An Unplanned Weekend

It doesn't happen that often in the life of a Rasmussen that we've got nothing planned for a weekend. In fact, this summer it has happened only ONE time. That was just this past weekend. Nothing on the schedule. No parties. No pool dates. No date nights. No barbecues. No camp. No vacation. Nothing. NA. DA.

Which it turned out, was a very very very bad thing. Because, since we had nothing to do, Rob decided that we should use THIS contraption, which has been in our backyard for about a month now, a very acceptable shelter for tea parties and afternoon pow wows.

But Rob wanted to SLEEP in it. And once he suggested it, Hannah and Lizzie (well Hannah, if this picture is any indication) was all over that idea. So we packed up our stuff and hiked and hiked and hiked (okay, we walked out into the backyard) until we got to the tent. Hannah thought it was very exciting, even though she was the one who used up the last of the batteries in our only (as it turns out) flashlight. Lizzie pretty much thought everything about camping was creepy. But not nearly as creepy as sleeping inside while the rest of us were sleeping outside:

Not being complete idiots (at least at this point) Rob and I decided to inflate our air mattress, giving us the opportunity to sleep in comfort. See how proud of himself he is? He's like a pioneer man who has just built all the beds for his family:

The girls slept in their sleeping bags with a blanket underneath them. If these pictures look a little odd it's because it was pitch black outside while we were doing this, so I couldn't see anything I was photographing. Soon after the beds were made we all tried to fall asleep, breathing in the fresh evening air and listening to the cicadas and crickets and one pretty peeved dog (not ours) who howled and barked late into the night. Although it may have only been 9 p.m.

So, by about 9:30 p.m. this is what the tent looked like. And this was the only person who was sleeping. The same was true, in case you're creating a time-line, at 11 p.m.

We sent Cash in to see if HE could awaken the sleeping father, but even he failed. However, he did grab Hannah's pillow pet and started to run around with it like a crazy dog (crazier than normal, even) and Hannah started to shriek, HE'S GOT MY PANDA HE'S GOT MY PANDA and then she burst into tears and THAT woke Rob up. Cash was banished back to the house, where he was likely much happier, but not until he took one last running jump at the tent, missed the door and sort of bounced, rolled off the side.
So we all went back to sleep and pretty soon I heard snoring from all corners and I I finally breathed a deep sigh of contentment, happy to have my family all around me, smelling that fresh, cool air and listening to the sounds of nature. At least until the air mattress deflated at about 4 a.m. :)

Rob made it in the tent until about 6; Hannah got up at 7 and then I sat and stared at the ceiling of the tent trying to arrange my body so that it was not resting on the 4 million pointing rocks in my backyard and waited for Lizzie to wake up. I finally got her up at around 8 a.m. because I just couldn't take it anymore.

I'm happy to report that the rest of the weekend went much better (although relatively speaking, spending the rest of the weekend stuck in the basement probably would have been much better...) and neither Rob nor I had any residual issues from sleeping on the ground.

We spent much of Saturday at the park:

With the dog (here he's taking Rob for a walk):

And here's just a random picture from the park that I love because Lizzie is obviously ticked off about something and NO ONE is paying any attention to her: Then we went to the pool where Lizzie worked on her architectural skills by building something out of pool noodles:

And we all enjoyed a picnic lunch. See how crowded our pool is? It's amazing we ever get a table... (ha, ha ... there's never anyone there!)

Hannah and Lizzie decided to swim in the innertube together. I have no idea why. I rarely understand why they do, what they do. But as long as no one is yelling, I'm okay with it.

Hannah stole the lemon from my ice tea:

Cash hung onto Lizzie for dear life while Rob was driving (although in this picture we are still in the driveway.) He never holds on to Hannah this way ... again, I have no idea why. Generally though, we just spent the rest of the weekend hanging around: