Camping Weekend

Jason took Friday off in all hopes of taking the family on their first (not my first) camping trip. Friday morning Ella woke up feeling quite ill to her stomach. She was laying around, falling asleep and had a fever, but by midmorning she was running around feeling well and wanting to go camping! So we debated and decided to give it a try. We just went to a very close campsite Chain o Lakes State Park, so we could bail if things didn't go well.

In a nutshell, it was pretty hot and muggy and felt kinda yucky and dirty and sweaty. We both got some reading done. We found out the kids COULD sleep in sleeping bags in a tent. We saw some cicadas who had recently hatched from their old skins. Jason cooked. We made smores.

But the exciting highlights were: We witnessed our camp neighbors get busted for alcohol. Not allowed at state parks! We were awakened on the second night by rain (we were sleeping without the fly because no rain was predicted) and quickly got the fly on as we heard a nearby tree crash down. We were awakened again at about 2 am when some park employees started up their chain saws to get the downed tree out of the way of our neighbor's "driveway". I must pause to say that after I heard that tree crash, which just added to the drama of the winds and us trying half asleep to quickly put the fly on, I was ready to get out of there. I could not sleep again until the storms stopped scared to death the whole time that a tree would fall on our tent and all the possible implications of that. But we are ok. We are all cleaned up (though still ridden with mosquito bites) and all of our gear is close to being put away and organized. I think. Back to civilization and not feeling like a sweaty dirty pig!

And... tonight I somehow was able to persuade Miles to sleep in the big boy bed! It was so sweet. When I sang "You are My Sunshine" to him, he'd lean up and kissed me on the "you make me happy" part. Makes up for all those times I ask for a kiss and he says "no!" We have great kids.