Camping

This weekend we went camping again, where our friends reserved the entire loop of a campground.  It was so fun to be there with all the other homeschooling families!  This year Nathan and Luke had to be at the running club they are volunteering with at a local elementary school Friday afternoon, so they drove up separately.  Having 2 vans made it *so* much nicer.  Since we no longer have even 1 extra seat in the big van if we all go somewhere, there is really no way on earth we could have fit everything in.  Now we'll never be able to go back to just one vehicle, LOL.  Well--maybe in a few years.

We tried a slightly different tent configuration, with the 2 tents perpendicular to each other.  It was fine, but really, when you have 2 huge tents, there's no way to configure them where they don't take up a ton of room!

We had thought that this would be Nathan's last camping trip, but with him going to VT, then he possibly will be able to come next year too.  Nathan and Luke really liked driving up later--to a campsite that was already set up!

When we drove up, Bob saw a big dead log by the entrance to our loop.  He went back to it with a few of the boys (but not Nathan and Luke, since they weren't there yet), and Caleb and Daniel McC carried it back to our site.   We had brought a reciprocating saw, which we could plug in since our site has electricity, so Nathan cut the log into chunks and then split each chunk, using his wood-splitting skills he learned at WSS. We had plenty of firewood!

I spent a lot of time at the camp stove, since we eat the same prodigious amount of food camping that we do at home.  Maybe more, since the fresh air makes everyone hungry!  We are still borrowing the L's faithful campstove--just like camping in Colorado 18 years ago.  Ahh, the memories . . .

I wasn't anti-social, I guess, but I mainly just stayed at our campsite and let people come over to me to visit, which was really nice.  Caleb, Nathan, and Luke stuck around our site mostly, so it was really nice to just hang out with them.  I also finished the book I was reading, Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.  It is rare that a book lives up to its hype, but I really enjoyed this book.  Her writing was so descriptive.  It was also all in the present tense, which normally I don't care for, but in this case, it made it seem more dream-like or something.  A very basic plot is that a girl and a boy are locked into a magic competition of sorts, and the circus is where this competition plays out.  What was very unexpected for me was how much I identified with the main character, Celia, at the end.  She was just so very weary of holding everything together, which is how I have felt this whole year.  Not that I really am holding everything together, thankfully, but just keeping track of everyone's stuff, schedule, etc.  Anyhow, it was a great book for a relaxing weekend.

Verity did pretty well.  The first night was really cold (although not as cold as the first year we camped!), but she slept okay.  Every so often she would cry out, particularly if someone else had made noise (*cough* Micah, who needed to go potty twice during the night . . . ), but she always went back to sleep, so I didn't have to nurse her.  Three years ago, Drew was up all the time because it was so cold, and he bit me so very hard that it took weeks for me to recover.   That was my hugest fear, and I'm so thankful that didn't happen again.

This weekend was the last hurrah for the yellow bumbo, though.  I put a ton of duct tape on it so it would last, and it did (barely), but now we must say goodbye.  It has served well.  Thanks, Melinda!

The boys perfected using tortillas in the pie iron.  They were folding them like professionals!  This one has left-over taco meat and cheese from the potluck we had Saturday night.

Drew was a little stinker (a cute one, though).  He wandered more than any other child we have ever had, so he was always turning up in other campsites on the other side of the loop from us.  Micah mainly hung out with the bigger girls, of which there was a little pack running around together the whole time.  I guess next year Drew will go with them more?  He was sure a filthy dirty little boy by the end though.  He and Micah did play with all our little digging and construction toys a lot.  He wore that sweatshirt all the time, even on Sunday when it got quite warm.  He loved it!

When we left on Friday, no one had been sick since Wednesday (Grace), and we were all relived to have this behind us.  I was able to finish testing Anna and Grace Wednesday afternoon (Anna) and Thursday (Grace), so we were able to mail off the big package before we left on Friday (yay!).  But Friday night after we had all just gone to bed, Caleb threw up almost at the bathroom.  He never threw up again, but he didn't eat much Saturday.  Now tons of other families that were camping are sick, even ones we had nothing to do with.  But hey, feel free to blame us for any sickness you now have, or ever will, whether or not you were even anywhere near us.  It makes it so much better when you can blame someone, and we'll be the sacrificial scapegoats for single-handedly bringing the plague to everyone in Northern VA.  Other than that, it was a great weekend, and we are very sorry for anyone who is sick.  Hopefully it will pass quickly.