Birthday Cake, and Other Memorial Day Treats

As I mentioned yesterday, we postponed my dad's birthday cake by a day for a very good reason...

...my brother Doug, his wife Lisa, and their son Nicky were in town and could come out to eat a lunch of tacos and watermelon and cake with us today and make our celebration even better!  :)

 We occasionally see Doug as he travels through our area (he's a truck driver who has traveled to all 48 contiguous states and has had many adventures along the way!), but it had been 8 years since Lisa and Nicky had been here.

You can imagine how much my nephew had changed in those 8 years.  He grew up!!  :)

 Moriah got some Aunt Lisa time...

 ...and Josiah and David got to play chess with Nicky.

We're so glad they could be here!  :)

Jumping back in time a day, the boys remembered how we camped out last year in our backyard and were EAGER to repeat that adventure.  I was nearly as eager, and Jeff a little less so, realist that he is.  ;-)  I suppose he was remembering the less-than-optimal sleeping conditions to be found in a tent.  :)  But he was a good sport and put up the tent on Sunday afternoon anyway.  :)

 I didn't take very many photos at all; but when David rushed into the house and told me that the tent was going up and that I'd better come take some pictures if I was going to take any at all, I did grab my camera and strolled outside to document the occasion.  :)

 Of course, Puppy got to sleep in the tent, too; Moriah made sure of that.  :)

 I really do appreciate Jeff's willingness to set up the tent for us--a task which I know nothing about.

When it was completely dark, I realized I'd like to have a picture of all the kids, so I turned the flash on the camera and aimed it in their general direction, unsure of what I'd get.  This is the result, and I was pleased because, hey, they're all in there!  :)

The funniest moment of this particular adventure came after we had been in the tent for a while.  I had read a chapter from By the Shores of Silver Lake to the kids, and David had read Love You Forever ("it's tradition!" he said, remembering how we had read that book in the tent last year; but of course, I couldn't read it aloud because of my propensity to cry!).  The kids were in various stages of settling down (a process which took quite a LONG TIME for certain members of the clan!) when clear as a bell, Josiah asked, "Could you repeat the passage?"  Not having any idea what he was talking about, we asked him what he meant, only to discover that he was sound asleep.  :)  I could hardly believe how distinct his words were; his voice didn't even have that sleepy vagueness to it!  But sure enough, he was talking in his sleep; and when we told him about it this morning, he had no idea that he had said it or what he meant by it!  :)

Another thing that made me smile last night was how Moriah took her glow stick (Jeff had given each of the kids one) and put it down the front of her sleeper.  It illuminated her whole tummy and chest area, and it sure made it easy to spot where she was in the tent.  Not that you could have missed her!  She was a bundle of energy and seemed to think that it was the perfect time to laugh at David and Tobin's antics (I believe they were making funny faces at each other) and to do somersaults on the air mattress that I was trying to sleep on!  I thought at some point, she would surely crash and fall into a deep sleep; but I don't think she ever did.  It was quite a restless night, to say the least.  :)

Around 2:00 a.m., Jeff woke me and said I'd better go in the house so I could take care of Willow--an arrangement we had previously discussed--so I left my cozy nest of blankets and scurried through the chilly air into the house where I then fell asleep on the couch.  At some point, David brought Moriah inside; and I must have taken her up to my bed to lie down with her there and see if she would conk out.  She laid still as long as I did; but as soon as I stirred, her eyes popped open.  Before I got to the stirring stage, however, Shav must have come in because he ended up on the other side of me in my bed.  When I went downstairs in the early morning, I found David on the little couch and Jeff on the big one.  I forget where Tobin was at that particular moment, but I do know that Josiah was the only one who was still in the tent!  He fell asleep first last night and ended up sleeping the longest in the tent which qualifies him for some sort of award, I suppose.  :)

As you can tell, it wasn't a very restful night; but it WAS a special one.  Sometimes making memories means giving up a little sleep.  Or a lot of sleep, as the case may be.  ;-)