Camping at Home

We were planning on going camping for Thanksgiving Week this year but then I hurt my back the week before and was just starting to get my limited mobility back on the Tuesday the kids got out of school. That's okay, we wanted to party anyways and go ahead with at least some of our plans.

Ken was out of town on a 3 day business trip so that means I let the boys go wild starting fires in our backyard:-) Nah, I'm just kidding. The boys were pretty safe with the fire. They dugout a hole in the sand of the playground filled it with bricks for a base and then started their fire with charcoal so we could have foil pack dinners.
The boys did all the cooking. Especially since there was no way I would be bending my back over the fire. But I did roll up the meat, potatoes, and corn for them.
The kids loved them. Including their friends Noah and Jacob who came over to party with us. Noah asked me if we could do this every time they come over. That's a pretty high compliment!
After some after dinner playing in the backyard it was time for s'mores.
I just have to say that Rose and Ginger are the luckiest little sisters in the world! They totally tag along with their brothers whenever they are home and the boys are pretty open and let them hang out with them and their friends all the time. Plus, both of my girls have had huge crushes on the boys friends. It's been pretty hilarious. But their friends are pretty good sports about it.
Here's all the boys together.
Rose loved eating s'mores. She was even brave enough to take a stab at roasting marshmallows, but every time her marshmallow started to get a little gooey it would slip right off her skewer into the fire.
Darin was a good sport and would give her some of his marshmallows.

Ginger wanted to eat her s'mores in pieces, meaning she ate the graham crackers and TONS of chocolate. But then she kept throwing her marshmallows into the fire. One of the boys dropped a marshmallow on the ground and I told them to just toss it into the fire. After that Ginger was obsessed with throwing the marshmallows into the fire. Then we made her stop and told her it's only the ones that had fallen into the dirt that you were supposed to throw into the fire. So our sneaky little girl started throwing her marshmallows on the ground and then saying, "Oh, it got dirty" then she would toss it into the fire.

Mmm, mmm, mmm it was gooey deliciousness! I let the boys set up a tent outside to sleep in for the night. I made the girls sleep inside with me, which they were NOT happy about. They whined and complained because I didn't want them outside in the backyard when I was home by myself and it was taking me like 10 minutes to go from laying in bed to standing upright. It's not like I was capable of rushing outside in the middle of the night if there was a problem. They were just going to have to wait until their Daddy got home for that one.
They were not happy at all, but ended up crashing on the couch with me and my mom while we watched TV. Look at this pretty girls face, it was so dirty! But of course she managed to wear her prettiest pajama dress:-)
It was a really great night and I am glad that we were able to have a little bit of camping experience even with my body not cooperating. They boys had a blast with their friends and it was a perfect way to kick off Thanksgiving Vacation!