Good Times Were Had by All

A few weeks back we had a great weekend. Lance deemed the boys old enough to go on their first ever Father -Son camp out. For days all we heard was, "is it camping night yet?" School was still in session and all of Joshua's little classmates knew he was going camping, just the boys. Lance had that Friday off so he was able to get everything prepared and they left right after school was out for the day. The weather was perfect, Joshua's best friend from church had the site right next to them, and Boyd (Lance's brother) had the site across from them. There were sticks to hit each other with, a lake to throw rocks in, a campfire to roast things in and lots of goodies to eat. A little boy's paradise.


Matching outfits so they were easier to spot


I asked Joshua about the trip the next morning and he told me he loved it all "except for the really long hike and the chicken rock, but Mom, it didn't look anything like a chicken, I don't know why they called it that."
I asked Lance about it and he said the "long hike" was following the level road about a quarter of a mile and the "chicken rock" was the local, jump into the lake from this high point i.e. you're a chicken if you don't, spot.
All went well until about four in the morning when some amazingly bright lightening woke Lance up. Thanks to modern technology he was able to check the incoming storm from his phone and chose to just come home early rather than try to ride it out.

What did the girls and I do with all of our boy free time? We weighed our various options, places to go, things to do and unfortunately one of the girls started feeling a little under the weather. With that in mind we opted to stay home, "camp out" in the living room, watch movies all night and eat tons of junk food. Mission accomplished, well mostly. Around 9:30 in the evening we all kind of crashed. We had finished a movie, looked at each other and realized we would never make it through another one, so we turned in. Which was a good thing considering the boys were back around 6 am. In came these little wiggly boys all wound up from their exciting trip, stomping on their sleepy sisters laying on the floor. I'm sure not the nicest way to wake up but everyone was so excited to share their adventures it didn't seem to matter.

Later that afternoon we had a unique opportunity to go explore a hidden treasure in Springfield. There is a railroad museum inside an actual train. Open Saturday afternoons from 2-4 pm during the summer months and no admission. The neatest thing for the kids. The public is able to explore all of the cars, ring the bell on the engine, and look around the caboose (I always wondered what the inside looked like). There were informative and friendly volunteers ready to answer questions or show you around. I have always enjoyed going to museums and historical sites, unfortunately my children do not seem to share that enthusiasm, so this was right up their alley.
I asked how they were able to transport the train to it's current location as I saw no evidence of train tracks having ever been there. They told me it progressed under it's own power over I guess you would call them rolling tracks. Railroad tracks were moved from behind the train to the front where the train would move forward uncovering another section of track which would then be placed at the front of the train and so on. Unfortunately my memory is unreliable on specifics anymore so I am unable to recall the distance the train travelled in that manner, but it was impressive and must have been an amazing site to see.


The wheels were huge!! We were inside that engine messing with levers and such; so hands on and kid friendly.




Benjamin's only complaint, the caboose wasn't red (I didn't know that was a requirement).


We had a great weekend and look forward to more fun this summer with school being out.