Sometimes I wonder what other people think when they see us. Especially on Sundays. Let’s face it – most people go to a campground on the weekend to get away. A mini vacation is just what some (okay, a lot) of us need after a stressful week. Pull out the camper, pack up the s’mores, buy the firewood and off they go! Everyone else sits around the campfires in the evenings, or plays games by the lantern light on the picnic table. The family next to us tonight is even having an outdoor movie night. Something Christmas-y.
We’re different. Most of the time we’re inside at night (hopefully that will change come summer). We rarely build a fire and roast s’mores because I hate everyone climbing into their sheets smelling like smoke (I just washed those!). We don’t go the campground to get away, because, well, we ARE away.
We are living, and part of that living includes going to 3 hours of church every Sunday. We don’t just believe our faith, we LIVE it. So we go. We shower the kids Saturday night, and Sunday morning (hopefully not TOO early) the girls put on the dresses, the boys don their ties and we drive anywhere from 10 minutes to 45 minutes to the closest LDS meeting house.
One Sunday afternoon in a particularly remote campsite, Sam decided to call his mom to catch up, and since we didn’t get very good cell reception went roaming the campground in his white shirt & tie trying to get a signal. He walked past the couples lounging in shorts and t-shirts outside their campers, past those in swimsuits on their way to the beach, and the families with smaller children out riding their bikes. He didn’t think twice about it until he got back and said to me, “I wonder if everyone else thinks we are really weird?”
Maybe they do, but this is our life. We are going to live it.
Although everyone on Facebook had gushed over how Savannah, Georgia was their favorite city and we just HAD to visit, I didn’t want to. I was tired of city. We needed something else and I just couldn’t be tourist that day. Cobblestone streets and old houses were not going to do it for me. Just outside of Savannah, Georgia, however, is Tybee Island. As it is just a short hop from 
We have visited nearly all our beaches in the off-season, and Tybee Island was no exception. Plentiful parking, few people, beautiful sand, and wide open spaces. It was chilly enough that I didn’t want to get in the water, but our kids had no such reservations.
We started 2013 not at home, but in Denver, Colorado. A wedding shoot for Jess on the 28th of December turned into a weeklong trip through the snowy mountains of Western Colorado to Denver for the New Year. Jess took pictures, Sam worked remotely, and we explored Denver.