A Nature-filled Weekend

Tuesday was our anniversary. It's Chad's half work day too. So after work, we worked to pull some big bushes out of our back yard to make way for a garden. For dinner, we took the kids with us out to a local restaurant that does $.99 meals for kids on Tuesdays. We figured, since we get to date every Friday, why not celebrate our anniversary with our two greatest accomplishments! That night we finally got around to running our TV cables through the wall. So we no longer have unsightly wires running down from the TV.

Thursday I was supposed to have jury duty. But we were excused last minute. So Chad again got off work early... can't for the life of me remember what we did though.

Friday we wanted to go camping but didn't know if Chad would get off work in time to get there before the gates closed. He got home where we might've had a shot. So we set off with the plan B being that we would find a fire pit somewhere and camp in the back yard. When we got into town, I felt inspired/remembered to say a prayer that we'd make it there in time. But really, I just wanted the weekend to not be ruined after driving an hour out to the state campground. Right after "amen" I realized I'd forgotten our cooler with all of our food.

So we were spared a potentially useless hour long trip. We pulled over. I bought some food while Chad looked online (I'm grateful for smart phones!) for something closer. We ended up looping around the city back close to our home to an RV campground. They had one tent site, and we took it. We set up, Chad started a fire, and we cooked our "dinner," hotdogs and chips. I forgot ketchup, blech.

The package I bought only had 5 hotdogs, so when we were all, ahem, full... we made smores and chocolate covered strawberries. YUM! They were so excited about camping! We had a hard time keeping Everett from excitedly yelling every word.

After that, we put the kids to bed and played Uno, photographer, and pyro. Everett was so excited he didn't settle down 'till after 10:00 I think.
I went to bed about that time with Curly. She spazzed! She was jumping and bouncing all over the tent! I finally pinned her down, but still couldn't get warm. As soon as Chad came to bed though, I was out like a light and slept like a baby. It was cold, but I loved it! No bugs, minimal allergies, no sweat... I think everyone else got a little too cold though.

At the crack of dawn Chloe bolted up. So Chad started a fire and breakfast.
It was DELICIOUS!! The best bacon I've ever had, blueberry pancakes, and strawberries.

Plus we were all a bit hungry from the hotdog debacle. In the bottom left corner here, you can see the little logs we had brought and were using as chairs. Everett kept putting them in the corners of the fire pit as "decoration." Funny boy.
After that, we discovered a pond where we gathered a bit more fire wood.

Then a woodpecker joined the party.
We cleaned up breakfast and packed up the tent, then went for a walk. We walked to the pond where we played some horseshoes.

Then we took a walk around the pond.

Discovering and playing as we went.
Everett liked throwing things in the pond. But he had a grouchy morning with lots of bumps because he got so little sleep.
After that we walked to the back of the park and discovered that most of the RV's were permanent tenants. There was exercise equipment, wind chimes, a bird bath... hey, whatever makes ya happy. We played on a dirt mound and a swing set.

Actually, the place was privately owned and seemed like a pretty cool way of life. The folks' house and greenhouse was fenced off but they shared the rest of the property and made money off of it.

We finished our walk and headed home where we unloaded. I washed and aired out bedding while Chad and the kids went to rent a tiller. Chad tilled our garden plot. It had such nice established bushes. I was sad to get rid of them. We're woefully blind and uninformed going into this. But hopefully something will sprout one day. We quit at the tilling though for now.

We had lunch outside while tilling. Afterward, I put the kids down for a desperately needed nap then ran the tiller back to the store. It was a pretty fun- family- and nature-filled weekend.