Vacation: North Carolina

Wednesday April 25, 2012

We left for North Carolina around 4:30 am.  We woke Cami, changed her diaper and put her straight into her car seat with the hopes she'd fall back asleep for a few hours.  Success!  By the time we were ready for breakfast, Cami woke up.  We stopped, ate, changed Cami and hit the road again.  Cami stayed entertained in the car and eventually took a nap.  Around lunch time we were close to Greenville where we planned to stop and visit Bryan's Grandma.  We stopped for lunch then headed to her apartment.  We visited for about 30 minutes before hitting the road again for the last 2.5 hours.  Cami took another nap.



3 Generation of Arkins'!

We arrived at the house around 4:30ish or so and waited for our friends Jason, Emily and Alexa who arrived an hour or two later.  We unpacked, unwound, let the girls stretch and then headed out for dinner.  We went to "The Italian Restaurant" and enjoyed some calzones.  After dinner, we put Cami to bed and relaxed before heading to sleep ourselves.

Thursday April 26, 2012

Thursday was rainy so we hung out at the house before hitting up a local BBQ place for lunch.  We then went to the grocery store to stock up on food supplies for the weekend.  When the rain cleared up, the boys went golfing while the girls relaxed at home.  Cami took a long nap and then Emily and I tried to take the girls on a walk but it started drizzling again.  We got around the block once before we had to call it quits.  For dinner we went to a Mexican restaurant.

Cami and Alexa hanging out at the house.

Holding hands!

Uh Oh, tangled up!

Friday April 27, 2012

We decided this was the best time to tackle some hiking on our trip.  Everyone agreed it would be fun to hike the challenging Grandfather Mountain.  The girls played around on the floor while we made breakfast and got all the baby supplies packed for the adventure. 

 

So cute - Cami and Alexa eyeing each other.

  

Good Morning!

We loaded up and headed out!  I had bought an Ergo carrier a few months ago specifically so we could 'wear' Cami backpack style for hiking.  It was quite windy on the mountain so we all bundled up.  (Except Bryan!)

Cami's ready to go!

Jason & Alexa and Bryan & Cami

And we were off!  This is the beginning 'easier' part of the trail.

Cami is enjoying the mountain air.

 

Grandfather Trail



Quite comfortable riding along with daddy.

We came upon some more difficult parts of the trail.  Since it had rained the day before, everything was rather slippery so we all had to be extra careful with our footing.  Bryan and Jason made it up the rocks with the girls with no issues.

Slippery Rocks

 A few minutes later we came to the large sets of ladders.  You can see the three ladders we took straight up the side of the mountain.

That's a long way up!

 By this time we were about an hour into the hike and both Cami and Alexa decided to take naps.  Cami got a good 30-40 minute nap in.



Pretty view

Enjoying the mountain scene

Taking a break!

We finally reached the 'top' so to say.  Macrae's Peak, 5844 ft.  We climbed the ladder and and caught our breath for a bit on top of the big rock.

Headed to the top!

The 6 of us at the top of Macrae's Peak

On the hike back we had to stop and feed the girls.  By the time we got down to our last 30 minutes we could tell they had definitely had there fair share of fun and were ready to be done.  We hiked for a total of 2.5 hours and I was very impressed with how well behaved Cami was.  She seemed to enjoy the hike a lot! 



Time for my sunglasses!

For dinner, we drove to a nice steak restaurant and enjoyed some yummy prime rib!

Saturday April 28th

This was our last full day.  Since we had enough of hiking on Friday, the boys decided to play another round of golf so Emily and I decided to take the girl to blowing rock for the afternoon.  It was a rocky ride out there - 2 pitstops for diaper changes and a bottle but we eventually made it.  We walked around town, enjoyed lunch and ice cream.  I also pushed Cami in a big girl swing for about 15 minutes.  It was a nice afternoon.  On the way home, I felt like a mom of twins!  Both girls were cranky so I was feeding Cami a bottle with one hand and popping Alexa's paci in with the other.  It was a bit of a stressful ride, but they eventually fell asleep!



Cami in the big girl swing!



Sunday April 29th

Time to head home!  We left the house around 8:30 am for the fun drive home.  Cami took two 2 hour naps.  She also was a bit fussy towards the end because my poor baby was constipated.

Overall we had a great vacation!  We're looking forward to heading back when Cami is a bit older.