Camping out

I don't know why it has taken me so long to write this post. I've written several other posts, but I knew this one would be kind of long and there would be a lot of pictures.

Two days before the officer had his hand surgery, we camped out with some family friends. They had not been camping before with all four of their kids (one of them under a year old), so we decided to camp at the officer's parent's place. They have 20 acres. We decided to do it there to have clean restrooms and a back up plan in case the "camping" part was too much. It was supposed to get pretty cold that night.

We camped out one night and spent a day there doing a lot of fun things. We had all the standard camping food, hot dogs, hamburgers, smores, pancakes, eggs and bacon.

We met with the Mr. R and Mrs. K and their four kids in the city and we were off. When we arrived, we walked around the property to find a good place to pitch our tents.

My daughter with Miss B and Miss L.

We found a great location just behind the house. We had quick access to the pond, gun range and the house.

At first the kids were kind of shy. They haven't spent a lot of time together, so they do not know each other well. However, it didn't take long before they were going on hikes together.

The menfolk pitched the tents. Actually, I had to help the officer because he didn't have much use of his right hand. It was kind of fun working with him. When the tents were set up, we decided it was time to go fishing. I think I was the only one who did not touch the worms. I believe every single person caught a fish - probably at least two fish. However, I think Miss L set the record. She caught 8 or 9 fish. Practically every single time she dropped her line in the water Mr. R was reeling it back in. I know Mr. R tried to fish, but I don't think he got to do much because he was reeling in all of his girl's fish. Even Little Mr. M fished.

Miss L fishing. She's the one who caught the most fish!

Mr. R with his two girls.

I wouldn't want to touch it either!

I just loved this picture. I love the way his knees are together and the expression on his face.

The officer helping my son take his fish off the hook.

Could he look more like a fisher or what?

Mrs. K proved she is much cooler than I am to my kids because she was baiting hooks left and right. Of course she doesn't mind touching raw meat. :) Even my son baited his own hooks.

I did important things like.... say, "Hey officer, our daughter caught a fish"

or

"Look at the pretty lily pad."

or

"There's two frogs!"

or

"There's Gary, the snake!"

Important stuff like that.

Once the officer was baiting a hook on a rock for one of the kids. Something moved out from under the rock and the officer jumped back like a jack rabbit. It turned out to be a little lizard, but he had Gary on the mind. He thought it was a snake. He kept saying, "I'm thought it was a cobra viper rattler.!"

Oh there's story about Gary, the snake. When the officer went to his parents to mow before we came up, he had seen a 3 foot snake. He named it Sam, but my son thought his name should be "Gary". It was getting warmer (this is in the beginning of May) and the snakes were starting to say hi. We told our friends about Gary. When we saw Gary in the water, talk about getting the guns out started.

So after everyone had their fill of fishing, we brought out the BB gun. Mr. E and the officer went to the gun range and practiced with their guns. Mrs. K and I took the kids to the pond to shoot the BB gun. Everyone had a turn. Mrs. K turned out to be a pretty good shot. Miss B and Miss L enjoyed shooting too. I think everyone had a turn. In case you were wondering, I was not a good shot. Surprised? Didn't think you'd be.

After all the fishing and shooting, everyone started getting hungry. The men had started a fire so we could roast our hot dogs. Hot dogs aren't my most favorite food, but they are good when you are camping and roasting them over an open flame. We chowed down on hot dogs and smores. Yummy!
Mrs. K took this picture. I didn't get a picture with the boys in it. Of course the baby is left out of this picture, but my daughter made sure he didn't feel left out. She loved having him around!

As it started getting dark, the kids played with their glowsticks and ran around more.
After dinner, we sat around the fire. We sang some song, looked at the constellations and read from the Bible. We ended the evening with prayer. Perfect.

It was time to start getting everyone ready for bed. We had to bundle up the kids a bit because the temperature that night was supposed to be in the low 40s. A little chilly. I love it when it's like that, but the officer's not a big fan of it. Everyone was in their tents getting settled. The officer was making sure everything okay outside. He tried to opened the back of our car and the car alarm went off. The officer was urgently asking me where my keys were. I am the only one with that little thing-a-ma-jig on it that will turn off the car alarm. I told him they were in the car. The car doors he had tried were locked. Luckily the driver door was unlocked and he got the alarm turned off.

It didn't take long for everyone in our tent to fall asleep. For some reason there was more noise out there than we've ever heard before. The coyotes were howling - a lot! We heard cars, dogs, and a fire truck. So much for a peaceful night. Mrs. K and the baby ended up having to go inside because it was too chilly out there for them. Our air mattresses went flat. It's almost best to not have an air mattress than to have one going flat. The officer and I had decided to each sleep with a kid on an air mattress so we could keep them covered up and warm. In the middle of the night I would wake up with my daughter literally half on top of me because our air mattress was deflating. I would roll her over onto her side of the air mattress just to have her roll back on top of me. For some reason, in the middle of night I couldn't figure out it was because of the deflating air mattress.

At 5:50 a.m. the car alarm went off again! I said, "Turn the car alarm OFF!" The officer said, "Where are the keys?" I calmly, politely (not) said, "I DON'T KNOW you had them last night!" Suddenly, the alarm went off. We went back to sleep. I felt horrible because we had set our alarm off just as every had gotten settled and then again early in the morning. I thought, "Oh they are never going to camp with us again!"

We woke up around 6:30 a.m. and went up to the house to cook breakfast. Everyone was awake. As we were cooking breakfast, we found out it was Mr. R's truck car alarm that had gone off at 5:50 a.m. He had the keys in his pocket and had rolled over onto them and set off the alarm. Didn't think we'd have a wake up call, but we did. (You know I couldn't help but tell that story Mr. R!)

After breakfast, we tore down camp. The kids ran around and gave each other wagon rides. My son went down to the pond again with his BB gun to see if he could find Gary again.

All of the sudden, I hear him yelling, "IT'S GARY!!!!! IT'S GARY!!!!! GET DAD!!!!!" My daughter came running up to tell us they found Gary. We could see him crossing the pond. Mr. R got his gun so they could shoot it but he got lost in the willows.

Our friends had to get back to town so they left after we packed up camp. It was a perfect camping outing. All the kids got along great and no one got hurt. Everyone caught a fish, shot a gun, and had a great time. We had a clean restroom and a back up plan for those who got cold (not the ones we thought!) :)

After our friends left, my son and the officer took their guns down to the pond to see if they could find Gary again. I wish I had a picture of them with their guns walking around the pond. My son spotted Gary first. The officer told me happened. He said, "He saw Gary, put his BB gun down on the ground, put his fingers in his ear, and said, "Blast HIM DAD!" The officer shot Gary but it was only a flesh wound. They fished him out of the water and killed him. The officer actually took a picture of it but I'm not going to post that one. Turns out it's not "Gary", but a different snake entirely. In all we saw three different snakes out there.

Since it's been about 4 weeks since we went camping and the officer has been forced to be inactive due to the surgery, splint and cast, I'm very thankful we got to go camping before all of it. Thank you guys for going with us. It was a lot of fun.