Birthday weekend : Camping in Mantua

No, it was not my birthday this weekend, I doubt I would ever plan a camping trip for my big day. Not because I don't love camping, only because my birthday falls in March and where I live, it's way too cold to spend the day outdoors, much less live in the wilderness for a few days. It was my gorgeous hubby's birthday and being an avid camper, it was only fitting we did that for his special day. We took Friday (his actual birthday) off of work and started out the celebrations with a steak dinner at our favorite restaurant, the Timbermine. As you can see from some of the pictures below, the Timbermine is a steak house built to look like an old mine, with old mining carts and equipment decorating the building. You sit in little booths outfitted with a lantern and if you request to sit in the Mine, you'll be treated to a flowing river with somewhat realistic looking miners as your companions for the evening. The food is nothing short of amazing; my hubby always opts for the bacon wrapped filet while I ping pong back and forth between the salmon or shrimp scampi. Delicious!

On Saturday, we got up early, packed all our stuff and since check at the campground wasn't until 2, spent our morning soaking at Crystal Springs. I've talked about the Springs in a previous post here. I'm not going to lie, I feel like I was just as spoiled this weekend as the birthday boy was with all the nice things we got to do! When we made it to the campground and set up camp, we took our bikes out for a spin.

We started out near our campground and while the surroundings were gorgeous it was canyon like climbs. My hubby seriously underestimated how out of shape I currently am (I know, I'm supposed to be training) until the look on my horribly winded face (and major complaining) finally made him stop and take stock of the situation.

He noticed the lake off in the distance and asked if I'd rather go ride there. I said anything had to be better than climbing a canyon (it really wasn't THAT bad) and off we went. As you can tell by the picture below, I was a much happy camper - haha - to ride around the relatively flat lake. Plus, the water was so beautiful, it made for a picturesque ride!

The following day we went back to the lake but this time we brought our raft and actually ventured into the water. We'd camped at this spot several times before but never went to the lake. I have no idea why, as the lake was absolutely beautiful!

As you can see my hubby did all of the work paddling us out onto the lake. I felt bad, because it was his birthday after all, but when I mentioned this to him he just looked at me and said "That's what husbands do." I don't think I could have gotten any luckier in the husband lottery, quite frankly!

We ended the trip with the best part of camping, a campfire! We roasted dogs and had s'mores and it was the perfect ending to a perfect trip! Luckily, we had to leave early early Monday morning and missed a major rainstorm!

I hope you guys had an absolutely awesome weekend no matter what you did!