Starve Hollow!

Last weekend our friends, The Campbells, introduced us to their favorite campground that we now love! Starve Hollow State Recreation Area is near Brownstown (east of Seymour, for you I65 travellers). It was truly the ideal spot for family time with kids. There are paved paths all over the campground which are great for biking and wagon rides, a small boat ramp right by our site was great for fishing and the boat dock, playground, beach and Nature Center were just a few minutes' walk away. We had gorgeous late summer weather, cool and crisp with fog all over the lake when we woke up one morning. Happily for me, our friends love to hike and we all took a 3.4 mile hike on Saturday afternoon. Abigail was carried by someone about half the time and Hannah slept some of the way in the Ergo carrier but overall the kids were troopers. The Campbell kids are 13, 10 and 6 and we couldn't ask for better, more eager helpers with our kids. They took Abigail fishing, helped her perfect her cast, took Hannah for wagon rides, fed her anything and everything she asked for and the big girls even dressed a wet, mad Hannah after her shower so that I could clean myself up! Some funny moments from the weekend:

** Saturday around 9:30pm, Abigail announced out of the blue, "Mommy, I need to go to my BED! I'm TIRED!!" No problemo, off to bed she went.

**On our hike, pretty deep into a meadow area of the woods, there was a lot of undergrowth. We smelled this very distinct, cucumber-y smell, sort of crisp, almost like mint but not quite. What a crazy description, I'm just sure you can imagine what I'm describing...anyway, Jennifer was reminded by the smell of a time when her brother and sister in law had been hiking and a guide had them stop and smell something and you'll never guess what it was. Turns out we were smelling the same thing, the calling card of a copperhead very close by! Andy noticed it and knew what it was but just kept us moving, not telling us until later that we were smelling exactly what the guide had told Jennifer's brother and sister in law about. Yikes!! Thank goodness, we never saw the snake.

** We now know, in no uncertain terms, that when Hannah is tired she wants to be in the Ergo on my FRONT, not my back, thankyouverymuch!

** Hannah and the Campbell's middle daughter had an all out mud fight (all in fun and silliness, not an actual fight) in the sandy/muddy beach. I've never seen two little girls get so dirty and couldn't believe the amount of sand in Hannah's diaper!

**We were treated to some great guitar music around the fire on Saturday night, courtesy of Chris!

We had a wonderful time and Andy and I have decided that it's high time we begin searching for career opportunities in the camping/outdoors field. Perhaps we could get paid to test campers or other equipment? If you know of any openings, please forward them to us ;-)