Our Camping Trip (minus the camping part!)

I had to go on travel for work last week, returning late Thursday night.  Since I’d be off work on Friday, we decided to plan something fun to do with Ryder since he’s been through so much this summer with the Botox and Casting.  What a perfect time for his first camping trip :)

We invited Dwayne, Jess, Sydney & Kacy (my brother, sister-in-law, and nieces) to go with us and of course they didn’t want to miss out on the fun.  We’ve all been so excited for this for weeks so when it finally came we were ready to go!  We headed out to our campsite Friday morning, set up our tents, then went over to the canoe rental place to do our raft float trip down the Shenandoah River. 

Taking it all in on the drive up the mountains (through his aviators!)

The Massanutten mountain is experiencing wild fires right now which we could see & smell on the way there.

Ryder & Uncle Dwayne taking in all the peace this property has to offer…although Ryder and the word “peace” probably can’t be used in the same sentence! 

Ready to get on our rafts!

 

My girl, having a diva moment! :)

Ryder SO enjoyed playing in the river with his Daddy!  Alan has been taking trips there since he was about Ryder’s age so this was a really exciting thing for him to experience with his son as well.

   

Taking a dip with his cousins and Aunt Jess.  It was a HOT day on the river, so this was very refreshing!

Being on the river is one of those calm, serene experiences where you have to look around and realize how amazing God is.

After our float trip it was back to the camp site.  Alan made us a fire and we sat around waiting for the perfect time to make our s’mores.  Ryder kept us entertained…anyone surprised?!

About the time we decided we’d start making s’mores, we got a warning that there was a severe thunderstorm coming.  We decided to get all of our clothes out of the tents and loaded into the cars just incase our tents got wet so all of our stuff wouldn’t be ruined.  We barely made it inside the tent and these probably 80 mile an hour winds came out of NOWHERE!  Our tent was literally trying to blow away, with us in it!  Alan yelled for me to take Ryder to the pavilion, so I scooped him up and in we ran, my nieces following us.  Our tents went flying across the field, with ALL of our belongings in them.  Alan & Dwayne had to run and rescue them, we were all trying not to panic and keep the kids calm.  The wind was so crazy it was making the doors of the screened in pavilion fly open and slam shut, knocking things off shelves, our perfect s’more ready campfire started blowing all over the place, sparks heading straight for the pavilion, we decided it’d be a better idea to get all the kids into a vehicle.  I ran the kids from the pavilion to the truck and we prayed asking God to keep us safe and calm the storm!  Ryder was trying so hard to be brave and not be afraid, but even the scariest circumstances can’t take his words away.  With the shakiest voice he’d say things like “Mom, we could just go home, and do nothing…does that sound like a good plan?” “Kacy, don’t cry, it’s not scary, right Mom?  It’s not scary, is it??” as he’s fighting back tears.  My favorite line was “I think beds are better to sleep in than tents, because tents blow away!”  He kept me and Sydney laughing which helped to ease our nerves.  As the storm started to lighten up we were able to gather whatever we could see that had blown around and finally get out of there.  We thought driving home would be the best idea at that point, only problem is that every road we turned down had trees down!

That little speck of gray is my husband (my hero!) trying to break enough branches off these fallen trees to allow us enough room to get by. It seemed like we could only go a mile or two before him & my brother were getting out trying to clear us a path OR we’d have to sit behind a fire truck while they did the same thing.  It took us every bit of 4 hours to get home…after 2am and we were SO exhausted! 

Thank God we made it home, seeing all the damage on our drive home made us realize how lucky we were that no trees had fallen on our around us!    

The next morning we had to re-set up camp in our front yard to make sure none of our stuff was ruined and dry it all out.  Gotta make sure it’s ready for our next camping trip, there’s no way we can leave it in Ryder’s mind on that note!

Luckily none of the kids are traumatized and all are eager and excited to go back!  Can’t wait :)