Camping at Council Grove Lake!!

Each year we have a summer gathering with Gary's old college gang! This year we decided to camp at Council Grove Lake. Mandy Rose had never been camping before and she was so excited about the prospect!

We loaded everything in the car....with barely enough room for the kiddo in the back seat!! First order of business was putting up the tent! Mandy Rose was right in the middle of it "helping"!! It was quite windy, so getting the tent set up was a bit challenging!

We borrowed this tent from our friends, the Dresher's. It is huge! But, really nice!

We were camped right on the water. Mandy Rose spent hours pitching rocks into the lake! Hard to believe there were any left when the weekend was over!

Home away from home! We might be camping, but Momma and Daddy have old bones and require air mattresses now!!

More rock play!

One of our gang, Miss Linda, brought this puppy with to snuggle with. She lovingly gave it to Mandy Rose to play with for the weekend...and then sent it home with her! His name is Buckley and Mandy Rose was thrilled!

Miss Linda also brought her hammock! She and Mandy Rose made great use of it all weekend!

As I said before, it was very windy all weekend. In fact, it just got progressively windier as the weekend passed. It made it hard to have a camp fire, but we didn't let it deter our enjoyment!

Enjoying the campfire with her buddies, Buckley and Valentino! I think Mandy Rose would like to do a whole lot more camping in the future!

We had a terrific weekend with the gang! Laughing, visiting, eating great food, drinking campfire coffee. The main reason we went to Council Grove was to have a chance to see our friend Joe, who lived there and had just started chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer. We are so thankful that we did for it proved to be our last visit with him. He was an awesome man and a great friend. He will be missed terribly, but we know he is in a better place and no longer hurting.