Camping!

*a note, to begin this post: Since this blog is primarily about our adventures in Homeschooling, I don't typically mention anything about my personal life unless it directly relates to and affects our homeschooling life. Falling into that catagory... there is a special person in my life, who, over the last five months or so, has become a pretty important part of my life, and thus in now a part of my kids life, as well. He has two kids, and everyone has hit it off remarkably well. He is mentioned in the following post, and thus I figured a little background was necessary.

This past weekend we went CAMPING!! I would recommend camping to all homeschoolers. There is much to be learned while hanging out in the woods, building fires, and setting up tarps against the rain (physics and engineering, anyone?) We went with my sister, her boyfriend, our 11-year-old cousin, along with my boyfriend and his kids... there were ten of us all together, four adults and six kids! It was truly a grand adventure, full of challenges and yet overall we had so much fun!

The adventure began when the rains started within minutes of our arrival at the campground on Friday. While we were still setting up the site, the sky opened up, and we had torrential downpours alternating with moderate rain for the whole rest of the night. This definitely started everyone off on a cranky note! There wasn't much sleep to be had that first night, as rain pelted the tent. However, early the next morning, the rain miraculously stopped! We managed to get in some lake-swimming and s'more-making in between the intermittant showers on Saturday, before the rains began in earnest again Saturday night. Of course, when we woke on Sunday and began packing up to go home, it was gorgeous and Sunny... go figure!

Somehow... even with puddles in the tent... we not only survived but actually enjoyed the process! Of course, it would have been better without the rain, but I think we did a pretty good job of making lemonade out of lemons!