Our 1st "Camping" Trip

Well, to call it camping is a bit of a stretch.  Let's just say we tried!!  Alison got the ball rolling on a Barnes family camping trip at the river for Memorial weekend when Jake would also be in town.  They spent 2 nights, we settled for just 1 since we'd never slept in a tent before!  We got air mattresses and borrowed tents, shipped Charlie off to Mimi's house, and headed off.  Unfortunately, by the time we arrived, the weather report was pretty certain on storms that night.  We didn't bother setting up the tents and instead decided we'd indoor-camp in the man cave.  Kids had a blast and it was really a great family weekend.

Luckily Aunt Alison was super awesome and packed all kinds of games, water guns, water balloons, etc.

 One of my favorites!!  Fielder can do his best to annoy these girls, but they can take care of themselves!

 Rob took the lead on our water activities.  He took us for a great long boat ride on Saturday.  The kids all loved it - Jenna would only get upset when he slowed down (see pic below.)  Fielder would beg to "go sideways" so Rob would do a few donuts.

Then after the boat, they were ready to try the jet ski.  Our little daredevils loved it!!  Fielder and Katie rode together for a long time and even Jenna took a turn with Matt.  (By day 2, Claire was willing to try and realized she absolutely loves it too!)

 While some were on the jet ski, the others had fun playing in the water.  Unfortunately, Claire got stung - I would assume a jelly fish although the water seemed too cold and we definitely didn't see any.  Poor thing was crying so hard and had welts under her arm.  Jenna had previously had some sort of allergic reaction and then had even more welts after being in the water.  AND to add to all of our ailments, Katie had a mysterious swollen and painful ankle.  Sometimes it seemed ok, but then it got pretty bad and we had to carry her around for the rest of the night.  (Later in the week, they found out it was actually HSP.)  Look at our sad little crew.  (They really didn't let it ruin the weekend!  tough girls!)  And HOW is it possible that the only kid to not get hurt in some way this weekend was Fielder?!?!  I mean, he certainly tried - he found an ax and was playing with it and also found some matches that he really wanted to play with.

 That night we had what every camping trip must include - smores!!  Popa built a perfect little fire and the kids had fun roasting their marshmallows.  Fielder liked to catch his on fire, Jenna liked to just make the smores and not actually eat them, and Claire liked hers barely warmed by the fire.  (Mommy loved them too!!  I was happy to eat Jenna's leftovers.)

 And a happy birthday celebration for Popa!!  We all chipped in and gave him tickets to the Zac Brown Band concert.

 As the thunder started to roll in, we got ready for bed.  Fielder even managed to catch one firefly before bed.  He wanted to keep it as a nightlight, but we decided to set him free instead.

 We got all set up in the man cave, nice and cozy.  Kids were a little nervous about the thunder but it never actually stormed or rained.  Of course, Fielder managed to break his zipper on his sleeping bag right before going to sleep.  20 minutes of fighting with it, we finally got it fixed and were ready to sleep.  So we had a mostly peacefully night....until around 5 am when Fielder woke up and somehow his sleeping bag was completely turned around in the opposite direction and the zipper was broken again.  What?!  I tried to get him to sleep with me, we tossed and turned, we attempted to play on the kindle, but by the time it was good and light out we got up and left Rob and Claire to snooze.  We were on the pier for probably an hour (playing with the matches) just waiting and hoping for other people to wake up soon!  That was when I lost my cool a bit, but OTHERWISE it really was  a great weekend.

 We got in another boat ride (much colder that day) and after lunch hit the road.