Last Weekend

Finding the time and energy for blogging during the summer is difficult. I have good intentions every. single. day. but then, as it does, time gets away from me. Sometimes the kids do or say something that is too cute or too unbelievable and I make a "mental note" to post about it but then....it's gone from my head. Sad. I have a feeling I am missing some really good sharing moments. *sigh*

I've been meaning to post about our (past) weekend and the fun times that took place right in our own backyard. I have to say, Dakota wins the "Fun Mom" award hands down.

Dakota and I had talked briefly about possibly setting up the giant camping tent for a "camping in the yard weekend" - it's a regular summer occurrence here and we all love it. The weather, at the time we talked about it, wasn't supposed to get too hot. Yeah - wasn't *supposed* to but did just the same. :)

So Friday afternoon, in 90+ degree heat, the kids and I lugged out the heavy tent bag and I got to work setting it up. The kids "helped" by sitting on patio chairs screaming in happiness and yelling "Is it ready yet?" about a zillion times. As I mentioned, the tent is huge...the paperwork says it sleeps 10...but it is easy enough for me to set up alone. It takes about 40 minutes from start to finish and then it took about 20 more minutes to blow up air mattresses, unroll sleeping bags and lug out the many "necessary" supplies for the kids (books, flashlights, pillows, buddies, cups, etc.). Kaylen was still pretty sick and cranky so that was an extra added bonus. (We figured it was still worth moving ahead with fun plans since we were stuck at the house anyway and being outside and playing camping was a great distraction for all of us.)

Within an hour, the three of us were sprawled out on the camping beds reading books. I didn't put the rain fly on (bad move on my part) so shade was non-existent. Once it got too hot, Kelton gave up and went inside. No such luck for Kaylen. I was sweating bullets. I ended up rigging a temporary shady area over one of the beds so while it was still hot as hell, at least we weren't getting sunburned. :)

Once Dakota got home, the fun really started. She made a fun camping-type dinner and then we made s'mores over the BBQ (well, the three of them. I'm not a fan of the s'more). The kids had wanted a fire in the fire pit but it was already getting quite late. Thankfully, they agreed to roasting them over the grill.

We got the kids cleaned up and in their pj's and, after five trips to and from the house for various things, finally they settled into their sleeping bags. And about that time, the neighbors decided it was time to crank their music. Lovely. (I have to say I am not a fan of listening to other people's music. I find it incredibly rude and disrespectful.) Kaylen, still sick and very tired, fell right to sleep. Kelton couldn't. He asked to go back in the house to sleep and was out cold in about 2.5 seconds after crawling into his bed.

Dakota and I hooked up the laptop in the tent and watched a couple episodes of Boston Legal, Season 2 which we Netflixed. (I am loving that show so much!! But that's a post for another day...if I can remember to do it. Hee hee!) And oh yeah - we had ice cream, too. The evening was so warm and it was a perfect way to end the busy week.

I slept in the tent with Kaylen all night (and I have to say, it's a noisy world out there at night and the fireworks at 11:30pm and again at 4:30am certainly didn't help).

Saturday morning held the promise of another hot day (95 degrees). Dakota started putting together a game course that she had dreamed up sometime on Friday (she even stopped by the store and picked up party-type prizes). It was great!! I don't know where all her imagination comes from but she rocked it! There was a sack race, a three-legged race, an obstacle course, fishing, adventure trail hike, treasure dig, bugs and bat game (kind of like Mother May I..only...not) and a river crossing. It took a good two hours to go through everything (while still taking breaks for the cranky girl to rest and for everyone to get out of the heat and into some shade). The kids had an absolute blast!! They were completely into every single part of it and handled each challenge well. I snapped about 200 photos. :)









The rest of the day we spent just hanging out and reading and before we knew it, bedtime had rolled around. This time, neither child could settle down and we all ended up back in the house.

Sunday afternoon, much to everyone's unhappiness, we cleaned out the tent, took it down and put it back in the garage. It was a great "camping weekend". Here's hoping we have time to do it at least once more before the end of summer (which is coming faster than any of us care to think. Just a few more weeks before Dakota heads back to school and then, a week after that, off goes Kelton for all day school. Time moves way too fast.).

Today is a much cooler day. I'm tempted to set the tent up again. We'll see. :)