Mum picked Mums by the Moonlight

My mother is a trickster.

My mother, sister, and I had planned on going camping at Fort Yargo last night for my mother's birthday.   When I was on my way my mother called and said, "I forgot the foil dinners at home could you run by and pick them up before you come to the camp ground?"  The exact same phone call was placed minutes before to my sister who was also on her way. Hmmm...tricky tricky.

As I arrived to our 10 acre farm, I feared that our woods had caught on fire! The closer I got the more I realized...tiki torches lined the path back to our creek down the hill.  It looked like a glorified episode of Survivor.  My mother had set up camp right there in our woods.  It was glorious.  We had a campout in our very own backyard.  My mother had spent the day raking and putting up tents and building bridges across our creek.  It was beautiful and it was ours.

We called it (Honey Camp)

We spent the night reading stories from our favorite childhood book.  The Adventures of Mabel by Harry Thurston Peck.  This is another one of the many wonderfully thoughtful gifts that I received from my husband on my birthday.  I had mentioned to him in passing ONCE that The Adventures of Mabel was a book I read when I was a little girl.  I was sad I didn't have a copy because my sister got the copy of the book that was read to us when we were small.  He found it online for me as a used book.  I love it.  The first night he gave it to me, I cried and we laid on the floor and I read him a story about Mabel.

 our foil dinners:

carrots

potatoes

sliced onions

cubed steaks

salt

pepper

a splash of italian dressing

fresh basil

garlic

put in tin foil (wrap twice)

oven 350 for an hour

*then you sneak it out to the campfire and trick your children in to thinking it was cooked on a campfire grill.

They said I looked like Aunt Jemima...

No camp-out is complete without plaid flannel shirts.

a kiss for you...

and a kiss for you.

We kept our vitamin waters in the cool of the creek. The water rushed by and kept them at the perfect temperature.

the mums mum picked

mmmm...hot chocolate

nature is good for the soul.

We dug little holes and put 8 candles in the ground.  The 50 was just implied.  Happy 58th mommmmeee.

We slept to the sound of the trickling creek. We peed in the woods.  We didn't brush our teeth.  We giggled by firelight.  We were surrounded by deer at 5:30am.  We loved being together as women.