July 24th Campout

July 24th is a big day in Utah.  Our state has set this day aside to remember and celebrate the first day that the Mormon pioneers entered the Salt lake Valley in 1847. Utahn's call this time of the year, the Days of 47.  There are parades, rodeos, fireworks, etc.  Our family likes to celebrate this state holiday with a huge campout at Grandpas mountain retreat. (Check out our fun Independence Day poem that we posted on July 9, 2009)  We get together for the weekend and have a lot of fun.  There are snow cones, popcorn, games,  and everything a campout suggests, but the cool thing is that we get to set up tents and have the camping experience, but still have the convenient amenities of home. 

I am posting some fun pics that I took at this years campout. We had a wonderful time re-connecting with family and friends whom we don't get to see as often as we would like.  Thank goodness for holidays and for the opportunity to get together with the ones we love!

Camping Mishaps

This past weekend my family and I (my husband and two kids) went camping in the mountains. Because the temperature drops so dramatically once night falls, we decided to zip our two big, heavy sleeping bags together to create a queen-sized pocket that the four of us would sleep in, hopefully without freezing. Then we blew up our mattress, which stands about two and a half feet tall, and lay the combined sleeping bags across it. We were set for the night.

The kids went to bed before I went to bed, and I went to bed a couple of hours before my husband. I didn't want to wake the kids when I finally slipped under the covers, so I didn't move them as much as I should have. I didn't realize until later how much of the bed the three of us were taking.

Eventually my husband joined us. We were one squished, happy family snuggled under the covers, myself on one side, my husband on the other, kids sleeping happily between us. . . for a while at least. I slept off and on, a bit too cold to sleep soundly, but the kids were doing great.

Sometime in the middle of the night, my husband slipped off the bed. He didn't hit the ground! The poor man was trapped in the pocket of sleeping bags, dangling off the side of the bed, struggling to free himself. I woke to his thrashing and realized what had happened. I also realized that if he fell off all the way, the rest of the family was coming with him! We were all zipped into that pocket and those sleeping bags were going to slip right off the bed. We were going to land in a big heap on the floor of the tent.

My husband, unable to free himself, reached out his hand and grabbed mine, hoping I could help pull him up. I held on and pulled as much as I could, but he didn't move. We did. I could literally feel the bags slipping beneath me, dragging us off the bed. I let go. If we slipped off, the kids were going to wake up crying and the rest of the night was guaranteed to be a nightmare. By this time I wasn't on the side of the bed anymore, I was in the middle, and the kids were scooting ever closer to the edge.

Somehow, without my help and still tangled in the sleeping bags, my husband managed to pull himself halfway onto the bed. He collapsed, breathing heavily, and promptly went to sleep! That was the end of it. We stayed where we were the rest of the night, crammed together on half a bed with our feet dangling off the bottom. I slept great after that. Toasty warm and comfortable. We woke up a happy family the next morning.
~ Julianne