El Dia de San Valentín

We celebrated St. Valentine's Day early in Spain with making/decorating sugar cookies and Valentine cards.

My super cute roommate Lauren. (Muchas gracias to Lauren's mom for sending supplies and inspiring the idea for a V-day party!)

Lauren likes the color purple, saying "Oh Hey!," Kinder chocolate, "Arrested Development," and colorful scarves (scarfs?). She is a terrific running buddy and friend, and I am so glad that we are roommates here in Spain!

Kami displaying the cream cheese icing for the cookies. She was our cookie critic (her mom is the genius behind Flour Girls and Dough Boys), and Kami was right about the cookies tasting a little "off," but I blame it on the foreign appliances.

We used melted chocolate for decorating also.

Shopping for the sugar cookie ingredients at Carre Four was quite a trip. It took us forever to find powdered sugar and it came in tubes a quarter of the size of a regular bag you find in the states. This (above photo) was the closest thing to vanilla extract that we could find. It was kind of like vanilla-flavored sugar crystals. One vanilla bean cost almost 5 euros here!

Sierra with her Valentine's heart for a certain special someone.

Sami and Megan celebrating the holiday with some splashes of red!

In the kitchen with Kiley.

Chelsea and Alina with the finished product. Tasty, no?



¿Va a ser mi Valentín?

. . . . . .

For the actual day of St. Valentine we slept in late because we had been discoteca hopping the night before. After getting ready for the day we headed off to Madrid to spend the day at el Parque del Buen Retiro. It felt just like spring! We played some frisbee, ate some lunch, walked through the park, and lounged around on the grass. We were among hundreds of Spaniards enjoying the weekend/holiday/nice weather at the park.

Something else that some us did was rent a row boat to take out on the pond in the park. It was really relaxing.

I was in the boat with Tim and Mark. Got to love these two!

They let me have a go at it.

There was a puppet guy doing a show with to Frank Sinatra music.

Christmas Devotional

Tree Hunting

The day after Thanksgiving brings relaxation, digestion, and a great Camp family tradition: finding our Christmas tree.

Each year our hunt brings a little something new. This year we found an old mining cabin.

This is the front view.

Sierra

A nice "homey" touch don't you think?

I wasn't sure if the place was haunted or not.

Sierra wanted to capture the light coming through the rafters.

Brittany

Here is Dad sizing up some trees.

Mom found the perfect one!

"Oh Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree, How lovely are your branches!"

I couldn't get enough of the pine smell.

Harper did the dirty work.

Getting the tree off the mountain was a little tricky, but Dad found a way.

Hopefully I'll get some pictures soon of the tree after it has been decorated with lights and ornaments!

4th of July Campout in Ashley National Forest

Here are some photos of our adventures last weekend!

We woke up super early in the morning and drove up to Strawberry Reservoir for some fishing. We didn't have much luck at Strawberry, but we did the new place we went to in the afternoon. Chad out fished us all by a mile (something he is very proud of).


We camped right down the road by the Upper Stillwater Dam which was quite a sight.



The next morning we went on an amazing hike around the reservoir, through the forest, and up to the top of a mountain. It was the perfect weather for hiking and the trees, rocks, flowers, and streams were gorgeous! We went off the trail at one point and did some pretty intense climbing over some huge boulders and rocks to get to the top of the mountain. We also found some natural springs and refilled our water bottles. The water was so good and very cold. I thought I would be really sore because it was over 7 miles and there were a few rough parts, but surprisingly we were all fine the next day. I can probably say without a doubt that it was the best hike that I've ever been on.

Happy (early) Fourth!

“Oh Beautiful for Patriot Dream”

Proud to be an American. Last year was my first year attending the Stadium of Fire and it was quite an experience! I love the fireworks that I can feel go boom and crackle in my stomach! I had a fun time experimenting with my camera also. This year we are celebrating by going camping, hiking, fishing, and all that fun stuff (pictures to come). Hope y'all have a terrific holiday!