Fathers Day

This guy....

...is such a great Dad! I was so excited to go camping this year for Fathers Day, but then Washington, ahem....I mean Texas, decided to rain and flood so much that the campgrounds within a reasonable drive are uninhabitable this year. Seriously, I need camping. Every year. This whole once a year thing is killing me....and it's not even good camping. It's terrible camping. Hot. Humid. Buggy. I miss the mountains.

BUT!

I'm not here to complain about crappy Texas camping. I'm here to elaborate on our fun-filled weekend. Since we didn't have any camping options, I decided that we would make our backyard a camping dream come true. I even made Brian a weekend itinerary.

So, I picked him up from the train station and blind folded him. I wanted him to think we were going somewhere other than our house, so I started my long drive home to get him confused. It was a great plan. Killer plan. I was so busy during the day getting ready for this killer plan that I forgot to gas up the car. 

That's right. 

Five minutes into this great weekend, we ran out of gas on Irving Blvd a half mile away from the gas station. We coasted into the nearest auto parts store, got out our strollers, and called our walk to the gas station a "hike"....because you do hike when you're camping. :) 

Back in the car we re-blindfolded Brian and drove straight home. We were all getting pretty ravenous by this time. I backed into our driveway, which totally gave away our location. When Brian realized, he said, "Are we seriously just at home right now? We just drove home?" That's right, honey! We blind-folded you AND ran out of gas just to drive home! I had the kids put on some of his camping gear and we guided him to our fence - I mean, the national forest's entrance. Although I'm cheesy and think like a 1st grader, Brian loved it. We really are a match made in heaven, you know. 

Anderson forest comes complete with restrooms, grills, and picnic areas...

Our home away from home...

FOOD!!!! I couldn't believe how much they ate! 

Roasting mallow for our S'mores. 

Bailey couldn't get enough of them.

Then she wanted to share and I just wanted to run away. Her leftovers didn't look that appetizing.

He liked it, promise.

Sharing with Daddy.

Then there was the actual camping part. It's June. It's Texas. It's HOT!!!! I joked that I would get an extension cord and power up some fan's so we could actually sleep. Brian thought that was ridiculous, but after about 15 minutes I knew we wouldn't last without them. Two fan's later, it was like a luxury hotel. A luxury hotel that has a crappy swamp cooler and you still have to sleep naked to cool off enough. 

The kids slept in their underwear and we cooled off as the fan blew hot air onto our sweating bodies. Hailey refused to sleep, so we put her inside until she fell asleep. We brought her back outside until she fell off her mattress in 5 minutes and took her back inside to sleep. Jared and Claire fell asleep around 11. We had a helicopter around 11:00 and our backyard is a major freeway, so we also got several super loud motorcycles, an ambulance at 5 am, and Jared was up by 6. I even dreamed about the traffic and couldn't tell dreams from reality. 

It started raining at 7, so we hauled sleeping Claire onto our bed, brought in the tent, and were overly exhausted the rest of the entire weekend. :) Good thing we had fun! I never want to camp in our freeway occupied backyard ever again. 

We then spent the rest of Saturday taking turns passing out. We did go to the pool and the kids had a blast. I have no idea how Jared survived on 7 hours of sleep. Other than him being super ornery, the water park made him crazy! They were so happy. Brian and I had a pretty lame date night for the evening at half price books and him buying lemonade at Kroger. Sunday was also low key because of church. We gave him questionaries that the kids answered and let him have the day off.

And....just because Brian is an awesome Dad, he had a water fight with them after church a couple weeks ago and it was adorable. 

Claire is filling Hailey's diaper up with water.

Happy Father's Day to the best dad we could ever ask for!