Mark's birthday party

Poor Mark.  He wanted to go camping for his birthday.  We set a date, mailed his friends and ............ they were all out of town that weekend.  So, we tried again last Saturday night.

We went camping at one of our favorite site, Price Campground, which is right off the Blue Ridge Parkway.  It's great as you can drive in, find yourself a spot, see a ranger and hand them $16 and you are set to camp.  The site consists of a tent pad, a picnic table and a fire ring (what were you expecting for $16?)  There is a bathroom (no shower facilities) within walking distance.

For a group of boys, this is awesome.  They set up tents, went biking and hiking.  My 2 year old niece could not find enough acorns.  We had a fairly large group as my parents came up as well as my brother and sister-in-law and my niece.  Mark invited four of his parents, and most of the dads decided to camp with us as well.

We had hamburgers and corn for dinner.

 For his birthday dessert this time, Mark wanted brownies.  The wind let us do candles for just a few minutes.

Of course though one parent brought the fixings for s'more.

The interesting thing the boys and dads constructed was a hammock village of sorts.  Mark wanted to sleep in a hammock and so did one of his friends.  One of the dads also slept a hammock as well.

That night, there was also a meteor shower.  The kids stayed up until 10pm as they could watch it.  Some of the kids saw things, others did not.

They were all up by 6:30am, ready to go.  It was hard to keep them quiet though as the other campers around us were still asleep.  We started breakfast, cleaned up and were out by 10am.  The boys were very dirty and tired.