Camping Adventure

We made a family memory this weekend.  It was our first "official" camping trip.  I say "official" because we had the camp out with the Adventurers last month but that wasn't in tents.  This time it was the whole nine yards.  A friend of ours, William Cochran, planned the outing for eight families to go to the Clearwater Lake Recreation Center our the outskirts of the Ocala National Forest.  Friday afternoon, we all trekked up there for the weekend.  Besides ourselves, it was the Cochrans, Isidros, Bergherms, Zbaraschuks, Deiningers, Biris, and Vargases.  All said, it was 14 adults and 17 children (12 boys and 5 girls, slightly lopsided!).  It's only a little over an hour drive so very ideal for the family with a baby who doesn't like his car seat.  When we arrived and got out of the car, Calleigh immediately reassured Aubree (who hadn't expressed any concern over things whatsoever), "Aubree, you don't need to be worried.  There are no bears here.  Just turtles, ducks, and alligators."  Of course, I quickly corrected her misunderstanding.  There most definitely are bears but the park attendant had told us that the bears would just quickly pass through.

Duncan was able to get out of work a little early so could get there while it was still light to set up our new tent. We get the biggest tent they have at Walmart a few days ago for a very reasonable price, I must say.  What a pleasant surprise to find that the Isidros had the same one!  As it turned out, we ended up sharing a campsite with them so we had our matching tents set up pretty close to one another.  The way the food was set up was that two families would take a meal (we would be on our own for Sabbath lunch) and that way we would only have to cook once.  That worked out very nicely.

Helping Daddy put up the tent.

The children's wing

They told Duncan he had to move the van because it was parked on the dirt.  Isn't that weird?

Clearwater Lake

Unfortunately, we picked the very coldest night of this season to do our camp out.  The temps got down into the low 40's and we were COLD.  It doesn't seem like the 40's are THAT cold but I can assure that when you are in a tent, you feel every bit of it.  It wasn't too bad while we were sitting around the fire but once you got into the tent to go to bed, it was brutal.  I told Duncan that I knew he was judging me when he saw the giant stack of blankets I had us pack.  And it turned out that it wasn't even enough.  It didn't bother the kids at all at least.  The girls did take a long time to get to sleep though.  Calleigh had fallen asleep on the way there which I knew would be trouble.  They were the last kids to sleep and with the back light of the lantern in the tent, you could see their giant looking silhouettes running all over the tent.  About every two minutes they would stick their heads out the flap and shout "Maaaamaaaa."  They finally settled in around 10:30 both of them sacked out on our bed (I had let Aubree out of her pack 'n play).  They were just about perfect the rest of the night.  While Duncan and I barely slept a wink due to our shivers, teeth chattering, etc. they barely made a peep.  I had to make sure Aubree was still breathing in the morning she had been so quiet.  Brady pretty much had the best night of his life and stayed sound asleep in his rock 'n sleeper all night.  I kept checking on him because I was worried the blankets on him would creep up around his face.

Sabbath morning we did some Sabbath School related festivities with some songs and a Sabbath Bingo game courtesy of Lisa Deininger.  Each kid had a sheet with picture on it and she would call out a picture and if you had it, you crossed it off.  She then would ask if anyone knew a story in the Bible that involved that picture (for example, a lion could be Daniel and the lions).  We all got a big laugh when there was a picture of a donkey and when Lisa asked if there were any stories with a donkey (besides Mary and Joseph) and her son Adam got all excited and shouted out "Shrek!"  Calleigh and Aubree participated in the responses in all this and raised their hands to answer many times.  It's always exciting when the stories you read during worship stick in their minds.

The Isidro family

Bible Bingo.  That's Lisa with her hands up.

Crafts courtesy of Jennifer.

