The evening that we made our decision to leave camp the following morning, the sky gave us a double rainbow.
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I took that as a sign that we were making the right decision. It was going to be 100* the next day and I couldn't face another day of sweating, cranky kids, and no appetite due to the heat.
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This is Jon's great castle/dam/fort that he built while we were there. I wish I had gotten an earlier picture of it before it was worn away. It was quite impressive and lined with
pine cones as decoration.
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I had to take another picture of the rainbows. They were so amazing. It made the thunderstorm we'd had earlier in the evening worth it.
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That evening it was cool enough to have one last campfire. Jon built up a huge fire. He doesn't believe in doing things in a small way.
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Evan had a hard time falling asleep that night so I brought him out for a few minutes to sit with me by the fire.
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Jon took this really neat picture of the fire. He and I sat up until 11:00 talking. As some of you know, that's REALLY late for me. It was a great way to end our camping trip.
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Jon decided to sleep under the stars on our final night so he pulled his air mattress out of the tent and slept by the fire. This is how I found him the next morning. I opted to stay in the tent that protected me from the creepy crawlies of the night.
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As we were packing up,
Charlotte did a final wash of dishes. She was so cute. She took her job very seriously and scrubbed those pans really well.
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I can tell you that she's never had this much fun loading the dishwasher.
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Jon enjoyed bacon and eggs cooked over the fire for one last time this year.
So that was our camping trip this year. It was a tough one due to the weather and we're still dreaming of the day when we can camp in a camper.... but it was still a wonderful 10 days. The kids had wonderful adventures, we swam, and we spent time with both sides of the family. .. a great way to spend 10 days no matter how sweaty you are!