She Did What?

October 14, 2012

She Did What?

About a month ago, Ashlynn came home talking about how she learned all about Arkansas being the only place you could dig for diamonds. She told me all about how she and her friends had been practicing at recess. I thought it was very cute. I started thinking about how neat that really is. We live in the only state in the United States that you can dig for diamonds and the only place in the world open to the public. Then I started thinking about how sad it is that we have such a cool thing right here in our home state, yet I have never been.

Marshal and I started talking about it and decided it would be a great fun thing to do with our family. I decided that while we were at it we should just make it our first camping trip. You read that right. I decided to go camping. You should have seen Marshal's face when I suggested this. Coming from the girl that has never ever been camping. The girl that really doesn't even like the outdoors all that much. I think he thought I was losing it.

I can now officially say I have slept in a tent, but we will get to that in a minute.

Friday after work we headed to Hot Springs to spend that night with my friend Jenn. She is another one of those besties that lives too far away from me. I was so excited to get to see her for a few minutes.

Saturday morning we head down to Murfreesboro and got our camp site all set up. The campground and facilities were very nice and everyone was so friendly.

After we had lunch we couldn't wait to go diamond hunting. We hunted and hunted and hunted. No diamonds. We did find a couple of gems and some quartz. We also had a blast getting dirty and working together as a family.

The diamond field closed at 5:00. We had some time before we were ready to get cleaned up and settle in for the night. We explored the park and the kids played a little bit.

Then we got cleaned up and Ashlynn cracked me up. I was getting irritated with Jaxton because he was being a boy and all over the place not listening to me. Ashlynn looked at him and said " Jaxton just listen to momma. She doesn't like community showers and you aren't helping her nerves." Ha! My 7 year old is too smart for her own good sometimes.

I cooked dinner, hot dogs,chips and s'mores.

We sat around the camp fire and had a wonderful evening. Marshal and I chatted it up while the kids ran around until around 9:00 when the everyone started getting tired. Sounds perfect, right?

This is the part of the story where everything changes.

We go to bed and Marshal starts getting text about the weather back home. He is texting and texting and texting. No one can sleep. I start getting irritated. I know it's his job and home did end up with a tornado out of the deal so I guess I am over that part. Then it starts raining. No biggie we had the rain guard on and it was kind of nice. Then it starts storming. Hard. Lightening, wind, thunder and heavy rain. Jaxton and Ashlynn are not so sure by this point. Marshal is up moving around and I have Jaxton in bed with me. Next thing I know my sleeping bag is getting really wet. I forgot to mention earlier that our air up bed had a leak and Marshal and I ended up sleeping on the ground. I sit up and realize water is just flowing into the tent. I moved Jaxton and I over to his toddler size blowup bed and we snuggle down. Marshal climbs in with Ashlynn and about an hour later the storm has past leaving a nice soft rain behind. By this point though we have about two inches of rain in our tent. Everything we brought was soaked.

Now,this part of the story is the part that is going to explain why I never want to go camping again.

I was exhausted. Rain in the tent or no rain I needed sleep. I snuggled down with Jaxton and drifted off. I even managed to have a really good dream. Next thing I know I hear footsteps walking up to the tent. Then there is this face looking into the tent. I look over at Marshal only he is gone. I look back at the face and he is waving at me. I realize it was Marshal. How the heck did he get outside without me hearing him? What is he doing? I start looking around for my phone to see what time it was. Where the heck is all of our stuff? What is going on?

I later find out, not only did I not hear Marshal leave, I didn't know he took all of our bags out of the tent, drove to town, went to the laundry mat, dried all of our clothes and came back. He was gone for over two hours and I slept through it all. A bear could have been sitting in my tent staring at me and apparently I wouldn't have had a clue. Who does that? What the heck! I can't trust myself camping.

Sunday morning Marshal cooked breakfast and we headed back to the diamond field.