catching up-camping Cable style

Ok, so here is a catch up blog I promised. I just finished 30 pages in my Packer Knowing God book, so I'm a little mental mush, cuz man that is some deep but great stuff. I'll leave you with a passage in a later blog. So I'll update you on the boys first ever camping experience. The young families in our church go camping about 2x a year, spring and fall, so far though we have not been able to go because they always picked the weekends Ritchey was preaching, but yay we finally got to make it, the boys that is. Sophie is definitely not to the point of being able to A)sleep in a tent in the woods, or B)even share a room with others. We tried that a couple weeks ago while on the road, and literally from 2-3 am she thought it was party time and was jumping up and down and talking in full party voice. I digress. The boys were so excited, at least the two younger ones. My big 32 yr old boy is not too outdoorsy, can be an introvert at times (not conducive to camping with 20 other people) and likes his good night sleep and clean hands. He was kinda a party pooper at first, but I in my sweet proverbs 31 voice told him to buck up and get a grip. I kept reading facebook posts from other camping friends about taking a couple days to pack up and plan, it kinda worried me a bit, cuz I didn't do a thing but buy some weanies and marshmallows and a couple cereal bars for the one night and one full day out there. Soph and I stayed home that first night, as it is an hour drive to this camping place and a bit too far to just go out and visit. So we ran errands and had chinese food together. The boys kept sending me emails and photos of the trip, I can just see Ritchey in his tent with his Iphone the whole time, but I was kinda glad to see the smiles. Cooper was exhausted and begged to go into the tent to sleep at 8:45. You'll see the pick of Cooper and Ritchey during bedtime. He was exhausted but I also think just so excited to get in his bag and go to sleep in a tent. At one point he rolled over and whispered to Ritchey that he was the best dad in the whole world for taking him camping, awwww! (this made it worth all the trouble to Ritch). Parker however, who had all his close friends, didn't roll into the tent until after 11 p.m. But thankfully they slept till 7, which is sleeping in in the camping world. (ritch however woke up at 3 and couldn't get back to sleep). The joke of the weekend was Ritchey and my boys pathetic camping food and gear. I packed them a banana, Clif Bar and some milk for breakfast. Parker kept joking with me to pack our usual Saturday morning pancakes, fully knowing that camping and pancakes was impossible. But oh wait, actually most of the families out there did indeed cook pancakes. ouch. And the night before our hot dogs were up against grilled fish and a potroast pack. Thankfully they felt bad for my poor Clif Bar family and passed on some sausage and pancakes. But I did pack ritchey's french press and ground Starbucks beans, I mean c'mon. Sophie and I joined the rest of them about 10 am the next day and we all stayed thru dinner and came home around 7. We went on a family hike which was so great, found a dead ginormous turtle shell, sat around the fire some more, Parker went on a guided nature hike with some scout guy that came and visited. It was wonderful. We had planned on going home sometime late afternoon (most of the others were staying another night), but our kids begged us to stay thru dinner, so we bummed some more hotdogs off others and stayed. The kids were so dirty, really, it hasn't rained here in weeks so the dust is crazy, we looked like dirt people of the prairie. Even after 20 minutes in the shower I thought they would be clean but they weren't and I literally had to SCRUB the dirt off of them. But it was so great. You feel like such a good parent doing these kinda things. Intentional family time away from the norm, the t.v the boredom of home. It was so great, and I think you could maybe get Ritchey to say the same. And we had a good time with friends too, so double win. Maybe some day we'll do this camping thing right, get a decent tent rather than a pup tent, bring some real food to cook and real gear, rather than mooching off of others. It was great. Here are a couple pics- sorry for the totally random placement of pics, I still haven't figured that part out yet.