Stars and S'mores

We were supposed to go camping this weekend, but since we were expecting it to freeze, I was sick, and IK was incredibly cranky because she's teething, we decided to cancel the trip. It was for the best. We ended up having a very productive and fun weekend. Well, mostly David was productive. I spent most of Saturday on the couch watching him do laundry and clean the kitchen. He even found time to entertain the kids (and one of their friends!) with a trip to the library and the mall while I took a nap. Yes, life IS good.  

They brought home The Island of Blue Dolphins from the library.  I read that book in jr. high. It was such a treat to read it with the kids.  It's probably not age appropriate for N, but she seems to be enjoying it and keeps asking lots of questions.  We spent most of Sunday morning reading it. We did a few house projects in the afternoon and we thought we would just have an early Sunday dinner and put the kids to bed, but once we fired up the grill, the kids and David insisted that we have dinner in the backyard even though I thought it was too cold.  When we finished eating our burgers, there were still hot coals in the grill.  We decide to pretend like we were camping and had s'mores for dessert.  The kids loved roasting their marshmallows and assembling their chocolaty treat. 

After dessert, to continue with the pretend-camping idea, we went on a "midnight hike" around the neighborhood. The weather was perfect for it and the kids really enjoyed being out getting some fresh air.  It's amazing how a walk can have such a calming effect on children.  Even IK who had been drooling and whining all day was a happy baby on that walk.

Since it was only 6:45 pm when we got home from our hike, we decided to finish off the pretend-camping night with a real look at the stars.  Our neighborhood has too much light to really see anything in the sky so we drove to West Cave Preserve, a light-restricted area in the Hill Country somewhat near us.  The drive to the preserve was peaceful and relaxing. The kids were in their pj's and drinking hot cocoa and everyone was in a talkative mood.  The one slight problem with this plan is that by the time we actually got to the preserve both girls were already asleep and D was about to doze off.  The sky was just too gorgeous to not wake up N and let her see it.  She was glad we did.  D remembered to bring his binoculars and the four of us stood outside our van, huddling together to stay warm, looking up at the Milky Way, the Seven Sisters, Cassiopeia, and a billion other stars for a long, long time.

TTYL.