#16

CAMPOUT IN THE BACKYARD WITH THE KIDS

My friend, Kim, let me borrow her two-room tent. She said that the instructions weren't in there but it was color coded so I should be fine. Only thing is that I've never pitched a tent by myself before.


I decided to put the tent up around 6:30 just in case I had a lot of trouble with it. It wasn't so bad. About 30 minutes later and no fits to be had I had the tent up and ready. Not to brag (but I will anyway), I was pretty impressed with myself for getting the tent up without help.

I found my daughter's Cinderella air mattress/sleeping bag combo and my older-than-dirt air mattress. We blew them up with the hair dryer, got a light blanket and pillows, and brought them into the tent. When we got out there, there were a ton of ants crawling over the little overhang and around the sides of the tent. I figured I must have pitched the tent on top of their ant hill but none of them seemed to be inside so we were all good.

The kids were so excited. My little boy wanted to finish his dinner so he put his slice of pizza in a ziploc bag, stuffed some Goldfish crackers in another bag and then started bringing plates out into the tent! I was on the phone at the time and had I not been paying attention, he may have set up shop for an entire 5-course meal.

By the time we got settled in, it was close to 9pm and the kids were still wide awake. We took goofy pictures with my camera, sang a couple of songs, told a story, just goofed off. Even though I was hot and they were wanting to crawl all over me, I loved every minute of it. They never complained.


Somehow in the middle of the night, my little boy got flipped around so his feet were perfectly aligned with my face. I woke up once just in time to catch his feet as they flew toward my nose. The other three times I wasn't so lucky. Despite the flying feet and the air mattress that wasn't quite strong enough for my butt, I slept all right. Of course, I woke up at 6:30. I know, some of you are playing tiny violins for me right now but you don't get up at 5:00 every morning during the school year. I've got sleep-in hours banked up! :)

Off to break down the 'campsite'.

TASK #16 ... COMPLETED 6/24