The Reynolds Go Camping Once Again

We have returned from our last camping trip of the season.

School starts again in two weeks and the assembly line of schedules, routines, and habitual normality will be turned back on.

 

I swore I wouldn't pack or unpack another suitcase leading to more marathon laundry days this summer, but when the invitation came from friends in our ward to join along on their annual campout I decided one last hurrah of the summer was needed and one more load of laundry wouldn't kill me.

Olen and I are always up for a road trip, especially if it means cooler weather when we get there. Olen checked the weather report the night before we left and it said rain and lots of it. I was ready to go pioneer in a tent, but when Olen started thinking about all the equipment we would need to pack for rainy weather he suggested we get a hotel room in the town 20 minutes away. I have never been so in love! 

So we played the camping-snob card and stayed till bedtime with our friends at the campsite then left for the hotel and returned the next morning. We slept, showered, slept, used the microwave to heat up Daisy's bottles, slept, watched a couple cartoons, and did I mention we slept? My kids slept in till nine o'clock the next day, and that meant so did Olen and I.

The weatherman said it would rain, and rain it did. In buckets. Luckily the storms stopped as soon as they started so it was never a problem. Especially since the kids were just fine splashing and splashing in all the puddles and getting soaking wet and muddy. Once the storm blew on, the sun came out and we all dried pretty quickly.

Porter brought his slingshot and informed Olen and me as we drove that he planned to only "slightly wound" a baby chipmunk then nurse it back to health and train it as his pet. From the front seats, Olen and I did that side-ways glance we always give each other when Porter says something that neither of us has an immediate response to. In the next five minutes we reminded him that we eat anything we hunt/kill and we never "slightly wound" anything but, yes, if he did humanely catch a baby chipmunk he could keep it and train it as his pet. Instead of a chipmunk, he found a little snake. Maybe a gopher or rat snake? A snake is a snake in my book and no snakes are invited in my house. Porter returned the little thing back to the woods from whence it came.

Daisy was happy as could be just to be outside and with so many kids. London went to work clearing all areas of wildflowers. It took a little while for her to warm up to the other little girls, but soon she was playing pretend and sharing her princess dollies and calling them all her "cousins". There were a couple boys who were two or three years older than Porter that he "hunted" and explored with. But my favorite was watching Porter with the other four eight-year-old girls. It's a good thing Porter's best friend is a girl and he's used to playing with girls around the house. You should have seen how puffed his chest was when he came walking into camp holding that little snake and pretending to ignore the shrieks coming from the four girls following him. Priceless.

Olen and I had so much fun getting to know our friends better and enjoying the outdoors with them. We already are planning on being back for next year's campout. 

And all the laundry is done.