Labor Day Weekend camping

This is a little late, but we had so much fun and got lots of good pictures I just had to post this. We have been really wanting to buy a bigger tent and camping gear and take the kids camping (besides our backyard), so we finally decided to do it just in time for Labor Day weekend. We got this awesome 7 man tent with a little "closet" and welcome mat! It's so cool! We were all excited b/c I found a pretty cool campground, but after multiple phone calls I found out that since it was a holiday weekend we would have to pay for 2 nights, even if we stayed only one. What a rip off! One camground even said it was a national law! Huh???? So we decided to wait until Sunday night (when we wanted to go anyway) and see if they would still let us just go for one night and pay only one night. Well, the place we wanted to go was STILL going to make us pay for Monday also, even though Tuesday was a work day, so we said forget it and we had a blast just camping in our backyard. We made a fire in our garden (where the green beans had been since they were done) and roasted hot dogs, had smores and even was entertained by Kent's homemade "zip" stick from the melting marshmallow bag. Pretty neat! You can see the cucumber vines and tomato plants in the background. Our cucumbers were pretty much done after that. I wonder if the heat was too much for them? They were winding down anyway, so it really wasn't a big deal. The kids absolutely loved it, even though Harrison missed the campfire. We opted to buy a lantern instead of an air mattress, which was not a smart idea, so by the morning Kent and I decided we weren't going camping again without one! Our old bones and backs just can't take the hard ground anymore! :) We read some books in the morning and Harrison had a ball exploring it since he didn't get to the night before. Looking back, it was probably better we didn't go on Sunday and we'll just have to go to the cool campground a different time.