Labor Day Weekend

We had an amazing Labor Day weekend.  We left late on Friday afternoon for Warsaw where we pitched a tent and camped for three nights.  It was our kids' first experience camping, and they loved it.  They even thought that the outhouses were cool, which is something I am certain they will grow out of very quickly.

Saturday was spent at my sister's house getting ready for my mom's 50th birthday party.  Cassie made beautiful cakes for the party, and I did most of the other food preparations.  Dad helped some also.  It was a successful party, and Mom was very pleased.   My Aunt Bonnie and her husband, John (who I know is technically my uncle, but since we have been married longer than they have, it just seems so awkward to transition to calling him uncle), came down from Toledo for the weekend as well as my Uncle Darren and his wife, Marylou (who I just can't call "Aunt" because I think we're the same age).  It was so nice to see them and to get to visit with them, and my mom was extremely blessed that they made the trip.

We spent most of Sunday at the campground.  We played on the playground, took some photos, and had a hot dog roast.  During the day, Eric spent time putting together a radio controlled airplane that his mom had bought for him for Christmas.  It took a while to get the controls programmed, and then once it was ready, we had a riot with this plane.  Aunt Bonnie held the plane and launched it as Eric handled the controls while Lukas was begging to fly the plane and I was trying to snap pictures.  When they finally got the plane in the air, it crashed onto the roof of someone else's trailer.  That was the beginning of many, many crashes.  The plane finally met it's maker when the wing broke off, but not before having one very short, semi-successful, flight.  Come to find out, the identical planes that Eric's brothers received for Christmas last year didn't work any better than this one.  It was a riot though.  We had a fun time with it even if the thing wouldn't fly right.

Our kids loved roasting hot dogs and marshmellows.  Lukas invented his own smores recipe using Reese cups instead of plain chocolate, and he loved it.  I personally love sitting around a campfire and could do so for hours and hours.  Each night after the kids were tucked in, we sat around the fire for a while.  It was so relaxing, which was nice since anyone who has camped knows that it really is a lot of work.  The weather this weekend was perfect for camping with warm days and cool nights, which meant that a fire on the cool evenings was much appreciated.

Labor Day was nice as well.  We packed up and headed to our friends’ the Swansons.  I grew up going to the Swanson's house.  Their oldest daughter, Sarah, and I have been friends since we were 12.  It was so fun to be there with all of our kids and to spend time with all of them again.  Sarah has three little girls, and the oldest two are 3 and 5, so our kids have a great time when we get together.  It was a very refreshing afternoon and evening.

So that is the long story of how we spent our holiday weekend.  We came home last night completely exhausted and ready to collapse.  The kids were asleep long before we got home and both slept until after 8 this morning (which is unheard of as far as Lukas is concerned).   I’m still doing laundry from the weekend.  I don’t know about any of you who have camped, but I have found that clothes smell worse after camping than they do after normal wear.   I think we have put everything away as it seemed like all of our camping gear exploded into my house last night.  At any rate, we had a fantastic weekend!  I hope that each of you was blessed with an equally enjoyable holiday weekend.

I'll post pictures as soon as I get them off the memory card!