Backyard Camp-out

Last night, in honor of Lindsey and Karl’s last weekend on the island before their big move to Germany, we gathered the crew together for a camp-out! This was no ordinary camp out… it was a backyard campout. The backyard camp-out combines everything wonderful about camping: being outdoors, roasting marshmallows and sleeping under the stars, with everything wonderful about not camping: mostly a clean and working bathroom, but the fridge was nice for keeping the beer cold too!

Stacy’s yard provided the perfect venue for the event, and as an added bonus, her entire yard is fenced, so all the puppies were allowed to run themselves into the ground (which they did!).

We started the evening my setting up our tents while the puppies watched from the tennis court.

Once the tents were up, the dogs were off to explore the yard and bark (or howl in Mason’s case) at the neighborhood dogs.

While the dogs were exploring, the men busied themselves with man things – like making fire. Apparently, beer plus grunting equals fire. Who knew?

Once they got the fire going, we roasted hot dogs to go along with gooey macaroni and cheese and tasty “not spicy” chili. Jacki’s idea of “not spicy” is different than mine, but her chili was still fantastic!

We capped off the evening by roasting marshmallows and making S’mores before corralling the puppies into our tents and collapsing onto our air mattresses.

Those of use with dogs were awakened at the crack of dawn by our obnoxious anxious puppies. Not that I got much sleep anyway. Sam and Roxie both decided the twin air mattress was much more comfortable than the ground, even though they both sleep happily on the tile floor every night. Silly puppies.

Once everyone was up and about (thanks to some thwacks of Sam’s tail on everyone’s tents), we enjoyed a breakfast of omelets in a bag. Everyone filled up their bags with toppings of their choice and waited for the pot of boiling water to work its magic. Perfect every time!

One last group photo with some rather uncooperative dogs, and it was time to pack up and head home!

There are a few more photos up in the July album in the pictures tab.  I've just been adding pictures from July to that album rather than create new ones for every post. 

On a completely unrelated note, Stacy and I also started SCUBA certification courses yesterday afternoon. Yesterday was boring, as it was all reading and movies. However, we started our work in the pool today, and it was so much fun! I never thought I would be able to deal with breathing under water, but it’s so effortless. The only thing I didn’t like was having to take my mask off under water. I got so much water up my nose, but after a couple tries, I managed to get the mask off and back on again without freaking out. Not bad for the first day. Next week, we start work in the open water. I’m excited and a little scared, but I’m sure it will be wonderful once we’re actually in the water!