The boys' first camping experience was just that...

Our new tent is waterproof.

It is not, however, capable of withstanding gale-force winds. More on that later.

We had a great weekend at our church retreat at Camp Mihaska about an hour southwest of St Louis. The boys had their first experiences sleeping in a tent and sleeping bags, which they loved. We had a campfire the first night but it was pretty late so the boys got to see it but only briefly before they went to bed. The boys had lots of firsts this weekend--miniature golf, basketball, hockey, soccer (the last three all at once!), and paddleboating.

Friday night was great--cool but nice and perfect weather for camping. Mark built a campfire and we roasted marshmallows and had smores after the boys had gone to bed (way past their normal bedtime). Saturday we played most of the day with some group activities thrown in. We all took a long nap in the afternoon during a brief thunderstorm. I love napping during afternoon thunderstorms. :) Saturday night it really started raining hard. We watched the talent show and one episode of the Jetsons with everybody and then decided to head back to the tent since it was getting pretty late. It was still raining but not as hard, and we needed to decide if we were going to stay in the tent or move into one of the dormitories for the night. We carried the boys back to the tent (for speed) and found it to be nice and dry, so we went ahead and bedded down for the night. However, about midnight we woke up to really strong winds. Since the ground was so soft after all of the rain, the wind pulling on the tent pulled the tent stakes out of the ground. Come to find out, our tent's not very stable if it's not staked. ;) So Mark went outside and restaked the one corner that had come out. The winds died down a bit, and we went back to sleep (the boys never woke up). Then at 2 am (happy Mother's Day to me!), Mark and I were awakened again by the tent blowing in on us as the stakes had been pulled out again. Mark restaked as much as he could, and then moved his sleeping bag to the corner that was causing problems to hold it down. Even with him there, the wind was blowing hard enough that it was literally flattening the tent on us, and then the tent poles would pop it back out when the wind let up. I was standing inside the tent holding it up and it was blowing down around me. At one point, Dima woke up and sat up (he was a little concerned, understandably, that the tent was laying on his face!). I told him to lay down (I was afraid he would get hit with the poles and it was easier for us to manuever the tent if he was laying down) and he obeyed immediately--and that is reason number 812 that we have been working on immediate obedience. After half an hour, Mark and I gave up and decided we needed to move inside. There was just no way with the winds as strong as they were that we could keep the tent standing, and it didn't seem very safe to have it laying on our faces. ;) At this point, Zhenya was still asleep. :) :) I stood up in the tent to try to hold it up enough for us to get stuff out, and I handed Dima to Mark to put him in the car. I then had to find Zhenya (he was buried in the tent that had collapsed!) and handed him over as well, and then grabbed our sleeping bags out and threw those to Mark too. As soon as we had our basic necessities out, we dismantled the tent in about 15 minutes and threw it in the back of the car and found ourselves a quiet corner in one of the main buildings. The boys were back asleep within about 15 minutes of getting settled in. The very strong winds continued on into the next day, so it was a good decision to move inside when we did. The tent wasn't damaged, nor were we, so all's well that ends well. Oh, and the boys think it was a great adventure. They tell everyone about the "tent, uh-oh, fall" complete with hand motions to show it falling over. Particularly funny since Zhenya slept through almost all of it. LOL

Sunday we had church in the little chapel at the camp. I've been anxiously waiting for the boys to start singing along with us, but I know they don't know the words yet to most of the songs. So you can imagine my surprise when Dima was singing along with me. Some of you may remember this post about a dream I had. We weren't singing the same song, but it was a great Mother's Day present all the same. :)