We had said we wouldn’t do it!  After last year’s very wet church camping trip, my husband and I adamantly said if it was going to rain this year we weren’t going.  It’s not that we didn’t manage to enjoy ourselves.  It was a memorable bonding experience with our church friends that won’t be forgotten for a long time.  We all kept saying, “It could be worse, it could be cold too.” 

Guess what?  This year it was cold too!

Yup, I went.  Let’s just say I’m a sucker for creating nice warm fuzzy childhood memories for my children.

Our relatively new yearly event begins on a Thursday afternoon and supposedly ends Saturday afternoon.  The first year we went the weather was sunny and warm.  It was good cool sleeping weather in the evening and pleasantly warm in the sun and cool in the shade during the day.  That last day everyone reluctantly packed up their gear after lunch and headed back home. 

Last year, the pieced together tarp that was protecting our tables from the constant driving rain collapsed Friday night while we were all trying to sleep.  Saturday morning after we cleaned up the wreckage from the collapse,  we ate breakfast huddled together under what was left of the dripping tarps and then all the adults agreed it was time to go home.  We took down our tents and loaded our cars in the rain eager to get home to warm showers and dry beds. It was at that point that Joe and I said, “Never again!  Next year if it rains, we’re not going!”

And so, when we were checking the weather Wednesday morning and the forecast had changed from 30% chance of rain on Friday to 60% chance of rain, visions of last year’s collapsed tarp and wet tents immediately came to mind. 

EE- was in the room with us so I warned her that there was a good chance that we wouldn’t be going on the camping trip after all because it was supposed to rain.

EE was crushed.  She flopped down on the couch with tears welling up in her eyes. "But WHY?"  she asked earnestly. 

“You don’t want to go if it rains, do you?”

Of course she did!  JP came upstairs.  We told him what we were thinking.  Did he still want to go?  He thought he did.  EE starts telling us all the fun things she does with her friends at the camping trip.  It’s one of the highlights of her year.

I begin to remember how that previous year the kids had gleefully played in the rain.  EE and her buddy, J., romped in huge puddles as if they were wading pools. 

JP was more often than not off with the boys, ranging from ages 11 to 19 playing football in the rain and sometimes the girls joined them to play capture-the-flag type games. Rain was no deterrent to their fun. 

Both JL and SJ enjoyed time laughing and talking with their friends around the campfire or sitting at the table playing cards.  At night all enjoyed the short devotional, singing and making smores around the campfire when their was a brief reprieve from the rain the first evening. Even with the rain we still had managed to do all those things the second night, just not around the campfire.  After the "formal" activites were games for all ages who wanted to play.  It was hard to get the young ones to go to bed!

My heart starts to melt.  Well… maybe….  But Joe reminds me how adamant we were that we said we wouldn’t go camping again if forecasters were calling for rain.  Yes, but, didn’t we mean we wouldn’t go if they were calling for pouring rain like last year? This time they were only calling for scattered and light showers…   No… he didn’t think we had made any possible exceptions.  Joe is beginning to get agitated with me as he envisions wet tents, damp sleeping bags and muddy feet in his vehicles.  I look over at EE sitting heartbroken on the couch. It couldn’t be as bad as last year…

After a little spat about what we meant when we said we wouldn’t go again if there were rain, we finally came to an agreement.  I’ll go with the kids if JP would be willing to do most of the tent set-up and break down and willing to dry the tents out if need be when we get home (and it is sunny again.)  Joe can stay home with JL, work on his research paper and be available to take her to school and work.  They can come join us on Friday night. 

Needless to say, JP was willing to take on the work so we went.  We hadn’t even begun to get ready to go so it was with a flurry of hurried activity that we prepared to take off for our camping adventure.  JP, SJ and EE brought up camping equipment and packed their bags while I ran to the grocery store for needed food. In three short hours the four of us were on our way.

Did I mention it was cold this year? And that in those three short hours the forecast had changed from 60% chance of rain to 90% chance of rain? 

Posted by wrongwaywendy

Your fuzzy childhood memories sound like misery for Mom to me. Just kidding. I'm sure you and your kids will have fond memories of those camping trips. I haven't been that brave yet.

Posted by traininup3

but the reality is that the more miserable the camping experience the better the memories that come home. I think it has something to do with bonding in the face of adversity or something like that. :)

Elizabeth (Skylark)

Posted by netopiasgal

Especially that first year. All of us from our church that went that year really did bond. We laughed through it and laugh at it now. In fact, this year the Pastor made a comment about our church having the strange tradition of "scuba camping". LOL

This year was a little harder but we are laughing again. I truly hope though, we can have some memories of more than one church family camping trip with NICE weather!