Family Night Camporee

I pretty much had the van packed and ready to go when Mike got home from work. We finished up packing and headed out. We had found out that we needed to eat dinner beforehand so we hit a Burger King on the way.

Just before we got to BK, I saw signage that I hadn't seen since we lived in Virginia. Our bank has opened a branch here! We are so excited because it means that we don't have to bank by mail anymore.

Anyway, we headed off and arrived at the lake at about 5:30. We had been told to get there early because there is just one way in and they were expecting about 900 people. I would say that we were amongst the first 100 people there and got our pick of the campsites. We were lucky to be able to camp with our pack. Some people filled up their areas and had to camp outside of their packs.

We began setting up the tent. We got a brand new one specifically for this campout since the one we had would have never held us all. Big mistake not putting it up once beforehand. Luckily, another Mike, who was set up right next to us, came over to help out. It took about 1/2 hour to put the tent up (even though it felt like an hour) and we were quite pleased with it.

Above, Mike puts the finishing touches on the tent

Below, Jacob helps with the sleeping bags

Above and below: Camp city fills up. By the end of the evening, there were no open spaces for tents!


Once we got the tent up, the kids played with their friends while we chatted with their parents and the pack leader, Rodger. One of Jacob's friends, Alex, arrived with his parents a little late and had never put up their tent before either. Mike and I went over to help and Lisa (Alex's mom) told me that we were clearly seasoned campers since we knew what were doing. I laughed and said that no...we'd just had a lot of help ourselves and were quick to learn. Apparently, she said something to Mike as well, who also told her that we were a mere 30 minutes ahead of them camping wise. Above, Mike chats with Rodger, our pack leader (Cub Master)

Below, Mike helps Lisa and George put up their tent

After it got nice and dark, we headed over for the bonfire. They had some of the packs (including ours) perform skits and had a Native American dancing demonstration, which was very cool. They also did a flag retirement ceremony, which had Daniel very upset. It was very difficult to explain to Daniel that burning the flags is how you respectfully dispose of worn out flags. He kept yelling, "why are they killing America?!?" He was almost in tears when they put the first part in the fire. It wasn't until the end that he got it. After the bonfire, we headed back to camp where the kids played for a while and it was lights out at 10:30. Oh, and I forgot to mention that at one point, Daniel wandered off in search of one of his friends and got lost. Lost and found discovered him and another little boy and were able to bring him back. They said that they were happy he was wearing his uniform because they could track us down by our pack. Typical Daniel. Above, Jacob and Daniel pose with some Boy Scouts

Below, Hannah has fun with her new friend, Georgia

Sleeping was rough because we were on a bit of an incline and we kept sliding down to one side of the tent. It also got pretty chilly and I kept waking up because of the cold.

At about 3:30am, it began thundering and lightning. Of course it did. Then, it rained. And rained. And rained some more. At about 6:30am, there was a huge crack of lightning and a huge BOOM! which told us that it struck very, very close by. Mike and I both became a little nervous at this point. We took a look outside and saw that some families had already broken camp and left. We decided to hang out for a little bit to see if the rain would let up. After almost an hour of waiting, we decided to go ahead and make a break for it. We heard George in the next tent over say, "if you're going to go, I'd do it now!" We put the kids in the car and packed up. After the first trip to the car, it began to rain again. Heavier this time. At this point, I've decided that I'm soaked so I may as well accept it and just try to work quickly to get the tent down. What took 3 of us 1/2 hour to put up came down in about 3 minutes.

We get the tent loaded into the van and I go to open the driver's side door when I'm harassed by two Boy Scouts. They said something like, "a little wet, are we?" Ha ha. Yeah, shut up. I get into the van and the kids are amazed at just how wet I am. It's literally like I took a shower with my clothes on.

Anyway, we get home and Mike pulls his car in next to the van in the garage (we took two cars since Mike thought he'd be going straight to TKD after the campout) and I look at his seat and he has a big bath towel in there. I yell, "is that a towel? I'm soaking wet, and you have a towel?" Mike says, "yeah, it's a towel. The one you made fun of me for taking last week. I don't look so stupid now, do I?" I scream, "You are stupid!" and head inside. As of 9am, we had about 1.6 inches of rain and it just started up again. I am pretty glad we didn't wait for it to pass like we had thought about doing.

So, our campout ended a little early. Even though it rained and was cold and we were almost killed by lightening, we still had a good time. It's nice to spend time like that as a family.