my FAVORITE weekend

I think the greatest thing about being a mom of boys is the father and son campout. they are usually only gone for about 19 hours, not even a full day. but they are my favorite 19 hours of the year. please don't misunderstand; i love my husband, and my boys; but MAN do i love a quiet house. i have had the pleasure of many "me days" before where i go somewhere. but nothing compares to a big quiet empty house.

anyway, the boys had a great time and everyone stayed in the tent. (i'll tell you that story in a bit.)
here they are in all of their camping glory:
Last year was the first time brent took ALL of the boys with him. spencer was 2. he was still sleeping in a crib so i encouraged brent to take the playpen. brent felt they would be fine inside the tent.
once it was time for bed, it all went downhill. i had gone out to visit my brother for the night (about 30 minutes away). I got a call around 9:30 from brent. "do you think you could bring the playpen down for me?"

"sorry honey, i'm not home. why, what's going on?"

"well, jake and elijah are both trying to sleep, and spencer won't stop jumping on their heads."

silent giggle, in my head. "oh no. those poor guys. i could come get him."

"no, we'll be fine. i'll just try to bear hug him some more until he falls asleep."

"ok, love you. good luck."

the next day, i learned that spencer had outlasted brent in the bear-hug-until-someone-falls-asleep game. apparently, at around 1:30 a.m., spencer let himself out of the tent and went on a little adventure. one of the other dads saw him, thankfully, and led him back to the tent. i guess the funny part is that it took a couple of minutes for this other dad to realize that a toddler wandering around a campground, alone, in the middle of the night, was an abnormal occurrence.

needless to say; last night's campout went much more smoothly. and i am a happy camper.