Right before school started, Randy and I took the kids on a very-much-needed vacation. After our crazy summer and before our busy fall wedding season, we knew we wanted to go somewhere to just sit and relax, do some hiking, and maybe cross something off my bucket list. So, we decided to drive up to Sequoia National Park and go camping, and see the General Sherman in person. I don’t know why, but I’ve always wanted to go see that tree – ever since I was a little kid! And let me tell you, it did NOT disappoint!

I only had my “big camera” out a couple of times, so this is a mixture of Nikon and iPhone shots.

We spent four days by the river at this wonderful campground (Sequoia RV Ranch), attempting to fish, hiking, eating s’mores, talking and laughing and playing with the kids. It was one of the best vacations we’ve had, and I was genuinely sad when we left.

Disney Is Amazingly Talented

All I could think about when we were driving through the sequoias was that Disney was totally spot-on with their recreation of trees at their theme parks. It felt unreal, seeing these beautiful trees – which, by the way, are just insanely huge. They almost looked fake because they looked just like something you’d see on Splash Mountain!

Camping Trip Tip: Burn Sage

If you burn sage in your campfire, it will actually keep the bugs away! We had zero issues with flies, mosquitos or other creepy-crawlies while we were having our campfire. And the smell is pretty amazing, too.

General Sherman is a HUGE tree

The highlight of our trip was driving in to Sequoia National Park and making the trek to see the world’s biggest tree – the General Sherman. People from all over the world were there while we were visiting and the consensus is – it’s freakin’ awesome.

Side note: the forest is my happy face. This might be most favorite selfie of myself, ever. Ha!

Next time, the dogs stay home

One of the mornings we went fishing, we went to a little fishing hole that didn’t allow dogs. Now, the dogs LOVE being outside and splashing around … and they got vindictive about the fact we left them at home for a couple hours. When we came back, they had redecorated the RV and left little presents all over everywhere – including our bed and in our shoes. Thank God for bleach and Febreeze and a nice breeze that day!

I’ll spare you any photos of that. But here are four “should of taken us, sorry-not-sorry” faces.

#DontPunchTheBass

For those of you who follow me on Instagram, you probably saw this:

For those of you who don’t know, we aren’t real awesome fisher-people (as if that wasn’t glaringly obvious by now! Haha!). This was Randy and the kids’ first time ever fishing, and only my second or third time ever. My dad gave Randy a quick lesson before we left, but it didn’t help – we caught nothing but branches and entire trees (yeah, I caught an entire TREE with my lure. Twice.). We definitely didn’t have a cool spincaster or anything, haha! Bu,t you can find a great one here – https://www.globosurfer.com/best-spincast-reels/

And no my dad – who is an experienced fisherman – definitely did not tell Randy to punch the fish; he learned that watching TV while I was in the hospital (thank you, Alaskan Bush People). And thus, #dontpunchthebass was born!

But really, we spent most of the time just swimming in the river – which was SO much fun! It was actually really warm too – which I was surprised about. I was expecting it to be absolutely freezing cold.

It really was the best way to end our summer! But now we ask …

Where should we go next???