I've got my pack on my back

I've been slacking on blogging lately... o well. 

Last week I was pretty busy.  I helped Kelly paint Wednesday all day, Thursday I went to the farm and picked up camping gear and a trunk load of perennials from Fred and Di's, and Friday I helped paint again in the morning and then we went to Starved Rock that afternoon. 

I don't know why, but my brothers like to call with big news when we're camping.  This time, Matt called to say he was engaged as we were loading the car...  floored would be an understatement.  Anyway, I was slightly flustered and we were in a hurry so I didn't get much more than her name... I suppose I should have called back on the road but by then I was in no state emotionally to talk on the phone... poor Bob.  :D

We had beautiful weather Friday night.  It was our sort of annual Koch cousins camping so Dale & Meg, Jon, Mike, Kevin, and Josh were there too.  

They are all camping experts so we had really good food over the fire...

Little miss liked camping, I think.  She was happy the whole time and slept the whole night.  I slept pretty good too, but I also heard some people yelling at some noisy campers, the guys chasing away a coon and coyote from our food, Dale and Jon scrambling to get their rain fly's on their tents before it started raining.... hehe.  Quite the night. 

There was a slight letup in the rain while we ate our yummy pancake breakfast.

Maria was cracking me up... 



We had to pack up all our stuff in the rain.  Ugh.  Wet tents are the worst.  And since we were already wet we decided to hike in the drizzle.  It rained last Koch camping too.  I don't like camping in the rain. 

Little miss liked the backpack we borrowed.

We don't look like we've been camping, do we?  Hehe.  Hooray for the soggy, greasy look.  

There was actually water running in the canyons!  I've only ever been to Starved Rock in the summer or fall when everything is dry.  So pretty.

I was jealous of Maria- I love to go barefoot in puddles.  Or streams.  

 Then we came home and unpacked our wet gear.  And Cecily wiggled out of her car seat and fell off the table... I found her on her back on the floor... minor freak out.  And then I called her doctor and got a long list of head injury symptoms to watch out for that all sound awful.  happymothersdaytome.

To top it all off I looked in the church book to see how old Lena is.... poor Bob got his shower interrupted twice when I discovered that she's younger than Michelle, and then again when I realized she doesn't turn 18 for two more weeks.  *Blink*  Haha.... and then I did talk to Matt on the phone and he got to listen to me freak out and give him a hard time about being a cradle robber.  I'm excited to meet her this week.  Shelly and I can give her all kinds of inside info on what living with Matt is really like- poor girl can't have any idea what she's getting herself into.  We're kind of a weird family.

He's totally twitterpated already and it's going to be really funny. 

So to make a long weekend longer we went to W-ton today for church and mother's day festivities at the farm. Tomorrow I'm going be lazy and do laundry... wet smoky laundry.  Woot woot. 

Blessings.