September Camping

 Before:

 After:  (They actually kept going and got quite a flame for a couple of minutes.

  Cool morning air

 Exercise Station

 Nice shoes

 Ashlee's rocks (with Ben's baby alligator in the background)

What a great weekend.  As we come to the end of the fiscal year, I have a couple of days left of leave to use and took off Friday.  I helped install a toilet and a sink in a home that is flooded where the husband is deployed.  After the kids got home from school, we took off to go camping.  The weather has been wonderful here in North Dakota lately.  Elaine decided that she didn’t want to take Emily camping, so Elaine and Emily went to the ward picnic they had, while Mara, Benjamin, Ashlee and I went camping.  We missed Elaine and Emily, but we still had a lot of fun.  The kids had a great time “saving” the fire after dinner by throwing a bunch of leaves and small branches into the hot coals.  After it got dark, we went on a night hike.  I gave them the option of taking the trail in the open by the lake or to go through the dark and spooky woods.  Of course, they chose the woods.  They were really funny though.  Benjamin kept flashing his flashlight behind us to make sure no one was following us.  As we looped back, we walked back through the clearing.  Mara was amazed at all the stars.  It was fun to point out the few constellations that I knew.  It was even more fun to hear each of the kids echo Mara’s sentiment, “This is the best night ever!”

The kids slept pretty well except for Benjamin who wanted to make a fire at 2:30 in the morning.  When they woke up, we made a fire, ate breakfast and went hiking again.  Despite the soggy feet due to the morning dew, the kids had a great time.  This time we ended up on an exercise circuit with different stations to do little activities.  They got so excited about seeing what was next that they would race to the next one.  When we finished, I lent Mara and Ben an extra pair of shoes I had in my car and we went down to the lake to skip rocks.  They picked it up pretty quickly.  There was a rock sticking out of the water that Benjamin was sure was actually a baby alligator.  Ashlee sifted through the rocks trying to find the prettiest ones to keep.  She ended up with more than she could carry (we ended up compromising that she could bring 2 home.)

Overall, it was a great success and I’m glad we the chance to go before winter comes.

Oh yeah, Emily has started laughing.  She is so cute.