the touchton family: Ringing in the New Year 'round a campfire...

Or rather, HUDDLED 'round a campfire...

The backstory to all this centers around our trip to Washington, D.C. in March of 2007. I flew up to Fort Bragg, NC to meet Josh, Paul, Angela and their son Bryce, and we all drove up to D.C. for the weekend. Josh had previously told me that the weather wouldn't be "that bad" during our trip, but to bring a jacket.

So I brought a jacket. And nothing else.

Of course, the weather was awful. It snowed. It was freezing (literally). I had to layer and wear every shirt I brought every single day, buy a head band thing for my ears, and I borrowed a scarf and gloves from Angela. It was so, so cold. And miserable. And I fell in a patch of icy mud just after we took a picture at Arlington cemetery. (The three of them will now be laughing, remembering how pitiful I was after that...)

So, when my husband told me that the weather was not going to be "that bad" for our camping trip to Hanna Park in Jacksonville Beach, I knew that was code for "It's going to be awful."

I packed for awful weather this time. Thank goodness I did.

The weather reports leading up to our trip kept saying that Friday, New Year's Day, would have a high of 50 with rain all morning and then a low of 35 overnight. And that's exactly what happened.

But this time, we were prepared. Angela brought 2 space heaters, and I packed so many clothes, socks, blankets and gloves that it looked like we were moving. But let me tell you, I stayed warm all weekend, and was a happy little camper. Pun intended.

We also kept our campfire going almost 24 hours a day. Josh laughed when he saw the amount of firewood I bought at Publix for the trip, but stopped laughing after we had burned it all the very first night. The boys then went around stealing leftover firewood from other vacated campsites for us to dry out and burn for ourselves, which thankfully lasted until the end of our trip.

Another stroke of good luck was the Gator bowl game that occurred on New Year's Day night. We watched Timmy win his last game at Gators Dockside until around midnight, that way when we got back to our tents, we could go straight to bed instead of hanging out in the cold. It worked out well.

The weather actually turned out to be pretty bearable (only because I was prepared, Josh). But I don't think our little group will be going camping again any time soon, unless there's a surprise heat wave that comes up from the tropics. It's so much more enjoyable when you don't have to bundle up like a Polar Bear or pray to the space heater gods....