Camping

Every summer we tell the kids we're going to set up the tent and have a few sleepouts in the yard.

And every summer, in late August, we realize it's now or never.


Usually we pitch the tent close to the house, rather close to the swingset. But this year we decided to pitch it farther down. Way, way at the end of the property. Closer to the brook.

See? No? Too far away? Here. I'll zoom it for you.

There! Better?

You'll notice that there is a car next to the tent. This is because, after we pitched it, Steve realized he didn't want to carry all of the sleeping bags and pillows and books and flashlights down there all by himself. So he loaded everything into the car and drove.

They had a great night. The bigest issue was that we pitched the tent pretty close to the brook - not an issue in terms of flooding, as the brook is rather low, but we didn't want to leave the boys down there for even a second.So when a boy woke in the middle of the night needing to use the bathroom and too frightened to walk the long way across the misty lawn alone, he was kind of out of luck.

We didn't take the tent down, and a couple of nights before the first day of school I took my turn. I had giggled at Steve for taking the car down to the tent, and instead I insisted that the boys carry their own sleeping bags and headlamps. We settled in.

It wasn't too bad. Even that far away fromt he house, the wireless works, so while the boys fell asleep at 8pm I was able to read and get on the internet with my ipad. I determined yet again that I prefer sleeping in a bed with indoor plumbing a short walk away, but the boys had a great time.

And then, at around 5am, it began to rain.

It was light at first, and I was sure it would stop before the boys woke up.

It didn't.

In fact, it got harder and harder. The boys woke up and started to panic. "We're fine," I said. "We'll just wait for it to slow down or stop."

Nate looked at me, deadpan. "It's never going to stop."

The rain got harder and harder, and I knew we were going to have to leave our stuff there and make a run for it. Even so, we' d get soaked to the bone. It takes the boys forever to walk across the lawn, especially Andy, and the rain was just too unforgiving...

And that's when we heard the car.

Steve had woken up, heard the rain, and decided to save us. He drove the minivan down across the lawn to pick us up. It was 6:30 AM.

And then we had coffee and it was good.