Family Campout

The boys and I decided to surprise Brandon for Father's day and take him camping. We got rained out last weekend so rescheduled for this weekend. The boys had been talking about this for 2 weeks and couldn't wait to get there!! We got to our camping site Friday after lunch, set up our tent and then went down to the lake for swimming. The boys LOVE the beach and swimming! Later that afternoon, Grandpa, Grandma and Uncle BT showed up with Grandpa's fishing boat. Nathan and Brandon went for a ride but Brady decided he was having too much fun playing in the sand to take a ride. Nathan really enjoyed the boat and was very sad to have to return to shore! Then we headed over to our campsite and started dinner - we had hotdogs to cook and Grandpa brought yummy ribs to heat up! YUMMY!!! Storm clouds had been lingering overhead for several hours but now they were getting darker and more mysterious! Just as we were finishing heating our dinner, we heard the rain approaching! We had about 30 sec. to grab our food and head for our van and their suburban to finish eating our meal. The storm was a fierce one with lots of high wind and rain. We waited it out for about 45 minutes and then noticed our tent had twisted and collapsed from all the rain. It had also flooded inside. Hmmm, keep in mind this is our 11yr old tent and not in very good condition! Thankfully, we had kept most everything in the van in case of rain, so we were in pretty good shape. So, we headed home (which is only 20min away), cooked our s'mores over our chiminea and then made the boys a special tent in their room and told camping stories. It was GREAT fun!!

The next morning, we woke up and headed back to the lake to clean up our campsite and tent and then we spent the rest of the morning/afternoon at the beach playing. It was a perfect weekend for all of us!! I got to sleep in the COOLness and comfort of my bed and the Lord made it very pleasant both days thanks to the rain storm! One of these days the boys will actually get to sleep in a tent at a real campsite instead of just our backyard and living room!! Well, maybe next summer. This mommy is getting a little too hot and uncomfortable for anymore adventures in camping this summer... but it was ALL WORTH every minute of memories!!