The most expensive camping trip EVER

We attempted to take the kids camping over Labor day weekend up in North Georgia, specifically Unicoi State park near Helen, GA. Tom had a meeting in Atlanta after labor day so we went with him. The first night there we set up the camp, tried to walk to the beach to swim in the lake and ended up getting caught in a rain storm. Luckily we were close to a visitor center so we got to sit in on a session on black bears. Ask Savannah, she will tell you exactly what to do if she sees a black bear. After our black bear lesson we went back to the campsite to make a fire. Wellll... everything was wet so a fire didn't happen. About 10 minutes later the skies opened up and it poured. Our tents didn't hold water too well and the tentsite was in about 2 inches of water. We had accidentally left the window open earlier when it rained so things were already wet. We decided about 8 to give up on the camping and go stay in the lodge. Turns out it wasn't too much more than a campsite so we stayed for both nights! Camping was going to be an adventure with the three kids but I think they enjoyed the lodge because they have PBS and they got to watch Curious George! We did get to visit Anna Ruby Falls and get in the lake a little bit. We tried to explore Helen but it was drizzling and everyone was hungry so it didn't last all that long either.

 We left Sunday morning and stopped in Macon for some coffee and doughnuts!

Here are some pics from Anna Ruby falls. It was beautiful!

We headed to town and then went to the Cabbage Patch hospital/store. Let's just say we felt bad not buying a doll for Savannah. She did get to watch a cabbage patch doll be born and enjoyed that!

 We found this little girl named Ella Jane. Pretty close to Ellie Jayne!

 Savannah holding the new baby that was just born. Her middle name was picked by Savannah. She chose Jayne!

It was a beautiful building with a great view in the back.

We also headed to Truett-McConnell College to watch their baseball practice. A good friend just got the head coaching job there and moved from Savannah. Tom enjoyed seeing him and Isaiah LOVED watching the baseball practice. He was cheering while they were working on delayed steals, hillarious!

We had fun at the Atlanta Zoo (which was free thanks to the library zoo pass!).

We got to see them feed the gorillas and it was really cool! They are such cool animals!

The kids and I got to hang out with some great friends in Atlanta while Tom was at his meeting. We love Eny and Carson so much and miss seeing their faces around Savannah and CBC. Eny is so wonderful with the kids and helped me walk all 3 kids to the park to play!

Overall, we had a ton of fun but did end up spending more than we thought we would for a camping trip with lodging, food, events and gas. Would we do it again, in a heartbeat. We might skip the tents next time and go straight for the lodge!