Fabulous Fourth

We had such a fantastic Fourth of July weekend- I was so sad to see it end! Thursday night after work, the Firefighter and I got home and began packing for the long trip to the Williams family campground. OK fine; it’s only a 15-minute drive, but boy did we have a lot of stuff to pack! Finally around 7 o’clock the Jeep was loaded, and I mean LOADED, and we set off. As we were afraid of running out of dailylight, and of the fierce looking clouds overhead, we started setting up our home away from home as soon as we arrived.
Let me pause here to let everyone know that I was not raised to be a tent girl. I wasn’t really raised to be a camper, period, but in my teenage years my parents bought a camper, and suddenly camping became so much more fun. No wet tents, no wet clothes, no damp sleeping quarters, no sleeping on the ground- nice comfy beds, a refrigerator and stove to cook on, a nice table to eat at, a place to get in out of the weather and away from bugs…THAT was enjoyable camping.
Still being considered newlyweds (it’ll be 2 years in September), we decided to take the more economical approach to camping. Yup. We bought a tent. After much deliberation over the style, size, number of rooms included in the tent, we finally found one that the Firefighter agreed to and I loved. It’s 1 big room that can be divided into 2, with a screen room attached to the front- I lovingly call it our screen porch- and lots of windows, with a screen roof that gets a tarp put over it. Nice tent. We were excited to put it up.
Back to Thursday night. We get the tent out of the bag- and the Firefighter suddenly remembers that, although we remembered every other possible thing I thought we needed for the tent- including a card table, he forgot the directions. “Have no fear”, he said, “I was a boyscout, remember?”. Yes, oh how I remember. One small detail I’ve left out- before we left the house, the Firefighter said “OK. We’re going to be setting up our new tent for the first time. Regardless of how badly I seem to be doing, or how wrong you think I am, or how miserable of a time it become to set it up, your family will be all around us, so please just don’t say anything; let’s not fight during this time”. I liked the idea, but was it even remotely possible?Let me proudly clear my throat. Ahem. The Firefighter and I had no incident! When we got it almost up, we realized that the screen room opened directly into a big patch of tall grass right beside an out building. So, we pulled up the stakes and turned the tent. At this time the wind started gusting, and thankfully my dad, brother in law, and uncle quickly came over and helped us finish. What success! What teamwork! The icing on the tent, so to speak, was when I laid on our new air mattress that night- and woke up 8 hours later from a sound sleep, thanks to the cushiony mattress and lack of hard ground against my back. Complete success!
The rest of the weekend went just as well. Lots of sun was soaked up while visiting with family, playing ball, kayaking, strawberry picking, watching my cousin and uncle build a screen house for my grandparents, attending a double birthday party for the newest one year olds- my niece Madeline and my cousin’s son Landen. Last year Madeline arrived in our world on July 3, and Landen waited til July 4 to greet everyone- a true “firecracker baby”.
It was truly one of the best Fourth of July Rogers family campouts we’ve had. I love my family.