Backyard Camp Out

The longest day of the year was Thursday, June 21st this year. I decided it would be fun to camp out in the backyard with the kids to celebrate summer solstice. We set up our big tent. The kids were great helpers.

It also happened to be "Girl's Night Out" for our RS enrichment group. So were weren't able to do too many camping things before settling down for bed. We did read stories and do Book of Mormon time in the tent. We also attempted to play cards, but with one diminishing flashlight and three rambunctious kids it didn't go over too well.

Chad and Halle did pretty well. There of course were plenty of giggles and touch-tag going on. But all in all they did finally go to sleep. Then of course there is the Sean. He would not stay calm for a moment. He was in and out of his sleeping bag. Crawling all around the tent, touching every zipper and string, checking out every nook and cranny and trying to find the flash light that I hid at least a thousand times. Finally at around 11:30pm he finally put his head on my legs and fell asleep.

Guess who was the first one up in the morning - yes that is right, Sean! He woke up ecstatically yelling, "Look mommy, Sunshine!" When you live up here in the northwest the sun comes out pretty early, especially in the summer! We all laid in our sleeping bags for a little longer and enjoyed the shadow show being presented on the tent walls by the strong wind blowing through and our neighbor's quaking aspen trees. I asked the kids what they saw. Chad and Halle answered that the leaves were shaking in the wind. Sean said that the leaves were clapping.

So all in all we had a fun time. Sean and I also had a great time catching up on more sleep by taking a good nap that afternoon.