Pedernales Falls Camp out

In November our family joined Allen's two brother's and their families for an overnight camp out. We drove 2 hours north to Pedernales Falls State Park. It was a bit chilly and damp that evening. The rain/drizzle was supposed to quit by 4 p.m. and just be cloudy that night with sunny skies the next day. It rained all night, loudly, but the sun did come out in the morning.

Some photos from Friday night:


Kids hanging out under the sun shelter that Uncle Bruce and Aunt Yaw brought. Worked great in the rain!
Cousins Tomas, Ryan and Manissa in top middle photo.


Top left: Aunt Juanita with her kids, Tomas and Kadi. One of my favorite shots of the night is the one of Tomas - the lantern carrier.

Oliver reminded me that we needed to include that the kids all sat under the canopy with their song leader, Aunt Juanita, singing lots and lots and lots of songs. Christmas songs, Primary songs, and their favorite, Found a Peanut - over and over and over again. It was a great way for them to pass a drizzly evening.



Smores Time! No camp out is complete without smores. Even though it was raining...and the fire was small and smokey...it worked. Check out how loaded those smores sticks are. We had a big crew of kids that all wanted one first. Aunt Yaw manned the cooler while Uncle Bruce manned the fire, and Uncle Kevin kept himself dry under the flowered umbrella. Aunt Juanita, Gabriel and Katrina cooked most of the marshmallows. Funny, later that evening we saw the next campsite over...their fire was blazing, even in the rain.


Some more random shots. Roasting hot dogs and hanging out. That white stuff on Allen and Gabriel's hoods is not snow...just rain, rain and more rain. At least it was light rain and not heavy downpour. Even still - it got plenty cold that night!

Our camp story would not be complete without a recounting of our misadventure with our skybox...that convenient carrier we put all our supplies in that sits on top of our minivan. Convenient...riiiiiight.

After arriving at the camp site we attempted to open this wonderful space saver. Alas, it was stuck. We tried for at least an hour. All the adults had theories of how to get the thing open and we tried them all - except the last resort which was to take Allen's knife and cut it open. I wasn't so for that plan as we would have to drive 2 hours home with a broken skybox.

Finally we resigned ourselves to the fact that the box was not going to open. Unfortunately, most of our sleeping bags, tents, blankets, our sun/rain shelter, camp chairs, etc. were in that baby. We had a 2-man tent, some sleeping pads, and 2 sleeping bags for our family of 8. Fortunately we still had our extra clothing, coats, and food in the back of the minivan.

Allen's brothers and wives came to our rescue! They lent extra tents, blankets and sleeping space in their tent. It ended up that Allen, Amelia and I slept in our 2-man tent with borrowed blankets. Simon and Oliver slept in a borrowed tent with a shared mummy bag. Katrina and Abagail slept in their cousin's tent with a shared mummy bag, coats and a few light blankets. Gabriel slept in the minivan with a few coats on top of him and an endless supply of leftover smores snacks - which we didn't realize until morning.

We made it through the long, wet night and were so glad it didn't get below 40.

The next day more than made up for any inconvenience suffered that night...to be continued.