Birthday Bash

Ryan turned THREE this past Sunday...I still can't believe my baby is THREE!!

I decided I didn't want to do a big party at our house like we have for the past two years so David came up with the idea to go camping to celebrate his birthday. Ryan was thrilled, he talked about it for weeks leading up to the weekend. He told everyone who listened that he was going camping at Roaring River State Park for his birthday...it got us all excited! We knew it was risky to camp in April, but decided to go for it and just play it by ear. And play it by ear we did!

When we arrived at the park on Saturday afternoon and met up with some family and friends that were planning to camp with us it was raining. Not too hard, but it was raining. The men scrambled to put up the tents while the kid's played in the rain or took shelter in the play tent. As the afternoon went on it started to rain harder. We all ended up just hanging out in our separate tents for while until we found a pavilion that wasn't it use. It was the perfect spot to have a little party and at just that time it stopped raining! So we were able to eat a campfire dinner, celebrate Ryan's birthday, and play on the playground for several hours. I can't tell you how thankful I was for that break in the rain.

Once it started to get dark we headed back to the campsites, built a fire, and ate s'mores. And then at 9:30pm it started to rain again. We were forced to call it a night and we headed to our tents. That was the beginning of the downpour...it rained and thunder stormed hard until about 2am. And it was at that time that we were visited by a park ranger who woke us up and told us we had to evacuate the campground because of the rising river. What started out as a fairly small creek quickly became about 8 feet of rushing water! And it came to within 15 feet of our tent! At 2am the entire campground was a buzz of activity packing up and heading out. We were all disappointed to leave, especially the birthday boy, but headed home and quickly got tucked into our warm, dry beds at 4am!! What a birthday to remember!!

The men working in the rain to get the tents up:Ryan hauling wood for the campfire...notice the DRY creek bed behind him:
Ryan, Megan, & Joshua playing in the play tent:Cousins arrive:Kylie and Ryan playing in the puddles outside of the pavilion:Campfire dinner:Singing "Happy Birthday"...Ryan was so cute, he kept saying "thank you" while everyone was singing to him:Opening presents:We definitely will never forget Ryan's third birthday! And we definitely will be back to camp soon minus the rain!