Church Camping

Last weekend a number of families from my church all went camping together. We stayed at the Greenwood Furnace State Park, which was only a 40 minute drive from my place--very convenient. For the most part, everyone had their own campsite and prepared their own meals. I was able to share a site (and meals) with Jeff and Kathy, a couple from one of my small groups. As a LARGE group, we had the opportunity to do other activities together...like hiking! On Saturday, right after breakfast, about a dozen of us decided to hike to the fire tower. It was listed as being a 6-mile trek (there and back), with an estimated 4 hour hike time. However, we somehow didn't notice the "moderate to difficult" rating until after we got back.

We got up to the fire tower in a couple of hours and had a nice break. Some of us were even daring enough to climb up the tower to see the amazing view...






The trip back to camp, although mostly downhill, was even harder than going up...KNEES!!! We also had a little issue trying to find one of the trails. Thankfully, God sent a couple of hiking angels to guide our way. Although the trip turned out to be more challenging than we expected, and took us a lot longer to finish (6 hours) than we had planned, I think most of us enjoyed the experience. (Right now I'm even looking to buy a new pair of hiking boots for my next excursion.)

Jeff, Kathy and I met up with the other family from our small group when we finally made it back to the campgrounds. We made dinner together followed by roasted marshmallows and s'mores by the campfire. We even caught a glimpse of a few of the Perseid meteors.

Sunday was a bit more relaxing. After a good night's sleep, we had a yummy pancake breakfast and then Kathy and I walked over the the furnace ruins. We returned for lunch and then had to pack-up camp. I had planned to stick around a little after Jeff and Kathy left to do some relaxing and nature enjoying, but was so hot and tired that I decided to go home as soon as my car was all loaded up. All in all, I had a great time and was reminded of how much I like camping. I also got a number of ideas for some additional camping equipment I'll be looking to buy in the near future...maybe at some summer-ending sales???

Coupon Queen

If you know me at all, you probably know how much I like to get a good deal. One major benefit of living in State College is that my grocery store will double (and occasionally TRIPLE) coupons. After about a year, I have my food shopping down to an art. A few of months ago I even upgraded from the envelope-style coupon organizer to the binder. I display the coupons in baseball card sleeves so that you can flip through the pages and see everything. I got this idea from another savvy shopper I met at the store. She even suggested that I organize the coupons in the order of the aisles...something I'm still in the process of re-doing since they rearranged things at my grocery store not too long ago.

Here are a few of my proud moments at the check-out lane:




Amazingly, I walked out of the store on these days only paying 22-30% of the retail price of my items.

More Pics from SD trip

I just transferred some pictures onto my computer from a CD Scott burned for me. Unfortunately, the batteries in my camera died while I was out there so I had to rely on him and my parents for most of the photo taking. I did grab my parents' camera a few times to take a few shots myself.

First family foto:


Nana and Papa with the grandkids:


Is that a smirk I see?


Pee-a-boo!


Auntie Jenn with Rylee and Ethan: