Tent camping for the boys' first time

For the Fourth of July, we were invited out to my parents' house to go tent camping in their yard. They live just outside of town on about an acre with woods in front of their house and behind their house. The boys, including my husband, have never tent camped in their lives. Rebecca has been tent camping one time. This was something we had talked about doing last year, but did not ever have time to do it.

Well Monday night, I loaded up our van with our tent, sleeping bags, blankets, pillows, etc. and we headed out to my parents' house. We had to stop at Kroger beforehand as I wanted to get some wine coolers to take.

Shortly after we arrived at my parents' house, we set to work setting up the tent. We originally going to leave the top waterproofing part off, so that the kids could see the stars, but then it started raining shortly after dinner, so we had to put it on.

After the tents were set up, the kids and my dad played a game of soccer and  my mom made hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill and we had a yummy dinner.

Then the rain came. It poured for about an hour or so. Then it let up in time for my dad and brother to set up the fire pit for s'mores. They got the fire going, then it started raining again. But this time the rain only lasted about 10 minutes or so.

The kids got to make s'mores and enjoy the fire.

Benjamin wanted to go to bed around 11, so he and Bill went into our tent to sleep. My niece and nephew fell asleep in their tents around midnight or so. I made Jacob and Rebecca go to their tents around 1, but Jacob didn't fall asleep until close to 3AM and Rebecca went to sleep around 3:30 AM.

As for the adults, lets just say there was lots of adult beverages consumed that night and lots of laughter ensued. My parents went to bed around 4 and my brother and I went to bed around 4:30AM.

I woke up around 6:30 freezing as Ben had taken all the blankets and all I had was a little kids sized throw blanket on my arms. I fell back asleep and then woke up around 8:30 with the sun beating on my legs and being warm.

After getting up, I deconstructed our tent and Bill and I crammed everything in the back of the van. We headed home around noon, exhausted. I napped for a few hours yesterday afternoon.

Everyone was in bed by 10:30PM last night. No fireworks for us, as everyone was just too tired.

Today, I have had 2 tutoring sessions (was supposed to have 3 but a client cancelled as they had to go to a funeral showing). I made lunch for the kiddos and have started a load of laundry. I still need to clean out the van and put all the camping stuff away and still have to unpack some stuff from our vacation to Michigan. So I should probably get off of here and get something done.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Wednesday!