24-hour Excursion...Part 1

Before I tell you about our latest adventure, I wanted to thank my friend, Jill, of Jillian Inc. for the wonderful prizes I won in her recent give-away! Jill recently celebrated her blogaversary by giving away generous prizes every day! I'm not sure how she did this, but I was very excited to receive in the mail a few days ago, a new book of my choice (I chose "A Mile in my Flipflops" and I'm really loving it so far!) and a BIG gift certificate to Borders!!! Thank you, again, Jill! (And if you haven't yet stopped by there, you really should. She can write with such smart humor and I always love visiting her place.)

Also, thank you to those of you who gave such sweet comments on my little "true love story" below. Sometimes, truth is even better than fiction!

Now...onto another true to life story...




I'll bet you'll never guess where I was Sunday and Monday.
Come on...just try and guess!

Who said, "Camping...in a tent...in the rain...with lightening."? If it was you, then you'd win the gold!

Did this grab your attention just a little?
Well... actually, this short little trip was filled with some fun, some giggles, and most of all, really nice family togetherness so for these things alone our camping was a good thing.
And I can tell you with certainty that our girls had a wonderful time and didn't want to leave!

But -as a lot of our trips in recent years- it included some unexpected excitement.
Let me explain...

About a month or so ago, I decided that I'd be brave and plan a short camping trip with just our family. We've done this sort of thing before, and usually just for one night, and it's been kind of fun.
Yes, you heard right...contrary to popular belief, I'm not completely tent-phobic, as long as it's for a very short duration.
And since lately I haven't gone on any of the big extended family annual camp outs, I decided to reserve two nights at a local campground.

I know...I just don't know what came over me.

So, Sunday was the day and we arrived on a unusually humid day for here in the northwest. After my husband set up the tent, we decided to go exploring the nearby river. We weren't prepared to do anything adventurous there so we only carefully waded in...dipping our feet into the cool, refreshing water which felt soooo good in the mugginess.

The river bottom was layered with slippery rocks so the girls had to hang on to Daddy...
and by the pictures below, you can tell that my oldest was really enjoying this whole river-wading thing!


It was fun to watch some of the other people fish off the banks or get into inflatable rafts...

However, what you can't see is just to the left of the raft the river turns to rapids. These people had guides to row the raft, which went into the opposite direction...
but a group of 20-somethings just before them entered the water with inner tubes...and beers. Not a good combination, I'm thinking!
Interestingly, they got only part way down the rapids when we noticed they seemed to be having trouble and banked on the other side. Hopefully, they all stayed safe, because on top of the afore mentioned things against them, we returned to camp to be told by the ranger that we were in store for some "weather".

Hmmm...this didn't sound so good.

We got a fire going right away (at my urging of hubby) and commenced roasting hot dogs and marshmallows.
And to me, this taste alone almost makes the whole trouble of camping worthwhile!

It was about then that we could hear the distant rumble of thunder...growing a little louder every few minutes.

I could say that the girls and I ate part of our hot dogs in the car just because we felt like it, and let you draw your own conclusions.
But thankfully, the rumbles seemed to stop after awhile, and soon we were all tucked into our sleeping bags, playing one of our favorite games of someone starting a story and the next person continuing on...

(Somehow, their daddy always has cute little aliens in his portion, but we girls are usually quick to write them out of the script by having them fly back to outer space and soon a princess or puppy in onto the scene.)

Just as I was blissfully falling asleep, what sounded like the gentle roar of the ocean began. Funny, we weren't anywhere near the ocean.
As I glanced out of a window flap on the tent, I could see the tops of all the tall trees swaying in the wind which had just started up. Thankfully, there was hardly any wind down low and all was fairly still by our tent. But this really didn't make me feel much better, somehow.

Wind and tall trees. Another combination I wasn't crazy about.

And the night had only begun...

To be continued...