I decided to embrace being a boy mom and said yes to tent camping. All 5 of us. With a forecast of storms. So glad I did. I want to work on saying yes more. Yes to more memories and bonding!
The boys fell asleep driving down which meant they wanted to tent wrestle instead of sleep Friday night . Aunt Connie and David kept us company while we set up camp. We did s'mores and explored our site before calling it a night. Everyone slept great (after going to sleep at 10!) and we were up at 6 am to start the day! We learned to move the cooler in the car at night, as a racoon snuck our bacon out of our cooler during the night :).
On Saturday we had coffee, pancakes, and eggs for breakfast then spent the day enjoying nature. We picked flowers, created swords out of sticks, threw rocks in the water, sat our chairs by the lake and looked for boats....just enjoyed being. This was hardest for Carter, he's very much a do-er. Isaac is more of my free spirit and loved the unstructured playtime in nature. B was happy to be held and be outside all day!! Nana and Papa came out and played for a couple of hours (and brought bacon!), it was nice to have company! We went on a family hike and then saw a storm coming in so came back to camp. Although rain was forecasted most of the day, it held off but was cloudy=perfect camping weather! We did head to the tent to wait out a quick, but intense storm. The rain fly held, the storm passed, kids thought it was fun to tackle in the tent and it was quick. Came back out to clear skies so Caleb made a fire and we had hot dogs and another round of s'mores! Caleb made a great fire but it had nothing on the storms. We got ready for bed and the rain started. And didn't stop! It was a night of storms, lots of wind and thunder and lightning. The boys did awesome! Mama, not so much. Let's just say it's a good thing I didn't know a tornado warning was issued or we would have left all our camping gear to charity and high tailed it out of there. But we didn't. And Caleb gave me lots of grace, and we survived. Really, with all the lightning and the tent closing in on us with the winds, I am shocked the boys stayed sleeping! I told Caleb I felt like I was Jesus' disciples thinking we were going to die...and in this case, Caleb was like Jesus...no worry at all. Except he isn't God and can't calm the storm. So I just prayed all night God would protect us, and He did. Praise Him!
I'm embracing being a camping family.
