Quite Content

(This is another post I started a while ago and am just now getting around to finishing...)

Here I am at the end of another long, crazy - yet uneventful - week. This week brought such adventures as: a terrifying trip to the dentist (Andrea), terribly scraped knees (Natalie), 147 mosquito bites (Ethan), a sprained finger and gimp leg (Emily), and working at the office until 2:00 am (Anders).

But the dentist is forgotten, the scrapes are healing, the mosquito bites don't seem to bother, the sprained finger and gimp leg are manageable, and my workaholic husband took Thursday and Friday off to be with his family.

Last night we went camping. Our intention was to camp at Shenandoah National Park. Then we chickened out - we've not been camping with all three kids before, and we thought something a little closer might be a better way to test our outdoor-survival-with-3-little-kids skills. Burke Lake became Plan B - family camping, lots of bathrooms, playgrounds, and only 20 minutes from home.

Then my hip went crazy on me (you'd think I was in my 80's, not my 20's), and Anders got three hours of sleep Wednesday night (thank you, PwC), so we quickly came up with Plan C: camping at the In-laws.

We had a fabulous time.

We roasted hot dogs for dinner (this is the only acceptable way to cook a hot dog, by the way...)

And camping wouldn't be camping without s'mores. (Apparently, in our family you have to look like an Amazon woman to really be camping. Nice hair, girls :)

We also made blueberry-peach cobbler in the dutch oven, using the blueberries we picked last weekend in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Natalie was the Blueberry-picking Champion...she was very determined to get every last ripe blueberry from every bush.

Camping wouldn't be camping without Daddy. He was the hero - building fires, playing with hot coals, and setting up tents. When it came time for lights out, Ethan wasn't too thrilled to be in an unfamiliar place. And so Daddy came to the rescue. He pulled out his guitar and sang until Ethan and Andrea (and Mommy) were asleep. Natalie couldn't be lulled so easily, so Anders paid her $1. She took the bribe and went right to sleep.

Beautiful weather, beautiful family, and time spent together makes one happy, content momma.