Wearing Flannel in July

Oh my gosh - it was the best weekend ever!! On a scale of 1-10, I'd give it an 11. One of the best parts was seeing my friend Melody. Of course, she wrote about it so much better on her blog.... she's better with words than I am. I did what comes naturally to me.... I cried. When I saw her vehicle coming down the road, my heart was right in my throat. I didn't know if I should sit and wait for her to walk up to the site and just say hi or be at the car door before she had a chance to collect her thoughts and step out. oh decisions...what do I do... what do I say....is she going to be so different that I don't know her anymore? I walked out to meet her and she met me halfway. I was so happy to see her that I started to tear up. Big blurry tears that filled my eyes, making it hard to see through the curtain of them but I could see her smile through them and knew it was ok. On the outside she was a little different... older (aren't we all!), no familiar eyeglasses, a little taller, mature, a truly beautiful lady that her mom would've been so proud of. Inside she was the same ol' Mel.... warm, funny, smart, charming and always my friend. It truly was a wonderful time visiting with her and her husband. There was so much to talk about! It was great fun & very interesting to hear her and Lloyd talk about their children, their work, home and families and what's been going on in their lives. I'm extremely happy that we got together and so is Gary.

The camper performed flawlessly except that I forgot to bring a vegetable peeler. And we have to get a piece of that astro-turf green stuff to put down under the awning. Also, my brother-in-law EJ didn't want to be seen at our campsite if we didn't have those requisite party lights so we had to search for those. The only store we could find any at was very apologetic. "I'm so sorry" the lady said "All we have is lights that looked like colored shot-gun shells." Lady, you couldn't have picked a more appropriate party light for my husband if you tried. "We'll take them all!" said Gary and now we have 3 strings of shotgun shells multi-colored party lights and he loves them. My pictures of the weekend didn't come out good. Some of them were blurry. My sister Sue and Hannah showing us The Randy. It came out blurry but I wanted to put it on here for Kim.
Hannah begged me not to comb her hair on Saturday night before bed because it hadn't been combed all day and "I got a little marshmallow in it Mom". Hannah's camping hair. EJ showed Hannah how to stab pieces of cardboard with her marshmallow stick and then light them on fire and wave them around. Jeez - thanks EJ! Thanks for opening her eyes to the wonder of flames being waved around on potential weapons! He said it was payback for all those great things Gary used to teach his kids to do when they were little. Martha guarding her eyes.

Hannah concocted a rabbit trap in hopes of catching something. Maybe the fact that she built it in front of the stairs so we all could keep tripping over it didn't help. This dog kept showing up everywhere too. Sue is doing a great job a guarding the s'more fixin's.

There he is again.