As We Teach So Shall We Learn: CAMPING WITH THE CLARKS

As the wife headed off to the beach for a girls trip on Friday, the rest of the crew had plans to go camping with the Clarks. This was actually make-up plans from a couple of weeks ago when daddy messed up the plans by having surgery. So Caden did his usual calendar count by keeping up with "sleeps". It's a funny little thing that he does. He doesn't want to know how many days until we do something, he wants to know how many times he has to go to sleep before the time arrives.

So Friday finally arrived and what a packed day/weekend it turned out to be. Meme and Granddaddy took the kids to AL Adventure that morning/afternoon. The kids played their hearts out and had a blast. I went to get them at 4:00 and they were still zonked out napping. They finally woke up around 5:00 and we headed out. The kids were pumped and doing "daddy daycare" for the next couple of days, I was pumped as well!! :)

We arrived and let the madness begin. I say that in fun because there really wasn't any madness at all. The 4 kiddos have grown up playing with each other and always have a blast and play well. We had pizza for dinner and "awesome" spiderman cupcakes for dessert. (Check the pics on those!! LOL)

The boys gave us plenty of entertainment during the evening playing the Wii. They love the swordfighting game on Wii Resort. Caden and Cole are probably the most competitive 4 year olds in the world. They definitely take after their daddies!! It's scary, though, that they are 4 and are better at most of the games than we are. The girls played with the Cinderella Castle and dollhouse. They love playing with each other as well.

As the sun began to go down, we decided to set up the tent outside and give it a shot. It has been so hot lately, we didn't know if it would be worth attempting to stay outside the entire evening. We set it up and the kids loved the tent. It was as if they had their own cage and they ran around inside of it as if they were caged animals. But they were having fun.

As the sun went down and it got dark. The kids wanted to tell ghost stories. So Linc and I were chilling in the tent with the kids listening to them tell their own ghost stories. The imagination of little people is amazing! Well, then they wanted Linc and I to tell them some stories. That's when it got really funny. I told the best ghost story that I could create and scared them pretty good. Then Linc created his own story. The funniest thing during Linc's story was watching my son creep further and further away from Lincoln as he was telling the story. By the end of the story he was all up in my lap!! :) It was pretty funny. He then decided that he was seeing things outside the tent, and so camping outside in the tent had now come to a close.

WAY TO GO, DADS!!

I will be honest and say that it was strategy on my part because I wanted to sleep inside in the AC. LOL! So we turned outside camping into inside camping and it was just as good. The kids all piled in and slept in the inside tent, slept through the evening, and didn't wake up at the crack of dawn. That's what I'm talking about!!

We got up Saturday and played through the morning. That afternoon, we went over to Lincs neighbor's pool and swam forever. The kids loved it! Caden is becoming very brave but not quite there yet. I am sure he will be by summer's end. Lala wanted to stay attached to daddy, but that was fine and we had fun. It's safe to say that pools are the best preparatory activity for a great nap! And ours slept well.

To finish off the camping weekend, Linc and Les were having some friends over cook out. They had a big water slide brought over for the kids and we had to stick around to let Caden and Lala enjoy that. So they spent the next couple of hours playing in the backyard and wearing out that waterslide.