Camping at Oak Grove

Last weekend we went camping, tent style. For only the second time in 22 years, I missed 4th of July fireworks. We did, however, watch fire works of destruction. Stockton was doing a magic trick, making the burnt tip of a match pop off without touching any part of the match. It was an awe-inspiring trick until the redhot match tip popped right into his eye. Thanks to his highly tuned and extremely fast eyelid reflexes developed from playing video games (paraphrased quote from Landon), the sclera was spared and [only] the upper and lower lids were scorched. I would have pictures but a) they are much too graphic for sensitive folks, and b) our hard drive is crashing and all our pictures are inaccessible. It was a close call: much too close. And that boys and girls is why you don't play with matches. And why should spend hours and hours playing video games.

Besides our brush with blindness, camping was awesome. We stayed in Oak Grove Campground, just north of Leeds. A breezy 40 minute drive from our home, in the pines, and slightly cooler than the 108 temps we are currently experiencing. We had all the usual camping fare....dutch oven potatoes, barbecued chicken, scones, tinfoil dinners, hujabah (thanks, Steve Barlow for that idea!) and charcoal flavored dirt.

We played Boggle, Speed, Flinch and Frisbee, went on hikes, climbed on ginormous rocks, read and read and read and sat around the campfire and visited like old folk. (My kids were tolerant to put up with that!) To quote a line from a song my father wrote, "family fun can help a man fly!"