A long awaited trip to the Benner home place!

Kali wasn't home 3 full days before she had to be packed for the next adventure. That said, this one didn't include 4 airplane rides, multiple suitcases or saying goodbye to us! After not being together at Jason's parents' home since before Covid (and I had not been there at all), we had cooked up a Benner family camping weekend in Pennsburg. What a disappointment to miss out on being with Jason's brother and his family, due to Covid visiting their household just days before our planned gathering. We were so looking to all being together.

The highlights of our time together did NOT include the travel to or fro. I really dislike traveling on 81. On our way up we had to detour onto 11 for awhile due to a really bad accident and on our way home those going north were delayed due to another accident. I felt so grateful for safety on the roads!

It took us until nearly 3 p.m. Friday to get the animals and gardens set for our short absence. So that, along with the traffic delays and a really annoying stop at Chipotle for supper, had us landing in Pennsburg at nightfall (that was not our plan, nor was forgetting the screens for our canopy). We were so relieved and thankful that a large tent had been found AND set up for us to have as a possible alternate sleeping location. Once aired out, it was perfect for the five of us - the roomiest tent I've ever slept in for sure. It all went up from there!

We packed our time there full of gabbing, eating, cousin snuggles and play time, swinging, swimming, more gabbing, more eating, a scavenger hunt, an outdoor movie, Kali sharing photos from her trip, fun cooking experiments over the fire, roasting s'mores and more. And all of this was done with the absolute perfect weather for gathering outside - plenty of sunshine, breezy, cool nights for snuggling in our sleeping bags, very few bugs... We couldn't have placed a better order if that was possible to do! Here's a smattering of images from our time together

The food highlight for us was cooking flatbreads over the fire in our pie irons. Emily and Jonas introduced us to "bread on a stick" which was great! But even topping that was putting some butter in the pie iron and some dough. We will be doing that again! We also enjoyed some more Filipino snacks Kali had brought home to share!

The time to depart came awfully fast, but it was enough fun crowded into a short amount of time to at least wear out our littlest. This is what happened not too far into our journey home! 

There's already a Benner conversation thread going about all meeting up for the 2024 total solar eclipse. :)