The rest of the day was very relaxing with the kids running around and playing, a hike around the lake, and just some rest and relaxation.  The day time temperature was in the low 70's and made us forget all about the cold night.  Thankfully the low last night was only about 51 which was nine degrees higher than Friday night but it made a huge difference.  The girls were much more warn out after the day and went down much faster leaving us to pleasant conversation around the fire and then eventually a few hands of Rook which Allen schooled us all in (we were playing call partner).  I feel confident I could take him in the rematch.  Ha!
Despite the warmer weather, the night was definitely not better for Duncan and me.  Calleigh flipped out at like 11 and wouldn't stop crying.  I have no idea why.  She wasn't hurt.  I guess she was just over tired or something. I have to say it's not a pleasant feeling to have a screaming child in the middle of the night with tents all around you knowing that everyone can hear everything.  I had to take her into the van and finally calmed her down by making up a story about Snowball, the lost kitten.  She just sat on my lap in a daze listening to the story, didn't say a word.  I thought she was in some kind of trance as I carried her back to the tent but then just as I was about to open the flap, she whispered to me "We saw bear poop on our walk."  So I guess she wasn't completely out of it.  Aubree, meanwhile, would let out little screams every hour or two...just enough to wake us up and in some cases, Brady.  So yes, Brady ended up in our bed about 3:30.  Sleeping on an air mattress with an infant is not the best idea ever.  Every little movement by anybody makes a big squeaking noise and shakes the whole bed.  I kept praying that neither of the girls would wake up an insist on coming into our bed because I have no idea where they would have gone.  Thank goodness that never happened.

I would call the whole thing a success.  And as I told Allen, it can only get better from here, you have to figure.  As the kids get older, the sleeping will improve, one would hope.  For Calleigh, the camping was a success for no other reason than Lisa Deininger was there.  She has a total obsession with Lisa.  Lisa is an adult, in case you didn't know.  She first noticed Lisa during the 4th of July festivities at Allen and Tangie's when Lisa accidentally fell in the pool with all her clothes on (a distinction that Calleigh now shares with her after the incident at the birthday party a few weeks ago).  I think her obsession really kicked up at the Adventurer's cam pout.  She's constantly asking me where Lisa is.  She talks about her almost every day.  This week she told me her favorite thing about Lisa is her hair but then she did go on to give me less superficial reasons which are escaping me at the moment.  The question is, what makes a little girl become infatuated with an adult?  I think it's because Lisa is so attentive to her.

Last week was like a whirlwind between getting back from Jacksonville and then preparing for this weekend.  Nothing really stands out as far as activities.  One thing we did have to do was get accustomed to the time change.  The girls adjusted surprisingly easy but Brady was more of a challenge.  Generally he's been sleeping until around 7:00ish but with the hour going back, yup, he was waking up at 6:00.  I think I finally have him back to 7:00 now.  The getting dark earlier has thrown Aubree off a little though.  We came out of Walmart on Thursday evening around 6:00 and Aubree was clearly surprised to find it now dark.  "Turn it back on" she yelled.  I guess she was referring to the sun or something.  She did not want it to be dark out.

One of our Walmart purchases - - two new chairs for the camping trip.

The one scheduled thing we had this week was an Adventurers meeting.  Duncan was able to get out of work in time to come home first to get Calleigh which meant I didn't need to take her to the church.  This meant that Aubree wouldn't be able to go for part of the program.  She was so disappointed that Duncan just ended up taking her anyway and she had a great time.  One of Calleigh's recent achievements with Adventurer's was learning the Lord's Prayer which she can reel off from memory in about 15 seconds flat.  Very proud of her!

We thought Brady was on the upswing with his health, which he probably was, but then on Wednesday things started moving backwards.  I think he may have caught a bug up in Jacksonville as there were a few kids sick while we were there.  The coughing came back full force and we were thinking the timing of being without electricity was a little untimely.  As I referenced, though, he slept really well on Friday night but then Saturday the coughing started in again. Duncan was able to give him an Albuterol treatment by hooking up to Allen and Tangie's van which did help things.  He does sound a little better today.  Since he got weighed at his last doctor's appointment on a Tuesday (11/1), I've decided to do a weigh-in every Tuesday.  On Tuesday 11/8, he was 13 lbs, 3.5 ounces which means he had gained 4.5 ounces in a week which I was very pleased with.

The Patriots game is just about over here so I think I will wrap things up here.  I hope every one has a great week.

A few pictures form the rest of the weekend in Jacksonville:

A guy came from the Jacksonville Zoo with a few animals.  This was a chinchilla.

Ice cream party on Saturday night.

Getting her face painted at the Saturday night kids' festivities.

Final product

Riding a mechanical bull for the first time.  Clearly, it did not go well.

The hotel had this nice playground.