A slight chance of rain had been forecasted for the night, so we weren't expecting much. Well, it rained cats and dogs. I heard it start around midnight and it kept going and going... and going. It felt like I hardly slept, I was so worried the girls were going to get wet. I know that I looked at my watch every hour that long night.
I must've drifted off at some point, 'cause the next thing I knew, Hope was standing up talking to Abi. Arg... I thought, I just fell asleep, and now Hope's up, talking... Arg...
Pretty soon, I was wide awake, though. Hope woke up sopping wet in a puddle of water that had leaked through the zipper on the door. Brie, who was sleeping next to her, was all wet too. There were puddles all over the place in our tent. Condensation had been dripping down on the rest of us from the rain fly (much good it did us!).
Once Hope had changed and we had grabbed as many dry things as we could, we evacuated to the camper to stay with Gram.
We ran to the bathroom for a quick potty trip (Ever woke up cold and wet? It's not very nice...), and, boy, we were so wet and chilly! When we got to the camper, we were all suddenly ravenously hungry. Of course, nobody had thought to bring snacks into the camper. We didn't even have anything hot to drink! We were so desperately hungry, I volunteered to run back out into the rain to raid the cooler. That never happened, though. As you can see, we survived. :)
Hope was so excited, she just couldn't settle down! I'm sure that, since this was so new to her, it was exciting. :) Abi and I, though, were ready to go back to bed!
Discussing it, we decided to leave Brie and Hope in the camper since their beds were uninhabitable. Gracie wanted to stay in with them, but came out to the tent later on. Abi and I went back to our slightly damp beds in the tent. Once we snuggled in under layers of blankets, we slept like a bunch of babies! :)
The rest of the adventure team faired a little better than we did, but just about everybody had good sized puddles in their tents.
We hauled ourselves out of bed around 7:30, very sleepy, but raring to go! Toaster strudels were toasted hungrily over the smoking fire, then wolfed down by the whole lot of us (except Hope, whom we left sleeping).
Anyway, enough said...
The chilly crowd
The pile of foil on the grate is our real breakfast. Every year for one breakfast we have what's called "Bird's Nest Breakfast."
Spread a layer of any kind of sausage you want (link, patty, ground) on a piece of greased foil, then arrange a "volcano" or "nest" of hash browns on top of the sausage. Last of all, crack an egg into the nest of hash browns. Seal the foil up tight and roast it over the fire till it's done!
Mmm...Mmm... Hot toaster strudels over the fire! Nothing like it!
Since it was so wet, we had breakfast in the pavilion.
Mom was cold. :)
Breakfast!
Josh 'had' to eat my left overs. :)
Ryan and Kelsey arrived that morning.
Katers had a really cute little hat that kept falling down over her eyes.
I dubbed this the "resident ghost." It did look rather spectral blowing in the wind. :) The branch that it rested upon also held our marsh-mellow/hotdog/toaster strudel spears.
T.J.'s lantern was nice to have after all! The girls' socks got all wet, so we hung them to dry all over the lantern and lantern chain.
KK and Brie caught a fish, so Dad taught them how to take care of it. Yuck!
Abi and I hung a makeshift clothes line up for the blankets and such that weren't too wet. We had to take a huge pile of wet stuff home. We had to wash Hope's stuff since it got muddy and dry the rest of it. It took us a long time!
Oh, that baby!
She is SO cute!!!
Ryan calls her "Baby-Fat"
I think this picture looks like Birdie Smith.
Kelsey (the dog :) got into some cob webs in the pavilion.
Here's the results of the fish cleaning! We didn't have any salt along, so they roasted it unseasoned.
First taste...
"It's pretty good!" They say. Ya, right. I know better than that.
We had to empty all the tents and loosen tent stakes to get things dried out.
Our air mattresses, guarded by the resident ghost, had to be stood up to dry out.
Our wet tent.
Mom's theory, which I heartily agreed with, was that water got under our tent and soaked up through the floor. That would explain the puddles where nothing had dripped.
Ah... More toaster strudels...
My mouth is watering...
Fanning the fire
KK and Brie found this horn down at the Rock Cut. KK claimed that it had to be a buffalo horn because of its shape. Nobody else thought so, though. :) What do you think?
Lunch time!
Another yearly favorite- Walking Tacos.
;D
KK missed grabbing a fork, so, instead of walking back down to the pavilion to get one, he went just ate without one!
From the looks of this picture T.J. must've been philosophizing about something.
Me :)
Ben and KK had to extend the grate a little, so they wedged wrenches into it to fit over the pit.
I put Katelyn's little hat on. It only fit over my bun.
Does it seem like there's a lot of pictures of me? I honestly don't remember choosing this many! But, I'm too lazy to take any off, so I guess you'll just have to live with it. JK :)
Aunt Carol suggested that we all sleep on air mattresses since water was still seeping through the floor. I think we all slept a lot better that night! :)
The moon turned out full and luminous. It was really pretty!
Goofing off
Ry drew a happy face on a plate and posed with it. :)
I thought I got a picture of our "used car lot", but it looks like I missed it. The one night we had 9 cars there!
Ry was a fire pro (well, maybe slightly pyromanic)! He got that fire up and roaring in no time!
Sap bubbling out the end of a log.
Now it looks like Daddy's philosophizing! Man, we have a lot of philosophers around here!
One of Ry's many s'mores.
The boys caught another fish. This time they roasted it with taco seasoning since we didn't have salt and pepper. (Who goes camping without salt??? It's a must-have anywhere! Obviously, some do go without it... But, I think that we must be the only ones...) :)
Every night, the boys went night fishing. After they left, T.J and I threw a bunch of nuts under Ben and KK's tent as a prank. We thought that we were pretty clever and funny. I learned the next morning that Ben sure wasn't on the same page as we were. I'm just glad that I was in bed and probably sleeping when they got back. :) Moral: Don't put nuts under sleepy people's tents!
The forecast was clear of rain that night! Oh, a good deep sleep felt so good!
Hey, if you really want to know what that kind of horn that is you could email the picture to the University in Iowa City. We found some interesting looking bones at the Rock Cut today. :) We are planning to email some pictures to the University. ~Annetta
ReplyDeleteSorry about that stupid little mistake. You can ignore the first "that" and it might make more sense. Ha ha
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