Summer Fun

We had an inspired idea.

 

We bought this tent at Ikea years ago, and it has served us well!  It's a lovely room for one, two, maybe, if the two are little.

Since the Ikea tent is a wee bit small, I employed the charitable biggest brother to put up the "real" tent.

Hannah and Daniel helped so much.

Meanwhile, Eric took advantage of the last little bit of daylight to do some more work on his truck...at least until the army of mosquitoes arrived.

Daniel thought sleeping in a tent was a pretty great idea. 

These girls were SO excited.  Come to think of it, I don't think they have ever slept in a tent before.

 

While the kids got settled outside, we kicked up the music inside while getting the kitchen in order from dinner.

We love this soundtrack.  It's from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

Have you seen it?  You can read about it here.

 

I know this night will be etched in their minds for a long time. 

The fun, and excitement, and laughter, the shadows cast from the flashlights, the sound of rustling nylon of the sleeping bags, and the occasional  vvvsstt from the bug zapper.

 

Setting up the tent in the front yard for a "sleep out"  just might become a new summer tradition.   The annual Perseid meteor shower is around mid-August.  What a perfect place to view it!

Sleeping under the stars is really amazing when you live in the country.  It's so dark without city street lights.   If the skies are clear, you can see so many stars and constellations. 
Did you know that Orion, Pleiades, and The Bear are all mentioned by name in the Bible?
{Job 38:31, Job 9:9, Job 38:31-32,Amos 5:8}
It should be no surprise since God created them and, "He counts the number of stars; He gives names to all of them." {Psalm 147:4}

These are the kinds of conversations I love to have with the kids.  Staring up into the dark, night sky and seeing so many stars that you can not count them, makes one feel pretty small in comparison to the Creator of the universe ~ the One who can not only count them, but name them all.

It's hard to believe we have just one month of summer left!  With all the back-to-school sale ads and flyers flooding my mailbox, and my own need to work on preparing for our upcoming year, I am feeling like we don't have very many days left to be unscheduled and free. 
I'm hoping for a few more fun times that bring lots of laughter and fond memories ~ just like this one.