'the camping story'

our brilliant idea was to camp on the way out to california. we have an awesome tent and had great experience earlier in the summer camping as a family. it was cheaper and i didn't have to face my fear of bed bugs in hotels. matt and i were really excited about this part of the trip. but our first night ended up being one crazy event after another...


our first stop was in topeka, kansas. we got in at 5:30pm and matt and i set up camp. 90 degrees with who knows how much humidity....but there was a pond to swim in...


and friends for the kids to play with at the neighboring campsite. we even built a fire to do smores and totally disregarded the heat.


after being at the camp for over an hour i opened the door to the van to hear the a/c running....but the engine wasn't on. we had killed our battery. we thought about waiting until the morning to ask for a jump, but decided to take care of it that evening. a neighbor drove over and gave us a jump. turned out this was the best decision we could have made and we had no idea....

as we were going to bed, the heat combined with too many smores didn't agree with isaiah.

in bed, with pj's on, reading books, he threw up all over our sheets and blankets. after staring in disbelief and having that reoccurring thought that comes to me when vomit is suddenly a part of my life ('i'm not the mother here, someone else surely is') i jumped in to action. threw the sheets out of the tent, remade beds, went to neighbor to ask for a pot in case we were in for a long night of the same thing.

the plan was to take a shower and get clean before bed, but not knowing what the night held - and being so extremely exhausted matt and i fell into bed - not even bothering to change out of our clothes. we laid in bed on our side of the tent and tried to sleep. no wind - no breeze - 90 degrees - humidity. even with all the walls zipped down and screens all around us, we found it hard to breath let alone sleep. but eventually sleep came.

at 12:30 we were jerked awake by thunder ripping through the sky and lightening lighting up everything. we rushed around the tent zipping all the sides up, closing all the windows before the down pour. and down pour it did. the storm lasted for 2 hours. we laid there awake, waiting for it to pass. the kids did great and surprisingly slept through it all.

sleep came again until 4:30. the wind was whipping and the tent was shaking, corners lifting off the ground. the rain had made the ground so soft that it had pulled all the stakes up. matt went out in the wind to try to re-stake, but the wind was just too strong for the soggy ground. the tent was moving at such force, the sound woke the kids up and they were huddled under the blankets in fear. i checked the weather on my phone and read that wind 40-55 miles per hour were expected to come through, with a huge storm following. as we all laid there awake, matt made an executive decision. 'let's get out of here!' he said. and we all snapped into action.

sophia was still asleep in her pak-n-play, so we put just isaiah and alaythia into the van. matt started outside, literally throwing all of our belongings into the van (including the throw up blankets). i worked inside the tent. i deflated the beds, put clothes back into the suitcase. and then it happened, the wind picked up the tent. i stumbled backward and sophia's pak-n-play flipped. i screamed for matt who was trying in vain from the outside to hold the tent down. in the dark i searched the ground for sophia. screaming to matt that i couldn't find her. i finally did and picked up my hysterical sweet sophia. the tent was lifting off the ground. it wasn't my brightest idea, but i thought i would just go and stand in the far corner of the tent and hold it down. sophia in arms we stood there while matt screamed at us to get out of the tent. after the third time, i could hear in his voice that he meant business. and at the same moment i realized why, as the wind could have easily picked all of us up again.

hysterical sophia joined her siblings in the van and matt and i collapsed the tent. but everything was still inside. racing the storm that was fast approaching, matt entered the collapsed tent - in the dark - and passed all the items to me through the door. just as the rain arrived we jumped in the car with all of our belongings thrown in behind us. and as we drove through flat kansas at 5:00 in the morning, in the dark, in the safety of our car, God put on the most amazing light show.

it made for a long day of travel...in our SAME clothes from the day before, no brushed teeth, no coffee, disorganization everywhere. but we made it through.

do i even have to say that when we stopped driving that next night...we stayed in a hotel?