New Year's Camp Out

The kids have been asking Jim to take them camping in the back yard. The game plan for 2009 was to wait until fall when it was cooler and got darker earlier. But, with soccer, over night guests, school, and football games, it just never panned out. So Jim told the girls that he would camp with them on New Year's Day. Could this be a new tradition starting here? We'll see how tonight goes. They were eager to get out the tent and set it up, but the mean parents that we are, we made them clean up their toys first. And then they had to wait until Halftime of the Rose Bowl so mom could take pictures (this is the Rose Bowl, Friends, I wasn't going to miss a second of the Buckeyes!)
Annalise holds her corner in place while dad gets the poles ready.

And here it comes up!

But then the game started back up and we all got comfy for the second half.

Finally, it was time to crawl into their sleeping bags. You can see that our house is a little dry right now.

Three happy campers all tucked in for the night. There was lots of giggling when I went upstairs to blog this. My next chore is to go put sheets on the girls' beds so they will be ready when dad kicks them out of the tent later on tonight (again, we'll see)

It's really dark in the basement, but there were flashlights for everyone. They quieted down around 8:45 and here it is 9:00 and I hear chatter again. I'll update the status in the morning. They said they are going to get donuts in the morning. I wonder how long they will sleep in. As for me, I'm sleeping in my nice, soft bed and plan to wake up to donuts and coffee..