This was 100% the most perfectly fantastic vacation in every way. My heart was so full of peace and joy the whole time! All of the hard work and efforts to organize the food, clean the house prepare our meals for when we arrive home, all of it was so worth it!!
Day One: A Perfect morning and a rainy car ride
I prepared everything for an early departure the day before, so I could go for a swim in the morning! Fortunately, I had two little helpers because even with breaking up the tasks over a couple of days, it was a lot of work!! My plan worked out fantastically, I had an amazing swim in the morning, all of the kids ate something for breakfast, both four-year-oldsand did a poop (every mom knows this is a win before a car trip with toddlers!!), the boys were cheerful and helpful and we actually left 30 minutes ahead of schedule on a rainy Friday morning!!
About 30 minutes into the trip, it was time for snack number one! My planning strategy is always to do a higher protein snack first to aid in satiety. So, the girls split an EPIC Bison Bar and the boys each had their own. Everyone was happy and satisfied for about 1 hour. Maddy even fell asleep for a little while!!
I stretched the time with thankful hour. Every hour an alarm went off and everyone had to say one thing they were thankful for. The rest of the time was filled with Cameron and William asking “how much further?” every other minute!! It was awesome! Fortunately, the rain drowned out the noise of most of the whining!
Lunch was the big hit of the day! That is, once the issue of not being able to open the box was sorted out!!
I tried to stretch it as far into the 5 ½ hour trip as possible because I knew it would take them a while to eat what I had planned! The goal of the lunches is always to encourage blood sugar balance!
The lunchbox menu included: Carrot sticks Cherry tomatoes Olives (black and green) Clementines A hot dog from Miller’s Organic Farm A seed flour trail cookie Simple Mills Rosemary and Sea Salt Almond Flour Crackers
We arrived around 2:30 with plans to come into town at 4:00 and meet up with my good friend and former adventure racing teammate Tom Baker. We met up at a cool new brewery in Dillsboro, NC. The kids were pumped to go out to eat and get some ice cream! Seeing Tom filled me with so much joy as he holds a big piece of my heart. It was a great pleasure to introduce my kids to him!! The restaurant was farm-to-table and had some great grass-fed burgers. That was the choice for all. The girls had never had a bun with their burger and did not want anything to do with it. The boys on the other hand mowed through their own and the girls’ burgers. In fact, Cameron decided he wanted his burger for breakfast and decided to take it home! I was too excited and busy talking to eat!
After dinner, we went over to an old ice cream shop and antique/consignment store and the kids each had a scoop of homemade ice cream! The night was a blast… day 1 was a complete success!!
Day Two: Starting the day off right!
I started the second day of vacation with a fantastic workout using my Pelvicore ball and a little lunge and squat matrix combo. It was a great start to the morning! After breakfast, I packed lunches for our excursion later in the day and a couple of snacks for the hike and we set off.
Cameron is holding up one of his coveted Coconut Chia Bars that he traded his candy for at Halloween. These are really satisfying bars if you are looking for a convenient and healthy snack for the kids! They are all wearing the Vivobarefoot Kids shoes!! I highly recommend them! In fact, you can find a discount code, just for you at the bottom of this post!
The original plan was to do an easy hike down along a river with some fun stream crossings and end up at tree houses. Instead, my little adventurers wanted to climb.
They ended up climbing about 1 mile of very steep terrain, passing a beautiful waterfall, and learning a lot about what they had in them! In fact, at several points, William kept saying this is really awesome! I just want to keep going and going!
Annabelle made it almost all the way to the top before her little legs could not take any more climbing. I carried her the rest of the way on my shoulders.
Maddy crushed the whole thing!! Because I thought we were only going on a short hike, I packed just a couple of dried apples and half a seed bar. So, when we got to our snack stop, fortunately, three out of four kids thought it was funny that I said we had to ration our snacks and they could only get one dried apple and a bit of bar each. Cameron was not amused!! 🙂
Once we got to the top of the trail we had to hike down the mountain and find the cabin. We posed for a quick picture… three out of four readies for the picture is always a win!!
Maddy wanted William to carry her (she LOVES William!!) and he did a really good job! It definitely added another source of laughter and distraction from the task of finding the house!
Discount Code:
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These shoes let your kid’s feet move, feel and react to the environment. This early stimulus is key for proper development! So, skip the rigid hiking boots and heeled shoes and go with the flexible, durable and responsive Vivobarefoot Kids shoes!!
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