Happy Birthday Mr. President

I haven't been keeping up with my thrice weekly posts. I'm just not doing a very good job of simplifying so that I have more time for doing the things I really want to do. I'm not giving up though! (The basement is still a wreck too. Ugh.) As for Simple Things...spending special times with my family is definately at the top of the list. Mother's Day weekend was one of those times.

We live in one of the three states in which Abraham Lincoln grew up. From Feb 12, 2008 to Feb 12, 2009 the nation is celebrating Lincoln's 200th birthday. Last weekend, one of five national events celebrating his bicentennial was held near our home. It was called the Bicentennial Lincoln Encampment. A state park was closed so that approximately 4300 Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, along with leaders and parents, could attend. We drove up on Friday night to set up our camp. Keep in mind that it had been raining all week long so we set up our tents in a mud pit. On Saturday morning we had a wonderful breakfast of pancakes and sausage before starting out for our day long trek. Each person had a passport type booklet which they would carry all day long as they visited various events throughout the State Park and the neighboring National Lincoln Boyhood Memorial. At each event or display, everyone would receive a stamp in their book. Everyone completing all of the required events earned a commemorative medal. Let me tell you, this was not a 'gimme'. Everyone had to really work to make it to all of the events. Our troop walked approximately 10 miles (I think it was more) between 8am and 4:40pm. We only stopped once, letting the boys sit down for about 20 minutes to eat their sack lunches. We were very fortunate in that two dads stayed at our camp for the day and had a delcious dinner ready for us when we finally got back to camp. I've never tasted better grilled chicken. After dinner, it was back to the National Boyhood Memorial for the closing ceremonies. There was music and a performance by Fritz Klein who appears accross the country as Abraham Lincoln.

After the closing ceremony it was back to our campsite for the night. By the time I took my shoes off on Saturday night my feet were throbbing and my whole body hurt. The boys were tired too and didn't argue once when we said it was time to head to the tents for lights out.

Saturday night into Sunday morning was interesting. Bad weather blew in. It rained for hours and then the wind began to blow. We had wind gusts of 50-60 mph. Amazingly we only had one tent that came down in the storm after a pole broke. There were other troops camping all around is and other tents were coming down and anything that hadn't been stored well the night before was flying around through the campground. It was an ugly night. We had planned to get the boys up at 8am to pack up for our return home. Well, the weather had everyone awake by 5:30am so we were on the road by 8am. It was a long weekend, but one that I hope the boys never forget. This was an opportunity that they will never have again.

Now, a few scenes from our weekend.

Here we are starting out on Saturday morning. Eight hours later we weren't moving quite so quickly.

We learned how to make Cloud Biscuts from "Mrs. Lincoln".

The Civil War encampment was a huge hit with the boys.

Listening to the Native American drummers was incredibly relaxing.

The amazing Fritz Klein wowed us with his rendition of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

The sky on Sunday morning wasn't very pretty.