While we were all home together this weekend, not doing anything special, Mr. Fix-It decided to take the kids camping.

Backyard camping.

We’ve been watching one of those survivor-man shows on NatGeo Wild a lot lately. This fit in nicely.

Mr. Fix-It took a couple sticks, tied on a tarp, and cut some more sticks into peg-stakes.

The kids were amazed.

It took a whole 8 minutes before the Cowboy tripped over a support line and fell on a peg and started howling. But he recovered when Mr. Fix-It mentioned having a campfire.

Collecting firewood is a regular part of any camping trip. Of course, it’s not always as easy as trotting back and forth from the hay shed…but Penny made sure to make it twice as difficult as it had to be.

Then Mr. Fix-It sent them off to procure supplies from the surrounding environment.

As in, the hay shed firewood pile.

And the kitchen.

You can’t camp without a campfire!

We cooked hamburgers and hot dogs over an open fire for dinner. Then the kids got all hyped up about sleeping outside, so I dug out a couple plastic, flannel-backed table clothes from our art bin to use as ground cloths.

{I knew where that was headed, so I elected Mr. Fix-It to supervise that one on the premise that I had laundry to do.}

There’s something about sitting beside a campfire that makes people want to talk. I’ve watched it time after time since Mr. Fix-It put our firepit in. Something about it makes people think deep and share

So they dragged Penny’s bed out there, spread everyone’s sleeping bags out, and hauled enough pillows out there for a feather bed.

Penny was the first one to come inside.

She gave up in about 3.2 minutes.

Mr. Fix-It is our grill-master sans grill.

Speedracer was about 2.5 minutes behind her.

“There’s bugs out there Momma. Something bite-ed Daddy.”

I settled him in our big 4-poster bed and figured he and I would have some snuggle time like we hadn’t since he was in diapers and I really did go and finish my second load of laundry.

Penny found the whole adventure to be quite exciting until the point where she was supposed to sleep out there.

I had just settled down with some hot tea when the Ladybug trooped in…with her sleeping bag…and her pillow…and her brother.

“It’s way too hot out there for anyone to go camping, Mom. We’ll have to wait until the weather get’s better for camping. When it’s cooler.”

I actually thought for a minute that Mr. Fix-It had gone to sleep and they’d left him out there. But I guess 10 minutes total isn’t really enough for anyone to fall a sleep in. He had moved Speedracer out of our bed and upstairs before I even managed to get all the pillows and sleeping bags sorted back out.

Mr. Fix-It and I went hiking and camping back when it was just the two of us, and we’d been chatting about missing it. I felt rather inspired after Lisa’s post about camping, but now I’m not so sure any more. It seems like an awful lot of planning and trouble for a 30 minute evening!