Day 17

It was a very chilly night for all of us and we all slept deep down in our sleeping bags. Little did I know until we got in them that our tent was set up on a slope. A slope that would mean Laney would end up in the side of the tent, I would end up smooshed next to her, and Ryan would be practically on top of me. By the looks of our tent when we woke up we could have all slept in a full sized bed.

Brayden kept asking if we were going to get up so we could eat which just made me want to stay in bed longer. I left the kids whe they started climbing head-first into their sleeping bags to see what it was like. Pretty smelly I would imagine!

After breakfast I declared we would be washing hair and feet at the bathroom. No showers since we've been on the parkway - about 12 days - has taken it's toll on my mood and nose! Fortunately this bathroom had a tall faucet so all our heads fit under just fine.  Our feet required a little more balance and coordination but we made it work. Once I was finished I walked out and made a mad emoji face when I saw the kids running around in the dirt again. Oh well, at least they had relatively clean feet for a few minutes!

We spent the day playing card games, reading, playing chess, and eating. It was so nice to be able to dry out and bask in the sunshine. Brayden and I went to the top of the meadow to throw the frisbee at one point then were eventually joined by everyone so we decided to play ultimate frisbee.















Teams ended up being Laney, Emily, and Brayden against me, Ryan, and Evey. We had to split up the most competitive and experienced ultimate frisbee players! Us girls scored right away answered quickly by the other team. Within a few minutes we were tied at 2-2, then 3-3 shortly thereafter. The other team took the lead 4-3 and we answered them to tie it 4-4. Emily and I agreed to play to 5 so this was the moment where the Clarke kids could explode or play gracefully. Thankfully Emily caught the winning goal and they chose grace this day.

We decided to get back into the shade for a little while and Laney ducked back into the hammock to read. Brayden decided to be in my lap and the other two picked up the water guns and decided to fire all around until deciding on eachother's mouths for targets. They were soaked by the end!

We were expecting a few hours of rain today so once I felt the temperature start to drop we packed up all our stuff and ducked into the tent. Evey joined us and entertained the kids with a game on her Kindle while I wrote. Laney started out in the hammock until the crazy thunder started and she raced over to climb back inside with us. She was very brave until then!

When there was a break in the rain we all ran to the bathroom and I pulled out cereal for dinner as it looked like we only had about 30 minutes until the next blob of rain. We ate pretty quickly then walked around the campground a little while until the drops started again.

Evey and Emily ducked into their tent for the night and we did the same. The kids taught me how to play Farkle and I almost beat Ryan. Unfortunately she was rolling three pair the whole game. We ended the night playing 3Up 3Down again - a definite favorite. Tempers started flaring after all that time in the tent so I decided it was time for bed.