A Pretty [Stormy] Prairie Weekend

Hey Humble Readers...

I hope you all had a good weekend.  Ours was busy, and definitely eventful.  Here are some views from this afternoon. 

We were at an Ent family reunion campout over the weekend, about a half hour to the south of the Shire.  Our little hobbit clan went out to the campground for the day yesterday, and then came home to sleep.  (In true hobbit fashion, I prefer the comfort of my bed to that of a tent or even a primo camper like my in-laws all have.  I also prefer being able to take a hot shower too.)  And then we went back out again this morning. 



Ginny bundled up in Gramma's
jacket around the campfire

It was great to see so much of my Beloved's family.  There are a lot of my Beloved's cousins, and I only see them once every couple of years, so it's hard to keep everyone straight.  The wee-lings had a great time playing with their cousins (actually their first cousins, once removed), and getting spoiled by all the aunties and uncles. 



Pip with one of his auntie-cousins
at the campfire.

The major excitement came in when a major storm hit on Saturday afternoon.  We were expecting a bit of rain, possibly even some hail if it worked up to a thunderstorm.  At about 3 o'clock, the wind started to howl and suddenly tarps, camper awnings, tablecloths, lawn chairs, food, everything went flying.  We were in full on frantic mode as we were all trying to save a much as we could and run for cover.  Turns out that we were under a tornado warning.  Lovely. 



Lovely rainbow on Saturday night.

When the storm hit hard, and everyone was dashing around lowering awnings, wrangling things that were blowing away, I grabbed the wee-lings and headed for our car.  I knew it was bad when the car was rocking back and forth in the wind, and I couldn't see the vehicles parked on either side of us, less than three feet away.  I kept the wee-lings distracted by playing their favourite song from my playlist (Little Red Wagon by Miranda Lambert) over and over. 

Thankfully, there was no major damage done to any of the campers (one awning took a hit), and even more thankfully no one was hurt.  After a very long 20 minutes, the wind eased a bit and the rain slowed enough for my Beloved to come out from his brother's camper to get us.  We spent another 15 minutes all crammed into the camper before we could head back out and clean up.  And man was it ever a mess.  There were a lot of jokes about finding chip bowls and playing cards two towns away. 

We were blessed with some great sunshine after the storm, and the rest of our time together was pretty tame.  We all got sunburned (me most of all), ate a lot of great food, and had a lot of fun.  The kids stayed up way past their bedtime, got immensely dirty, and had an awesome time.  And so did we.