Friday Night Out Back…

Getting out doesn’t always mean going somewhere. Sure, its fun to get away from the house but one can get away from the tube or the game console or the even the computer without loading up the car and going somewhere. At our house Friday or Saturday evenings, especially during warmer weather, are often ‘out nights’. Sometimes it may be as simple as cooking supper on the Egg and eating out on the deck. Some nights it building a fire in the fire pit and making s’mores and sometimes it means me and the girls spending the night out in our hammocks.

After a crazy week at work for both me and Connie, we decided tonight would be an ‘out night’. We needed some fresh air. As soon as we got home from work I began to fire up the Egg and told the girls to go ahead and get their hammocks set up while supper was cooking since its much easier to do while its daylight left than after dark…

Cheeseburgers and tots were our fare of choice for the evening…

It was nice to eat out on the deck in the fresh air for a change. The sun had just dipped below the horizon as we finished eating and the temperature was starting to drop so we cleared the table and headed in. The girls had some errands to run before Ashley heads back to school Sunday so they left me to set up my hammock…in the dark. While setting up a hammock is easier in the daylight, with enough practice setting up in the dark isn’t a big deal. We’re not going to tell anyone that I took a little extra time setting up…to test out the hang, you know…make sure everything was set just right. Yeah, that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

As the evening wore on eyelids started to droop and it was time to change into some warm clothes to sleep in. The overnight low was forecast to be in the low 40s so cool weather clothes and gear were in order.

Let me interject something here…Hey Weather Channel…YOU BLEW IT! The last time I checked the hourly forecast just after supper, the low for the night was supposed to be 40. When we crawled in our hammocks my thermometer read 35 and it read 32 when I got up this morning. Now since we live in a low place and colder air sinks, it’s not unusual for it to be 3 or 4 degrees cooler here than the forecast calls for. But 8 degrees?! No, they flat out blew that one.  Eight degrees doesn’t sound like all that much of a difference but how we set up and dress to sleep in the low 40s is typically a bit different than from the low 30s.  Fortunately we all stayed plenty warm.

Finally time for some shut-eye.  Jenna cheated and brought an extra blanket to roll up in…

And Ashley tried out the top quilt I made from a WallyWorld 40-degree sleeping bag that is surprisingly warm…

And then there’s me.  Wrapped up in Climashield goodness…

Not a bad Friday night ‘out’…and we were never more than 100 feet from the house.