BRRRRRRR!

The campout was a success according to the boys. Their mother isn't so sure. But let's be fair, it depends on what you call successful.

Lucas helped me put up our tent. Drew put up his own tent. My new queen-size extra tall airbed did, in fact, fit inside the tent (although I relived a childbirth experience in getting said airbed into the tent) and did not deflate overnight. We ended up eating our grilled sausage-dogs inside due to the Alabama game going into overtime and the Florida game starting shortly thereafter. The boys roasted marshmallows over the gas burner of the grill and we had delicious s'mores.

Lucas and I retired to our tent early with several books to read (none scary) and Deanie even brought us out a bowl of popcorn to enjoy, while he and Drew watched the Florida game inside. Once it was sure to be a whitewashing for the Commodores, Drew retired to his tent with Jakey, who was a-might skittish about being zipped up in the tent again. It took 3 tries for Dean to keep him in the tent while he zipped it up! Then the boys went to sleep and I set about the task of keeping Lucas in a sleeping bag lest he freeze to death.

That task went on all night. At some point I decided that if he was sound asleep, he couldn't be freezing to death, so I tried to sleep myself, but I WAS freezing to death. Plus Lucas kept rolling onto my head and we ended up very close to the open screen door of the tent, where the winds of the Arctic tundra entered. (I had left it open to keep an eye on Drew and Jake, good mother that I am.)

At some point in the wee hours, I was ready to throw in the towel. I figured Jake must be miserable and I should put him in his kennel inside, so I whispered to Drew to see if he was ready to go in, but he was dead asleep in his 20-below sleeping bag Mimi and Mr. Jim gave him. Lucas was also dead asleep (somehow still ending up completely outside his sleeping bag every 30 minutes) until some point around 7AM when he reportedly had a little accident that initially warmed him up, but then made him very cold. When I sat up and looked over at Drew's tent, Jake was sitting and looking at me through the screen just a-shiverin. Poor baby.

So I stayed in my long johns most of the day and have been ready to go to bed since I showered and got dressed. On the plus side, Dean had breakfast waiting for us when we trudged in. (And why not, since he got to sleep in the cushy warm comfort of our warm toasty bed!)