Reunion Campout '09

Cox Family Reunion, 14-15 Aug 09, 29 pics, read it and weep. And you may want to, considering it hailed, and we were freezing. It was one of those, "Do you remember the year that...?" the few, the proud, who survived the campout. It's sort of like King Henry's St. Crispin's day speech in Shakespeare's Henry V:

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day."


It took us forever to find the campground, took a few wrong turns. Man, that place was out in the middle of nowhere. Friday night wasn't too bad, a bit cold and sprinkly, but still fun. Love me a campfire, one of my favorite smells in the world.

The first injury, I think. Connor ran around with a roasting stick, and poked Lily in the back of the head. Hope her tetanus shot was current.

It didn't take Emma long to get completely muddy.

This just illustrates how ill-prepared my little family was for this year's campout - all summer clothes and lightweight jackets.

Saturday morning, Katy used her best camping skills to build a nice fire, but in the end, she had to resort to Boy Scout water to get it going. Again, campfires are awesome.

Katy, Chris, and Liz came up with these cute, and ingenious dish bags we got to decorate, each holding one person's camping dishes, which hopefully we will all get to use again soon.

Cranky cookstove, but at least Katy and Chris got one of them working, and we all ate like kings.

For some reason, Mom looks like she needs an antler hat. I'm just saying.

Sausage and sourdough pancakes, mmm...

Yeah, I'm in a pic, but I look like a hag. Everybody looks like poo when camping, especially by the end. But hey, that's what camping is all about, right? Grunge?

Stretch! Why did we sleep in a tent? And where's the food?

Crusty morning crew, our tent in the background. As I recall, Gil slept in the truck, and froze his tooshie.

Gimmee some sugar!

Knowing Amelia, this much cheese is probably a fluke.


Little white flowers growing on the ground? No, that would be hail. It's after breakfast, and that's when it started hailing.

Ducking into the food tent, thinking it would all pass, soon.

Lily dancing in the hail. This was when it was still fun and novel.

Still in good spirits. Wait for it, wait for it.

Chris and Sedona stretching their legs.

Emma, playing the "I feed you" game, passing time.

Cold, wet, and muddy. This isn't fun anymore!

Connor and Avy stretching their legs.

When the hail turned into rain, and eventually soaked the food tent, that's when it all went downhill. Connor and Emma lost it and started non-stop bawling, and that's when I broke ranks, and began throwing everything into the truck to sort out later. I was so glad to be driving away.

Katy had some fun activities planned at the campground, but the bad weather drove everyone away, and most of us wound up at Mom's house. So, Katy busted out her activities there. I think the concept was toilet paper fashion.

"Big people suck!"


I'm not sure what her starting fashion was, but it wound up being a classic toilet-papering, turning her into a mummy.

Katy also had a marshmallow tossing game, but I think the game just turned into eating marshmallows.

Yep, Emma still likes marshmallows, maybe it started here.

Okay, reunion campout conclusions - I'll still camp with kids, but I seriously need to track down some kind of trailer, that is waterproof just in case, and where we can huddle in bad weather. And next time, I should prepare for near-winter temperatures. Still, props to the organizers. As miserable as it was, I didn't have to do much of the prep work, and there were a few bright moments. Especially the campfire and the going-home part.

Here's a weird thought - let's have a Girls' Weekend, camping without kids!!! Gabbing around the campfire, and no whiners to take care of! Might make me like camping again...