Aw, Hell! Hail!

Hi everyone!

I want to start off by saying THANK YOU and hello to everyone who's come and checked out the blog.  I know I sound like a broken record, but I do truly love that my friends are reading what I write.  (By the way, shouldn't that expression become obsolete, just like records themselves?  My kids have no true understanding of what I mean when I say things like "I'm tired of sounding like a broken record!").
Anyway, I love that you guys are reading me.  Thank you!

So, let's get back to vacation.

After getting into Sequoia, we dropped 9 off at Hume Lake for his week o'fun and then headed back up the mountain to our campground.  We drove with the windows down to enjoy the mountain breeze (which felt like heaven compared to the stifling 100+ temps out here in the desert).  The 70 degree weather was perfect for setting up camp.  Until I noticed that the temperature had started to drop.

So I put on a jacket.

Then clouds rolled in and it dropped some more.

So I changed into pants.

Then it started thundering.

So I made all the kids stop playing and put on their jackets.

Then I noticed that I could see my breath coming out in little puffs.

So I dug out the luggage and fished around for our hats and gloves.

We put them on in time for it to rain.

So I herded the children into the tent (and I mean that I literally herded them, as the rain had excited them into such a state that they were all running around like it was the Second Coming of Christ).

We sat in the tent and listened to the plip- plop of raindrops.

It was nice.

Until the plip plops turned into dull ping ping pings.....


and we realized our tent was being pummeled by hail.  Little tiny frozen ice balls were gathering all over the ground.  It was 32 degrees.  In August.


Here's a pic that Mr. C snapped of us while we were waiting out the hail storm. 

And here's a pic I snapped of Mr. C while we were waiting out the hail storm.  

Of course, the whole time I was thinking about what the brochure had said about lightening and was planning out what to do if I saw any of my kids' hair start to rise up (a sign that lightening is about to hit. If nothing else, that damn article taught me some useful facts about the great outdoors).

In the end though, it wasn't a bad experience- the freezing in a tent together while listening to the ice balls fall all around us.  I made up some good scary stories starring my kids.  They were scared just enough to be thrilled.  PG even told me that it was her favorite part of the whole trip.  And the hail/rain storm passed over in about 45 minutes, so I could at least cook dinner while staying dry, though it was so cold that I couldn't feel my hands.  Wah.

By the way, that's something else I learned about myself on this trip.  I really hate to be cold.  I may come back in my next life as a lizard, just so I can sit around on a rock all day and let the sunshine warm my skin, my bones, my body.

In fact, I think I may still be thawing out, along with Roo.

Sorry.  That picture has nothing to do with anything really.  I'm just blatantly plugging a cute pic of my kid.  I can't help it.  It's her cheeks.  They're the end of me.

You all have a good night!