Matt, Christen, Derek & Rylie

Since we've been living in Florida we've always wanted to go camping. We tried to go in the fall during football season, but it rained the weekend we had planned. So on June 30th after much planning and scrounging around for tents etc. we went camping on Payne's Prairie. Laura Cunningham did all the planning and organizing. She and Sean are moving to Texas in July and were determined to go camping before they moved. I know that we were crazy to go camping in Florida in the summer, but it was a great night. Before we went camping we all went tubing down the Ichnetuckne River. It was packed since it was prime time during the summer. The river was crowded compared to the last time we went with Pat and Kate, but the tubing was still fun.

Matt and I do not have any camping gear so we borrowed a tent from Scott and Lindsay Diley. They also let us use a lantern and tent to cover a picnic table. We were so grateful they let us borrow the gear. Here are Caleb, Dustyn and Lucy setting up the tent. Dustyn and Lucy and Matt and I shared a tent together. We both brought blow up air mattresses. (I know not true camping, but who cares!)

David and Donna brought their own 2 person tent and Sean and Laura had a 2 person tent as well. Their tents were MUCH easier to set up than the 7 person tent.

Here is all the stuff we brought for one night of camping - chairs, water, iced tea, hamburgers, hotdogs, smores fixings, beer, I.B.C. Rootbeer, condiments, cereal, milk, etc.

Here is Emily, Lucy, David and Donna taking a break once the tents were set up.

Even Oscar joined us on the camping trip!

The guys did some grilling for dinner.

After dinner we gathered around the campfire. The weather was hot and humid, but we still had a fire. It was quite a site to see us all sitting around the campfire sweating buckets, but no camping trip is complete without a fire and smores. Bob brought his guitar and we sang praise songs.

We played a game called "celebrities."

Dustyn, Lucy and Oscar slept in our tent. It was hard to fall asleep. First of all it was very hot. Second of all the crickets and cicadas were singing their songs. During the night some animal must have sensed that Oscar was in the tent with us because we heard something making it's way to us through the woods. We tried to see what it was using a flashlight, but we couldn't make it out. We think it was an armadillo.