Clubhouse Campout

One of the coolest features of our rental house is that it came with a clubhouse out back. The children have all sorts of fun in there. A couple weekends ago Jake mentioned to the children that they could camp out in our clubhouse, and they thought that was a great idea! The first night, we put Will to bed in his room and attempted to sleep the older three outside.

Notice I said 'attempted.' Well, the children couldn't settle down, so after an hour (or maybe more?) we called them all inside to their rooms. Two nights later, we tried again... but this time with all four children:

Our second attempt went a little better, but not by much. The boys wouldn't settle down again, so we ended up bringing them inside and let the girls campout alone. However, not long after midnight Bella came in to use the restroom and couldn't seem to get back to sleep. I went outside to check and found both girls awake and being eaten up by bugs of one sort or another. I told them to come inside so they could get some rest away from the bugs. Poor things. Addie's arms were covered in bites, but Bella got the worst of it: both arms, both legs, and her face had been attacked. The way the bites swelled reminded me of my own reactions to mosquito bites, but on a larger scale. After a full day of liquid Benadryl and several days of topical creams... it still took a full week for them to disappear. Sigh. Guess that won't happen again. Bummer.