Backyard Camping

The second week of October was Fall break for the boys. Regretfully, we were unable to travel anywhere due to my work schedule and prior commitments. Oh, well! That's life, huh? Anyways... Jeff wanted to add some fun to their not so adventurous vacation, so he put the tent up in the back yard on that Friday. The boys LOVED the idea! Playing in the tent- yahoo!

I thought it was a great idea, too. until Jeff told me he wanted us all to sleep in it. Now, normally I love camping and would have jumped at the idea. However, this was going to be the coldest night we had experienced since Spring...yikes! It was going to get down to 43 degrees! NOT my idea of fun. (Side note....Jeff was also being a very attentive husband to me. We are going through a book study in Sunday school called His Needs, Her Needs. This book contends that if we meet each others needs as spouses we will have a great relationship. One of the husband's needs in said to be recreational companionship. So, Jeff and I completed a questionnaire about the things we enjoy and do not enjoy doing. I rated camping very high on my list. As a child, this was my family's form of vacation, so it holds many fond memories.)

Well, I was a good sport and made dinner to eat outside, bundled up the kiddos in MULTIPLE layers and tried to go to sleep IN THE COLD!!!!! Sorry, but that lasted until midnight. By this time I had laided there listening to the neighbor cleaning his new car since 10:00, the train kept rumbling by, and the teenagers in the nieghborhood behind us where driving around and talking loudly (noises you can not hear from inside the house). Finally, I HAD to go inside for a nightly potty run (don't laugh... you know we are all doing it... I just had to unzip my sleeping bag, find shoes, unzip the inner zipper on the tent, unzip the screened-in room on the tent, stubble through the yard, up the deck stairs, unlock the patio door, RUN inside to undo the alarm, find a light, stumble to bathroom...) Do you see where I'm going with this?

On my way back outside, I thought I'd check to see what the temp was on the weather channel. It was only 53! I had ten more degrees to go and I was already frozen! AUGHHHHH! I retraced my steps and stumbled back into the tent. Obviously by now, I've awoken Jeff, who was snuggling with Cole in his sleeping bag to keep him warm, and didn't realize Guy was awake, too. I informed Jeff of the torture that we still had to endure in order to make it to morning, and announced I was going to my bed. Then, in a dark corner of the tent, Guy pipes up, "ME, TOO!!!" HA!!

Needless, to say the entire family retreated to the cozy, warm house. Moral of the story, it's hard to "tough it out" when your house is sitting 2o feet from the tent!

Happy Camping, Y'all!