... or How Many PBs Does it Take to Put Up a Tent?
This year since New Year's Day fell on Sunday, we had a slight change to our usual plans of camping out down at the Church. This year we set up our tents and camped out on the 30th, and had the big New Year's picnic on the 31st. While everyone was putting up their tents, I let the little one's play on the air mattress in ours. It kept them corralled and I enjoyed listening to them laugh and play.
We had a great time. There were 7 tents this year, and a few more of the sisters stayed in the Church house. We had a camp fire in the yard, grilled hot dogs and sausage dogs, Bro. David cooked some pizzas, and we had smores. Dad made his famous peach cobbler in a cast iron pot over the camp fire. We ate and visited. We talked about politics and church stuff. We talked about raising kids and making spouses happy. We had the best time visiting late into the night.
The kids had just as good of a time. They ran around the Church yard playing Ghost in the Graveyard, tag, and sardines all with Bro. Chris. We all suspect he's just a big kid sometimes. Britt had no idea what most of the games the kids were playing were, but when Bro. Chris would start counting and they would all run, he would take off behind them.
After all the kids got to bed, I had a nice time pulling out the binoculars to look at the stars. There were tons of stars in the sky to see with the naked eye, despite a half moon, but then to us the binoculars you could see hundred more. To me the starry sky is the most wondrous part of His creation, and the bible tells us it was the work of his finger tips, that he also made the stars, almost like an afterthought a final touch.
I didn't sleep too well, who ever does in a tent? Britt got off his air matteress in the middle of the night, and got on ours, it was pretty cramped sleeping between Gary and Britt, and it got pretty cold. But the experience of camping out with everyone is one I hate to pass up, after all we only do it once a year.
Dad cooked a big breakfast the next morning, and we all visited inside and out on New Year's Eve. We sat around the camp fire and talked. Several played with the bean-bag toss, and the kids ran wild on the 9 acre church yard. Some of them walked down to the creek and around the wildlife preserve that is next to the Church with a couple of adults.
Around noon, we had hamburgers and hot dogs, and gradually after lunch the crowd began to thin out. The kids began to run on fumes, and those of us who had spent the night weren't far behind them. We talked and visited as long as we could stand, before heading home. Britt fell asleep in the car and was in bed around 6:30. Ruth managed to stay awake through a bath, but wasn't far behind him.
Gary said it was strange to not sing out the old year and in the new for the first time in about 17 years. We caught part of my ball game though, and laid around the house watching old episodes of Merlin. It was a peaceful end to 2011.
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