Best laid plans of ....Parents and Kids...

Our Tent...and the bigs...

Our view...

Fun at the campsite...Our group of kiddos....
They were all having some much fun together...
Fun at the playground...

Acting goofy...

Always in motion... finally a picture of Nate

This is FUN!!
Of course, we had to have a baseball (sandlot) game...

and then,....THE RAIN

The DISAPPOINTMENT...

Some good food and good friends to warm the heart.

Back at the campsite...the flood was falling...

Our soaked,soaked,soaked tent...

Well, we planned a trip for camping. We packed,packed and packed some more all the while checking the weather. It had been raining in our town for over a week straight. According to the weather, the forecast for our trip was a slight (20%-30%) chance of isolated thunderstorms. So, we made the decision to continue on with our camping plans,hoping and praying to see a little sunshine. After all, we won't melt with a little water... we can handle a few "pop up " showers. We began our trip mid morning on Friday and left with rain showers in our area. Once we had traveled a little distance, the showers ceased, and we began to see the clouds move. The sun even came out as we neared the camp. There was plenty of cheering in our car for "Mr Sun". Upon arriving at the campsites, we had to relocate simply because our original campsites were unsafe for little children. Not to worry, we found a wonderful spot to spread out and for the kids to have a space to play. Once we had located our new spot, we began setting up camp, and our fantastic family friends arrived. We did our best to assist them in their camp set up...but really the mommies got too excited about visiting. You see we had met these friends via our bloggy sites and through God's amazing adoption stories for our families. We felt like we knew one another from forever(K and I share the same name, and we are both Native Texans... even though I am now transplanted elsewhere. There is nothing like getting to visit with a sweet sister from the "motherland" ... we are proud Texans and it will always be home.) The daddies got the campsite all set up, and our friends fixed dinner for the first night. Our children took up like fast friends and played to the point of exhaustion! We had a bit of rain as we slept through the first night,but we awakened to partly cloudy skies. Brad and the boys fixed breakfast for the whole crew. The off we went to explore and play, never once worried about the weather.

To make a "long story" short(this is getting a bit long), we had a fabulous time for a night and half a day,Saturday. Then... a "Thunderstorm" hit... we thought that we could ride it out(after all they were "isolated" right). We were making lunch...had to abandon that idea...piled everyone into the cars and drove to a little town for lunch. It turned out to be a terrific Italian food stop. I just love it when you find a local spot that is clean and has awesome food! We ate warm rolls( they were so good that we actually gorged ourselves) and had a few favorite dishes. The rain had stopped..so thought we... so we head back to the camp to check out the damamge. Five miles back, the rain begins again, and it is a diluge. We continue to wait a bit,but it's not letting up... camping is awash. Bless the daddys hearts, they packed up both sights,getting soaked to their very bones. We had a van full of soggy stuff and very upset kids. We could have canceled the whole camping trip before we got ourselves into the mess...but, you know, we would have never gotten the chance to meet our new friends... and that folks would have been so very sad.** I got to hug Max and Vivi Jo... I got to hug Max and Vivi Jo(no, I am not bragging...okay,well just a little bit)** We had such fun and made so many memories in a very short amount of time.

Our Texas friends opted to go on back home...they had a lot of very wet stuff too(a flooded tent). We (really only to help take the "sting" off of the kids disappointment) took the kiddos on into Hot Springs(the campsite wasn't very far from there). I will share the remainder of our weekend story and more pictures in a future post. In spite of the dreary weather, we are so thankful that we had this time to meet friends, have fun and create memories of fun times as a family.