"Camping" at the "Cabin"

We went "camping" at the "cabin" this last weekend. I put quotes because first of all, there is no cabin anymore. My parent's cabin burned down about a year and a half ago so no cabin. But they still own the 120 acres that surrounded it and there's a part of it that wasn't burnt to a crisp. So we don't know what exactly to call it, mostly we call it the cabin property. And on this cabin property my parents have a couple trailers so that's the other reason for quotes...because we don't go tent camping, we stay in the trailers so it's pseudo-camping. It's much easier to go camping with a six month old when you're staying in a trailer where she can comfortably sleep in her pack n'play, the girls can sleep on a bunk bed, and Dave and I can sleep together in a bed roughly the size of a double bed. It really is quite comfortable as far as "camping" is concerned.

We had a lot of fun hanging out with the Phillips clan. We were missing Tawnya and Madison, and also Casey. But everyone else was there. We're packing in the family time while Lara and Evan are in Utah (they currently live in Arizona) for several weeks while Evan does his clinicals for his physical therapy degree.

The weather forecast said there was a 40% chance of rain on Friday and 90% chance of rain on Saturday. But we wanted to go camping so we didn't let the rain stop us. Friday was beautiful and we didn't get rained on at all. But Saturday was drizzly all day. The boys set up a canopy and did their shooting but it started sprinkling consistently around lunch time and by 3 PM it was snowing lightly so we figured we better get out of there before the mud was too thick and we all got stuck.

The good news is that we didn't get stuck stuck, but we did get temporarily stuck. Lara's Honda Pilot is only two wheel drive and they were the lead car. It only took about 2 minutes for them to drive to a spot that was too slippery and muddy to get out of. So all the adults jumped out and had to find anything we could to throw on the road to help with traction. Then the boys all pushed while the car slipped and slided out of there. My Dad got through the mud next. His was less eventful because he was in their truck. But they were pulling the trailer with the ATV so that made it slightly tricky.

Next was our minivan. :) We have gotten stuck in the mud before at the cabin and we know the low clearance and poor tread on our tires that fills quickly with mud. So we threw tons of stuff on the road to help with traction and I got in the drivers seat while the boys pushed me through the mud. It was the craziest ride of my life, I was sliding like crazy. But there were no deep ravines for me to slide into so I wasn't super scared, just slightly anxious. ;) I didn't want to mess up the alignment or get us super stuck in a rut so I was doing my best to keep moving even though I was sliding all over the place.

In the end we all got back out to the main road and no one required the tow strap to pull them out. So that was great. Where were the kids through all of this? They were watching Frozen on the DVD player in our van. Thank goodness for the DVD player. They didn't even mind all the slipping and sliding or the extra travel time. By the time we got home they were all sleeping. It was an exhausting and fun time.

Gotta love the drenched, muddy, no-makeup, crazy people that we are...the Phillips family.