Camp Lauren

 This past Wednesday I dropped by Heather and Ash's in order to pick up a garage door opener, car seat, and this:

Leaving for a three day get-away the very next day, Heather and Ash needed to ensure that Kate and Sarah's world would continue to spin under the watchful eye of Your's Truly.

Hence, when Thursday afternoon rolled around just in time for school pick-up, Camp Lauren kicked into high gear.

Essential elements of Camp Lauren involved some
typical taking-care-of-life things,
such as walking to school, brushing our hair and teeth, dripping ear drops into rebellious ears, reading ourselves to sleep,

and feeding ourselves on a pretty routine basis--

goodies like

 "bunny cheese",

 pizza and sushi,  

strawberry pancakes,

and Dairy Queen.

(We love Dairy Queen...)

Other essentials were more in the category of recreation, like play-dates and bubble bath (not all at the same time, of course...),  

tree-swing swinging,

and popcorn/movie/let's-all-fall-asleep-on-the-couch time.

The recreation category was important, because there was also a lot of work that needed to get done:

 We had to tend to the garden since there were tomatoes longing to be picked;

we had to feed the cats, change their litter box,

and catch them when they figured out how to open the screen door and sneak outside;

we had to finish a sidewalk mural as a surprise for Heather and Ash,

fight off monsters in Michael's with a giant foam sword,

and host a photo shoot for our favorite American Girl Doll and her cuddly pets.

With all of these essentials, you can imagine that Camp Lauren was pretty intense.  

We are happy to report, however, that by the end of our 47 straight hours together the inventory showed a multitude of smiles, a bevy of belly-laughs, and an overload of photos-that-should-be-erased (courtesy of Kate).



And now--to give credit where credit is due, let the credits roll:

 Camp Lauren would not be very interesting, fun, or successful if it weren't for the parenting of Heather and Ash, the sweet thoughtfulness of Sarah, and the hilarious impishness that is Kate.

When can we do it again?