We're Just a Little Backwoodsy

An unusual series of events happened this weekend - First, the weather cooled down from "melt your face off" to "downright pleasant". Also, we realized we were, yet again, going to miss our church camp-out this month, which would surely break Blue's heart. Thirdly, Red had to spend some time working on Saturday, which is usually his play with the kids day. Additionally, earlier in the week I managed to douse our yard in twice the recommended amount of fire ant poison (yes, I doubled it on purpose). And finally, it was General Conference for our church, which meant that we wouldn't be seen by anyone on Sunday and could watch church on TV in our pajamas.

With all of that adding up, we decided it was the perfect weekend for a camp-out....in the backyard. This is really the best possible scenario for me us. The kids get to sleep outside, but we still get to maintain our minimum hygiene standards.

Red and the kids worked hard to set up the tent:

I tried "living on the edge" and didn't use my stove top grill attachment:

Red, proving what a good sport he is, but also hiding from the mosquitoes:

Everyone piled into the tent, or, "proving we can contain our excitement for 10 seconds for a picture" - it was difficult:

Pink trying out her new "big girl" sleeping bag:

Blue, with his favorite Lightning McQueen bag:

Much to my surprise, everyone (including me) lasted through the night in the tent. There was some crying, but probably more out of confusion at being dressed in triple layer pajamas by your mother than actual sadness (hey, the temps were in the low 50's).

This really turned out about as perfectly as we could have hoped - Red had time to work while the kids and I hunted down supplies during the day, we didn't get bitten by too many bugs, the adults were not stressed by our usual Saturday-night-leading-up-to-Sunday-responsibilities scramble, and sleeping in the same tent with Dad more than made up for not having him every minute during the day.