Camping Out or a Zombie and a Whirling Dervish

 

We thought we'd ease into family camping, by camping out the Friday night before Father's Day, in Uncle Dan & Aunt Kristine's West Richland backyard. We invited ourselves. We had no idea that their house addition had turned things upside-down. Graciously, they'd welcomed us and set up a killer fire-pit for s'mores and things.

Bryce and Deacon were impressed by Colton's array of outdoor toys (Deacon pretended to ride the four wheeler for oh so long). When Colton and the neighbor boys brought out his remote control race car for a game of case you could have heard the pleased squeals of joy for miles! (It made me almost long for our own culdesac and yards and yards of pavement.) Before dark we got our new tent set-up (a great Costco deal), and ate pizza by the fire and then got ready for s'mores--which were so, so good, and we accidentally let the kids stay up at least two hours past bedtime . . .

Everything went down hill from that one novice camper mistake. First of all, can I just say that I have no idea why my husband ever listens me. I had insisted that I didn't want to sleep on a cot or an air mattress. I said that one night of sleep the tent floor in my sleeping bag would be fine. Well, throw in Deacon doing his best and most accurate impression of a whirling dervish and you wind up with the most dreadful night's sleep I can ever remember. The frosting was that though he went to bed well after the sun, Deacon woke up with the sun, no doubt to resume whirling. I pulled out all the tricks up my sleeve: covering my head with my sleeping bag, telling Deacon to cover his head with his sleeping bag, finally sending Deacon into the house to play (aren't I great guest).

It turned out that I went to bed a normal human being, and woke up a barely civil zombie. I think I talked to people, I might have smiled out of habit once or twice. Regrettably for all involved Phil didn't leave me in the car when we arrived at cousin, Kade's, house for a lovely barbecue in honor of Father's Day. It was all I could do to not fall asleep standing up. I tried to converse with others, but should have just stuck my head in a water barrel and called it good. Phil's gracious sister did up a lovely, long post full of photos, here; it was a lovely day (cool and breezy) with delicious food and homemade pies. I'm family so they have to invite me to things again, but now at least they'll know to have a water barrel handy.