Camp Douglass

Oh Internets, how I've missed you. O.K., not really. I was too busy having fun to miss you.

This weekend I hosted Camp Douglass at my house. Two other families that we're friends with wanted us to all get together and do something for the long weekend. We talked about going camping, but hello! I don't camp. I don't even like to pee in public restrooms and you want me to use the woods, or worse yet, a campground bathroom? You don't know me at all. Plus, there's all the work involved in camping. It's like a week of preparation for three days. Oh, and I have no camping gear.

Anyway, after some discussion we decided that what we really wanted to do was hang out together the whole weekend without having to worry about going home to put kids to bed and giving them baths and all that. We wanted to play games until the wee small hours of the morning without worrying about falling asleep on the drive home.

So, the idea for Camp Douglass was born. The two families (The Bastians and the Pynes) came to our house on Friday morning and stayed until Monday evening. Combined, we have nine kids, so the other families brought their tents and set them up in the back yard for the kids and the adults camped out on air mattresses in the kids' bedrooms (except for me because I was not giving up my bedroom).

Each family was assigned a day, and they were responsible for providing and preparing the food for every meal that day. We had lots of really good food that I shouldn't eat but did anyway. It's probably the first time my kids have been offered anything but cold cereal for breakfast in years.

For the vast majority of the weekend, the adults played Settlers of Catan (I know, we're all such Utah Mormons) and the kids played and fought and played and screamed and played and got my house dirtier than it ever has been before. This is a testament to how enjoyable this weekend was--I don't even care that much that it took me more than three hours to get the house clean after everyone left. I was able to keep my OCD tendencies at bay because I was having that much fun.

As usual, I didn't take pictures, but Tina took 867,000. So, hop on over to her blog too see all the fun and chaos. Just don't look at me. In most of them, I hadn't showered and I look kind of gross.