Memorial Box Monday -11 people, crawdads and a bear - oh my!

Jo Jo is on the lookout for bears with her binoculars and walkie talkie in hand.

The bear's snacks?

catching crawdads

We thought there was no way we could take a vacation now with 3 babies and 5 other kids, for 2 reasons. The 1st reason was cost and the 2nd reason was that it would just be too hard. We could afford camping , but we knew it was hard enough last year with 5 kids - the youngest being 2 1/2 . Well, our Mountain moving - always providing God gave us a camping trip. Our friend Socorro came in to town and has never been to the mountains or camping and she really wanted to go and assured us we could do it with her help. She really is equal to 3 people - she sees a need and does it and has a special way with kids that is amazing (of course spoiling them and giving them gum always helps :)). We went to the forest just about 2 hours from our house - for 2 days and 1 night.

The kids had so much fun hiking, playing games, going to the lake to fish for crawdads, roasting marshmallows, singing around the campfire and shooting the bb gun and cross bow.

The hammock was the best thing! Socorro stuck the boys in it for nap time and they swung right to sleep in the warmth of the sun.

Well, not only was it a blessing for all of us to go on a little camping trip and make memories, but the Lord also protected us. When we got to camp - the neighbor campers suggested we put our dogs in the camper or van at night because they heard a bear the night before and their trash had been ripped apart. Well we were planning to put them in anyways and we packed up all our food and put it in the van. Javi and Jordan slept in the van, while the other 9 of us slept in a 30 yr old camper that is falling apart. I heard 3 loud bangs on the window that night. When we woke up, on both sides of the campsite in between our camper and van there were a couple of places where a bear had scratched and dug with his claws. Also that old plastic window right there on that side of our camper was broken. The neighbors also said they heard the bear at their campsite again that night and they were in a tent! All we could think of was how God protected us and what we would have done. We laughed so hard thinking about Javier and his fear of wild animals. Javier said that he and Jordan would have just started the van and taken off :).

So to remember the way our God provided for us and protected us, we added a tiny toy bear to our memorial box. If you are wondering what this memorial box is all about, you should check it out here where I got the idea http://aplacecalledsimplicity.blogspot.com/2009/09/memorial-box-monday-check.html .