{Gettysburg}

We marked another thing off our bucket list, Gettysburg!!  We made plans with another family to spend Memorial Day weekend in Gettysburg, camping and soaking up history.  We made our reservations clear back in early March and it seemed like the holiday would never get here.  But alas it did and we were so excited.  We hadn't gone camping as a family for quiet sometime.  The boys have gone often with scouts and the Father and Son camp out, so us girls were feeling a bit left out.  We found a really great campground, fittingly named, Gettysburg Campground.  We got a couple of sites on the culdesac of the tent loop, and right up next to the creek.  It really was a beautiful spot to camp.  We also had perfect weather.  Cooler in the mornings/nights but nice and mild during the day.  Plus no rain, can't beat that!!

Ryan and the three younger kids went up earlier on Friday night and got camp all set up.  Ayden and I came up later once he returned from his Band trip to Busch Gardens.  As soon as we got to camp, Ayden hit his sleeping bag, he was one tired kid.  The next morning we started out by having our handy, dandy Boy Scout start us a fire.  In fact he pretty much made us every fire we had.  He is an expert now.  After breakfast and a little game of catch and learning to jump rope (not very successfully, I might add), we were off to check out the Gettysburg Visitor's center.

Once there, the kids got their Junior Ranger packets and we were off to explore and learn.  Part of the Junior Ranger program was the kids watching a video, getting to see the Cyclorama (pictures below) and going through the museum.  The museum chronicled the battle wonderfully and the kids really learned a lot.  Three hours later we left the Visitor's center much more knowledgeable about the Battle of Gettysburg.

After the Visitor's center we ventured out to walk around downtown Gettysburg.  We stopped for some ice cream and then found a neat little re-enactment camp and checked out a few things.  Once we were tired from walking around we headed back to camp to get started on dinner.  It was Ryan's birthday so we celebrated with a dessert of dutch oven Caramel Apple Crisp.  It was heaven!!  That night the campground put on a flashlight lollipop hunt, which the kids thought was really fun!!  On the agenda for tomorrow...the battle fields!!