Camping at Starved Rock

Our Summer break is officially over. Savannah and Alex started school yesterday and Micah started all day kindergarten today. They all love their new teachers and are adjusting very well to being back on a schedule. So today was the big day that I've been looking forward to all summer. I was going to have my first bit of "alone time" as soon as Gray went down for his nap. Unfortunately for me, Gray decided not to take a nap today. Seriously.





Down to business. As soon as school was out we went to Starved Rock to camp for a few days with some friends. It is in central Illinois and is named Starved Rock because there were two Indian tribes at war and one tribe was up on a large rock (or cliff ) surrounded by the other tribe and they stayed there and starved to death rather than surrender.

We went on a beautiful hike (well, there are no mountains so it's more like a walk) up to the "Starved Rock" and then had a picnic. We all had a great time and the kids loved every minute of it! They even got to make ice cream by putting the ingredients in a container and then putting that in a ball with ice then passing the ball to each other.

We were camped pretty close to the bathroom and one night at about dusk Jeremy took Micah to the bathroom and then decided to leave him there and told him he'd come back in a few minutes to check on him. Well, we were all enjoying the campfire and getting ready to do marsh mallows. The kids were all running around playing tag and I decided to do a head count. I couldn't find Micah so I started to call for him and look for him. Finally I got nervous and started asking the other kids and adults if they'd seen him and they started looking too. Then suddenly Jeremy remembered that he had left him alone in the bathroom about an hour ago. The poor kid had been sitting in a dark, creepy bathroom crying his eyes out the whole time. I felt so bad for him, but I'm sure it's one of those stories that our family will repeat over and over for life.

It was so fun to just hang out and enjoy our friends. We didn't want to come home and decided that 2 days was just not long enough.