We celebrated my little monkey princess #2's birthday and Easter by going camping.

When we were driving to our campsite, we drove through really heavy rains. I for one was not looking forward to setting up in the soup. And for those preparedness folks that will say it's good practice, I've been there and done that and prefer to do it dry. As luck would have it, the rain stopped shortly after we arrived so I hustle out to lug our gear to our spot and set up. Since we took the van instead of my truck, I have able to unload and set up in a more modular fashion. First the canopy went up, then the tent on a slight rise. This was the first time I tried rigging a tarp from the canopy to the tent. This gave us a 10x10 "front porch" and allowed us to go in and out of our tent dry! Yeah! It worked great.

Right after I set up, other folks arrived and I helped them set up. In the process, the heavens opened up. Within the hour, I was ankle deep in water. Thank goodness for site selection for the tent. The slight rise kept us out of the swamp.

By the time we were all set up, we were soaked to the skin. I didn't bother putting on a poncho as it wasn't windy and cold. Plus with all the arm raising to set up the other campers canopies, the rain would have run in under my arms and I would have been soaked any way.

With the heavy rains, I didn't break out the camera until late in the day when it let up.

Anyway, here are the pictures.



There were a whole lot of waterfalls with the rains and these three were about 4 times wider when it was raining heavily.

With the heavy rains, the worms and bugs were all on the surface and the birds were happy. Here are some of the birds and other critters.

















Someone found this egg and gave it to one of the moms. Since we didn't know the person who found it and they left before they could tell us where they found it, one of the kids took really good care of it by making a sort of compost nest to keep it warm. She took it home to try and hatch it.



More to follow...