.  

This fire took us forever to get going!  I forgot lint (not that it would have helped) and our fire starter was old, but the real issue was everything was wet.  It had poured the night before.  We found a Walmart and bought tons of fire starter and as well as more lighters.  We finally ate dinner around 8:00.

There are always so many stairs in the Georgia State parks!  This time I think we hit around 600.

We really need to camp more often.  It's a lot of work, but the benefits seem to always be worth the effort.  

 I had always wanted to go to Helen, GA so we took a little detour on the way home, through the mountains and stopped through.  All the buildings had the Bavarian look.  Otherwise, it really was just like Gatlinburg--touristy and expensive.  It was fun for the 2-3 hours we walked around.  We also rode an alpine coaster they had.  It was fun smooth ride.