Friday night we loaded up the pups and met Toad-Boy and & for a night out among the stars. & wanted the kids to get a camping experience and boy did they get one. Nearly every camping condition I've ever had was condensed into one 14 hour trip.
Case in point? Boy tent, girl tent. The girl tent was bigger so the two little girls, & and I also had the company of all four canine girls. Cozy.
First camping issue. We all descended at nearly the same time coming from three locations and we were all running a bit late. Not almost dark late but late enough that by the time the tents were up and the fire roaring it was way past dinner time.
Then the mosquitoes. Whoa baby. The mosquitoes. They have been so bad this year because of all the rain we've gotten. Friday was brutal. The smoke took some of the edge off and and then we had a lovely breeze blow in. The rain tarps started flapping and the mosquitoes disappeared.
We had a lovely time around the blazing fire pit and enjoying some fun drop in company (the neighbors, aka my parents, and my brother and almost sister-in-law and their cutie 4 year old joined us later.) We camped in my folk's pasture just a tall grass hop, skip and quarter mile to the bathroom. & prepped the meals veggie dogs, chips, fruit and carrots and celery sticks for dinner, vegan marshmallows and dark chocolate smores for treats and veggie sausage, hash browns and cinnamon coffee cake for breakfast. The easiest camping trip I've ever been on. In the middle of the evening & leaned over and said. "Thanks for all those years I had no clue how involved the mom things like camping and vacations were."
The sky was so clear we got some stargazing in. Lovely evening.
We finally got to bed around 11:15 p.m. My 4 year old nephew chose the comfort of Grandma and Pas house. (Wise child : )) I regretted immediately not accepting the blow up mattress that was offered to me. After all the pups got settled, and I almost found a comfortable spot to sleep on we started drifting off at 11:45. The settling took a little time and there were some moments of frustration. Like Gladys kept getting crazy feet and leaping about the tent. &'s oldest got her face puppy stomped and there was some weeping. Also, the day had been a hot one so the tent with all those bodies was warm. Very warm.
At what was maybe 2:00 a.m. or 3:00 the thunder started. We've been having this weird rumbly thunder this year. It just goes on and on. So I exited from my semi-sleep to rumbling, knowing that rain was a 50% possibility. Flashes lit up the distant sky. Maybe we'd miss the storm.
Then the rain came. So much rain. For about a half hour it poured. So heavy that it penetrated the rain fly a bit and my sleeping bag got soaked from the side of the tent. Oh and so glad there was a tarp between us and the ground because water rushed under the tent.
When it stopped we drifted back off to sleep. Mostly.
The pups had a great time and they were excellent. I was uber impressed. They ran around like crazies but not too far and came back when we called them. And they slept well. I mean a few face stomps is minimal. Zero accidents occurred unless you consider face stomping an accident. No doubt we will repeat this little adventure. Because the ability to forget things like ugh and pain and work because of the payoff of fun and family makes us able to romanticize things like childbirth, road trips and camping. Ha. Ha.
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