Backyard Camping

B has been wanting a tent for several years now so with his extra money he earned from SEBTS, he bought a tent for our family.  Now, I figured we needed a 6 person tent since we have 6 people in our family, but oh no, B said we needed more room for all our stuff. So I let him research and read reviews and he picked out the best deal for our family.  Our tent is huge!  He set it up in the living room the first night and our kids were so excited.  Since it was summer, it was still too hot to camp outside, but B set his eyes on a backyard camp out in September. 

setting it up in the living room

huge

 So one Friday night, I had a bunco night with MOPS friends and he worked hard that afternoon cleaning up the back yard.  He cut the grass and shoveled poop out of the way to set up the tent.  When I left, the kids were eating dinner at the table and when I returned home (late), the kids were asleep in the tent outside in the backyard.  According the B, it had been a successful evening and the kids loved it.  They watched Fantasia on the laptop inside the tent and had a great time looking at starts.  Inside the tent fit our queen size air mattress along with 4 kids' sleeping bags and still plenty of extra room.  Like I said, our tent is HUGE.  I decided to join the group and we were all asleep by about 11 pm.  All was good until 3 am when W woke us up saying something was on his head.  My first thought was it might be a bug or something, but B said there was no way anything was getting in.  So we thought maybe he rolled too close to the edge of the tent, but he told us that it was wet where he was sleeping.  In total sleep mode, we told him to get on the mattress with us so we could all go back to sleep then suddenly I began hearing drips....a lot of drips.  I couldn't get back to sleep, but managed to lay there an hour, before I had a drip land on my head.  I rolled over and found a big wet spot next to me on the sheets of the air mattress in the corner of the tent.  I tried my best, but I couldn't stay in the wet bed with drips over my head, so at 4 am I headed inside.  B stayed with the others until 6, when R came inside and crawled in the bed with me.  She woke up in a wet sleeping back and thought she'd peed on herself.  In fact, she thought they had all had accidents because everyone's sleeping bags were wet.  Was it raining you ask....good question but no.  It wasn't raining. B had checked the weather and made sure there was no rain in the forecast before setting the tent up.  So what was dripping on us inside the tent?  It was the dew/condensation that had accumulated throughout the night and B didn't put the rain guard on the tent because he wanted to see the stars.  Rookie mistake and while none of us got good sleep, we all got a good laugh the next morning and much needed Saturday afternoon naps too!