First things, Last things

The last 'official' day of school was on Friday and I've gotta be honest- there was face painting involved.

Later that afternoon we sent the kids to the grandparents' house for the first sleepover ever and Matt and I went CAMPING for a night because Saturday morning I was to shoot an early-morning wedding (showtime 6:15am!) almost two hours from home.  I thought a night at a motel would be a romantic remedy for such a situation- but all the hotel/motels were booked solid and those with a remaining room or two required well over $100.00 (and often $200.00) to nab them.  I didn't want one THAT much.  So we borrowed a tent from Matt's boss and hoped for the best.

My first camping trip ever involved scratching my contacts and breaking my glasses all in the first day.  NOT a good thing for a blind-as-a-bat girl like me.  It also involved a baby (Corynn) terrified of the flame flickers who wailed for much of the night and a husband who thought a TARP strung to a tree would be a sufficient tent.  It was not a good time.

My second camping trip ever involved the limbs of four children (or was I pregnant?) pushing, prodding, and kicking me all hours of the night in the back of a grand caravan whose seats were folded down while the seats' metal things poked me in my back.  This, in between me waking up and going out in the pouring rain to try to protect our clothes outside from the rain soaking everything from the tarp that was not protecting THEM.  It (as you can tell) ALSO involved a husband who thought a tarp strung to a VAN would suffice for a proper tent.  (He is an Eagle Scout, you see.)

So camping and I haven't really made friends yet.

I thought I'd give it a-go again if it means being at the wedding site at the proper time and doesn't involve me shelling out $200.00 that we don't have.  Plus, I would have only one other persons' extremities poking and prodding me.  How bad could it be?

I am happy to report- not bad at all.  Besides the fact that the air mattress pump didn't have enough battery power to inflate the air mattress more than 2 inches (in spots) and when we laid down on it we both promptly rolled into the center and on top of one another (and NOT in a romantic way.), it was actually kinda FUN.  We had to spread our bodies over the surface of the air-mattress JUST SO and keep them that way all night in order to spread out our weight appropriately and get all body parts 1/4 inch off the gravel ground- but there were S'mores, and uninterrupted fireside chatter and a gorgeous moon and a gorgeous sunrise and a far less hectic morning the next day.

We might just go camping again some day!  (But I will be buying a tent first. AND batteries.)

Because I needed all the camera space I could get for the wedding, I tried not to take pictures of our own little adventure. *sniff*  I did take this one though~ where I look as if I haven't lost an ounce of weight and (where Matt says) I am holding Matt's belly as if we have an announcement to make.



Awkward!

Thankfully, the wedding pictures turned out a bit better than our solitary camping one.  Not too difficult since the subjects/scenery/day was much more photogenic than we two.

You'll get a sneak peak one of these days....