Surviving the Storm

Have you ever noticed how the stories that seem to be repeated over and over in families are often the stories of events that don't exactly go as planned. For Tim and his family Captain Blackey's, a campground in Florida, holds special memories of large biting flies. For the Ross clan, the memories of Winnebago accidents and alligators tied with rope and duct tape are forever etched in our minds. Well the last camping trip that we took may be one of those special memories that our girls will never forget.

The weather forecast for the weekend looked grim but a few brave souls decided to go anyway and see what happened. We had a great day on Thurs. and Fri. and  some how the 80% chance of rain seemed to be of little consequence, until Friday night. Coming from the bathhouse at about 9:00 p.m. I saw the men huddled around the weather radio with an Arkansas map. Once we realized that the tornado was going south of us we all went to our tents to weather the storm. The lightning and the thunder were intense as we huddled together. The combination of rain and thunder were so loud that we could not even communicate with the other families camping 10 feet away. Rachel was singing and praying, Abigail and Beka crying and Elizabeth was sound asleep. Thankfully our tent kept us mostly dry and were able to make it through the night. We were reminded of the power of God and even have a new understanding of what it means to fear God. We packed up in the rain on Saturday morning and were glad to be home in our dry house.  We made great memories with good friends are looking forward to surviving our next adventure together.

Thursday afternoon the girls enjoyed fishing with Tim.

A whole gaggle of girls. 

Our cooking adventure this trip was pizza cooked in a dutch oven over the fire. It was delicious and may become a camping tradition.

The kids putting on their annual performance in the amphitheatre.

Cleaning up from all the fun!