farewell to summer

I was recently looking through some of our old blog posts and I realized that there are a lot of things that get recorded on here, but nowhere else. It made me recommit to blogging regularly, but we shall see how long that actually lasts. It also made me want to fill in the events of our life, even if those events aren't always very exciting.

The weekend before Brennan's classes started we decided to have one last hoorah to send the summer out in style. And oh what a hoorah it was. Ha. We went camping in Jones counting with my parents and Crystal and Rich and the kids. It was right before the kids started school as well so it really was our farewell to summer. We really didn't do much, but it was still enjoyable. Brennan, Rich, and Caden did quite a bit of fishing but unfortunately didn't catch a thing. We played so Kubb and frisbee. My mom made her usual delicious foil dinners, Brennan made some dutch oven peach cobbler, and we had some banana boats. So we certainly ate enough! Once it was dark we had a grand old time trying to scare each other. I realized one of the benefits to being pregnant. When you're camping and your dad has two sleeping mats and your mom is opting to sleep in the car, you are next in line to get the extra mat. Score! It actually really helped I think. I don't remember being uncomfortable anyway.

I guess it rained sometime in the wee hours of the morning. Once I thought I saw lightening but when I didn't hear any thunder or rain I figured I was imagining it and went back to sleep. But our tent (dad, Brennan, Caden, and I) got up to find everyone from the other tent (minus Rich) trying to sleep in the van! Apparently there was quite a storm so they all took cover in the vehicle and left the rest of us to fend for ourselves. (But really, how bad could the storm have been?? NONE of us even noticed it was raining! Chickens.)

The best event of the trip involves Macy and her bike. Just earlier that week she had mastered her two wheeler so they brought her bike and one adult bike. She was anxious to show off her new found talent to the rest of us. Our campsite was on the inside of a horseshoe-shaped road which was slightly sloped. Macy and Crystal were riding around on the road and when they were coming back toward our campsite (on the decline) we heard Crystal saying "brake, brake". I really didn't think anything of it, but then I look up to see Macy flying toward us in the grass, her feet OFF the petals and a look of terror on her face. My dad was sitting in a camping chair and Macy was literally headed straight for him and really rather quickly. Crystal's call to "brake" got louder and at the last possible second Brennan, the only one standing, ran over and grabbed Macy's handlebars right before she ran into dad. She was scared to death. Right after he stopped her she just breathlessly whispered, "thanks". After the shock wore off we all got a real good laugh out of it. The look on her face was priceless. Apparently she was only used to riding on flat surfaces so she was accustomed to just slowing down and stopping when she veered into the grass. When that didn't happen she wasn't sure how to get her feet back on the pedals or what on earth to do. Poor girl.

Now that I have written a novel, here are some pictures. Too bad I didn't get a picture of the bike incident. :)
Macy was Papa's little helper in setting up the tent.
Just chillin'. Enjoying the great outdoors.
We decided to play charades in the dark. We used a little lantern and the Eskelsens had some crazy glasses with lights on them. They were quite handy to the one wearing them, but rather blinding to anyone else. Good times.

Considering that was the only camping trip we managed to fit in this year, it was kind of pathetic. Pretty short and not much to it. But I'm still glad we got to head out at least once and I still had a lot of fun.