Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Camp OUT!

Since the beginning of June, John Paul and Max have been asking to camp out in our backyard. So last night after a fun afternoon at Pinchot State park we ate dinner, pulled down the tent from the crawl space and got ready to camp out!

Here is us sitting outside around our "campfire"(in reality, a camping lantern), we had paper lanterns up in the trees which set off a nice soft glow.







Daddy fired up the grill and we opened the marshmallow bag to find:
A gooey clump of what used to be marshmallows! Some how the outer coatings melted. Fortunately we were able to pull individual sticky balls which were sort of in the shape of a marshmallow. Daddy made a great point of how we had to be very careful and not drop any marshmallows in his grill. We were all careful until:
Mommy was doing her marshmallows and, "plop" a marshmallow dropped! It was very funny!







And then to top it off, five people managed to squeeze into a two person tent for the NIGHT!!!! That would be: me, Cecilia, John Paul, Max, and Daddy. We played games in the tent and then told ghost stories in which Daddy told a thrilling one that scarred Cecilia and John Paul a lot.





























It was an awesome night!! We even topped it off with waffles for breakfast!



12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm here too Teresa! I've been reading all along just haven't posted yet...didn't want to freak your kids out too much ("Who is this crazy person reading our blog???"). I LOVE the camping in the yard! we're going to do it this weekend to watch the meteor showers! We'll have a real fire though :) And i think we'll have more than one tent...although that part did look fun! I'd love to hear Scott's take on it....
thanks for checking out my blog! i'm so proud of my girl and love having people keep up with her!
i'm so glad the rest of you are blogging now...i love sitting down at night and going through to see what new!

The Schultz Family said...

Did you really sleep in the tent all night, Mark Kate? All five of you? Wow, that's great! Brennan, Nate, and Uncle Mark slept in a tent when they camped out down in Georgia this summer, but the boys woke up, got a bit freaked out, and had a hard time sleeping the rest of the night (or maybe it was because they had a rock under their sleeping bag? I can't remember!)

Anyway, what a fun evening! Maybe we Schultzes will try this before the summer is over. Thanks for the great idea! I'll try not to follow your Mom's example, and keep my marshmellow on the stick, however. :)

The Schultz Family said...

Oops, I called Mary Kate, "Mark Kate!" sorry, Mary Kate!

:)

Mary Kate said...

We really did sleep out all night. Of course it helped that we were able to squeeze a mattress in to the tent,(that would be why I was willing to sleep outside.) It was fun, but very hot.

teresa anthony said...

Jaye, (and anyone else who cares),

Scott's take on it was: "I was boiling for half the night, freezing for the other half, and am sore all over! (Said with just a tinge of an Eeyore voice in response to my chipper "good morning, how was it?")

Of course as Mary Kate said, I had squeezed a 6 inch thick queen sized foam mattress into the tent, which they slept on like sardines in a row, lying sideways on the mattress instead of longways, AND in addition to the kids pillows, I had sent three pillows just for Scott, so I don't think his lot was too bad. (Of course you notice I was cozily inside with Rosie and Ben.)

Good to hear from you!

Teresa

teresa anthony said...

Oh and one more thing, the ghost stories. The funniest thing was the next morning while I was making waffles,Cecilia and John Paul came in telling me all about how when the developers built our neighborhood they accidentally disturbed an Indian burial ground, and underneath OUR house, was the Chief's grave. Chief Wahoogahooga. And he's haunted our backyard ever since as a little bunny. And if you get too close to that particular little bunny... HE'LL EAT YOU UP!!!

As we were eating our camp waffles, I looked at Scott and said, "a bunny?"

He started laughing and replied, "I was trying to pick the most innocent thing I could think of. I didn't think I'd really scare them."

For the record, it was pretty much only Cecilia and John Paul that then insisted on sleeping right next to Scott for the whole night, which might have contributed to why he was so hot for the first half of the night. :)

The Schultz Family said...

I LOVE these stories. I had to call Annie and Mark and read through both the blog and Teresa's comments, giggling the whole time.

We are going to be retelling the story of Chief Wahoogahooga and his terrifying bunny-ness for a long time. At least, every time I see Scott from now on. :)

Cathy

The Schultz Family said...

(This talk is between Annie and Lucky, conversing about your post about Chief Bunny.)

A.: *blink blink blink*

A...Bunny????

L.: And why is it named, "Whathoogadinger???

A.: I am very, very confused.

L.: Did it look tasty? *looks up excited*

A.: Is all you think about food?

L.: No! I think about mice and pork chop too!

A.:....Thats food Lucky,

L.: *blinks for a second* Oh.

Lorrie and Fred said...

Dear Mary Kate, Your tales of camping in the back yard are very funny! Someday you will be telling your own children (or nieces and nephews) about these good times and inspiring them to sleep in the backyard! In your mom's defense, roasting a marshmallow to the perfect texture without it falling off the stick can be tricky. Just writing about this is making me hungry for a Somemore sandwich. It's one of the great culinary contributions of Girl Scouting!

papa said...

Wow, Daddy was even smiling. I never knew he loved camping so much!!!!!

papa said...

I want to know more about Scott's reaction to Teresa dropping a sticking marshmallow on his prefectly clean,a s always, grill. There has to be more to the story of his reaction! Knowing Scott.

Anonymous said...

okay, the bunny story is priceless. It will be told from now in our our stories as well if we have Scott's permission. We camp and backpack ALOT and the kids (my nieces and nephews) are always wanting to hear ghost stories and my dad is the best at making them up still (when we were kids and lived in California he told stories about the haunted chicken coop in our yard). This bunny one is priceless and i can just picture Scott telling it....

a mattress eh? that is the way to go. Wonder if i can convince RJ to carry one for me in his pack the next time we backpack...