If ye are prepared ye shall not fear...

...and if you are not you shall freeze, not sleep, have grumpy children all through the night, have 5 human beings in two sleeping bags - 3 of them small but wiggly...etc. The Tuesday following Christmas we went camping outside of Wickenburg in the desert. We prepared for everything except for the fact that the night temperature would drop to 25 degrees. Darrell and I zipped together and shared two sleeping bags with a blanket on top...still froze. The kids were in -15 degree sleeping bags, but had no padding underneath and had trouble staying in them...they froze (Well actually Emily slept in hers the best and did not join the rest of us until about 5am). The baby had not enough blankets to sleep in her pack-n-play so she slept with us. By the wee hours of the morning all of us were cramped in the two zipped together blankets. We hardly slept a wink and had to sleep with our heads buried in the sleeping bag to stay a little warm. We were up by 6 just to get a fire going so we could warm up. All in all it was fun.

The kids went through a whole bag of Marshmallows by the time we left on Wednesday morning. They just ate them straight out of the bag on sticks...they didn't want them toasted.

Here is a very cute picture of Sarah and a very sad one of Emily. Something about Emily...she is a very cute girl but can trip very easily, and she had a very bad spill Wednesday morning. She was walking and tripped landing face first onto a very large rock. Luckily no broken teeth, just a lot of blood, a VERY swollen lip, and a whiny girl.

Dinner Tuesday night was a healthy combination of hot dogs and potato chips. This is me cooking them on the new stove Darrell bought just for these types of excursions:)

Tuesday after we stopped at our camping spot we went for a walk. We were camped near a small creak of running water...usually dry most of the year. We found a small cave filled with the finest sand. The kids loved playing in it. This was probably their most favorite part of the trip. Derek made a little building with sticks and leaves...actually I did the leaves:) It was fun watching them draw in the sand. While we were in the cave we heard a VERY loud BOOM. It made my heart skip a few beats. The kids were frightened for a while and wanted to go back to camp. Darrell suspects it was a mining blast...boy was it loud in the canyon we were in.

The picture on the right is probably one of my favorites. I took a dozen others of the same pose and then Derek got bored and goofy and I snapped this last shot. Of course what you can't see is the girls crying 2 seconds later because Derek was gripping them so tight and wouldn't let go:) But I'm glad he got a little goofy because the picture is great!