End of Summer

We finished summer last weekend.  It was Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer.  And we finished the last thing on our bucket list, which means summer is over.  We did the entire bucket list.  I feel accomplished.  Really though; I shouldn't have made fun of bucket lists because it was nice having a series of goals.  Even if they were small ones, they got us doing stuff instead of just sitting around.

Our last thing was camping.  I tried to reserve a spot, but the camp site wouldn't let us reserve one for only one night, so we just had to get there before every one else.  But there were 25 empty sites, so we were good.  We planned to leave at 3, but weren't ready.  We left at 3:40.  Greg got a very important business call at 4:30 that continued as we drove into the campground, and then dropped so we turned around to redial the call.  After about five minutes, the kids and I abandoned Greg in a parking lot to get a site.  We walked into the camp office as the people who got the last site walked out.

This is where I'd like to give myself a big pat on the back.  If this had happened when Alice was a baby, I would have cried.  A lot.  I went to all the work of planning and packing for not.  It's odd now to look back on what a mess I was when we moved here--pregnancy hormones like crazy mixed with the "I don't want to live in Charlotte" anti-endorphines running around my brain.  Things are better now.  I've regained control, but there was about a year and a half in there--remember that one time I packed up our house and made the family live out of boxes for five months?  Things were not good.  I was not functioning well.  So pat on the back for me.  I put the kids back in the car and went to pick Greg up.  We quickly reviewed our options having added in the additional complication of having forgotten our camping stove.  We decided to drive the hour home and camp there...in our neighbor's backyard.  Their fifteen-year-old spent the summer building a pretty rad campsite; they went to the mountains for the weekend' and they invited us to use their pool.  And it turned out to be the best camping trip ever.  Seriously, I forgot we were in their yard it was so "campy" and Rex said it was his favorite site.  The site was great--really though, a nice site.  It was isolated so no other crying babies.  And there was a pool.

So we set up camp, roasted hot dogs, Greg picked up some outdoor lights from the Big House, put Henry to bed, and the rest of us spent a few hours night swimming, which wore the kids right out and made for a lovely night.  I will say that Greg cheated and went home to change out of his bathing suit and into his jammies, and decided to take a shower while he was at it.

The next morning, we used our forgotten stove to make bacon and eggs, cleaned up camp, took Henry home to take a nap in his own bed, then swam the morning away.  We were home from our stay-(in our neighbor's backyard)-cation by noon, which left enough time to unpack and go grocery shopping.

Sunday was church and dinner with friends.

Monday we swam more with more friends.  Henry even made an appearance after his morning nap.

All in all, I may need to repent of my previous statement that I will never have a pool in my backyard due to not wanting to upkeep it and the liability of have a drowning machine so near children.  It was really nice not having rules and running around the pool if I felt like it dang it.  I'm just going to have to be rich enough to get a pool and a pool girl (Greg said I can't have a pool boy).

So happy end of summer and welcome fall.