Eldora Tubing Extravaganza!

Two Wednesday's ago (July 3rd), I forced myself to leave work on time and practically sprinted to my already-packed-to-the-brim car. I had a much anticipated long weekend ahead of me and I couldn't wait to get it started.

I drove straight to Natalie's house and loaded my already-packed-to-the-brim car with more coolers, a couple of tents, and other necessary camping/tubing things.

Then, FINALLY, we were off! We had a forty-five minute drive to our campsite (which seemed to take years). It's annoying how time slows down when you wish it'd hurry the heck up and flies by when you wish it'd stay the heck still. But I digress.

Upon arriving, we set up our tents, opened our lawn chairs (and our drinks), cooked some delicious over-the-fire food, and played some games.

Only picture from the night...

The next morning, we enjoyed a breakfast of "omelets in a bag." These are so easy and delicious; all you do is take a regular zip-lock baggy, write your name on it, crack some eggs into it, add ham, onions, green peppers, mushrooms, cheese, etc., mush it all together, and throw it into a pot of boiling (or almost boiling for us impatient ones) water over the fire (you can put multiple bags into the same pot of water at once--they won't melt together or anything). You cook them until they look done (probably 15 or 20 minutes), and wa-la!, an omelet in a bag.

Cute Jenna and her pre-cooked omelet.

After our breakfast, we got ready for our first day of tubing and the day was an absolute BLAST...and I took about seven thousand pictures. 

The whole group from tubing day 1

Dave and Abby

Dane, Natalie, and Jenna

The precious couple.

Alan and Amy

Us crazy ladies.

Webb and Natalie's sunscreened bodies. We used ALOT of sunscreen this weekend.

Another precious MARRIED couple--Dave and Abby.

More crazies. Holy crap, I look really creepy/weird here.

Amy looking cool as always.

Sam and Nat

Jeremy (Amy's fiance) and Amy (who was feeling quite good at this point in time).

Bottom: Sam, Nat, Me. Middle: Kara and Amy. Top: Chelsey.

After tubing, we ate my favorite meal of the weekend--fire nachos. Here's how we did it: everyone had their own tin can and went wild layering whatever nacho ingredients they wanted (beans, cheese sauce, taco meat, shredded cheese, etc.). Then, we covered them with foil, put them over the fire, waited ten minutes, took them off, wrapped bandanas around the bottom of the tins (so we didn't burn ourselves), added tomatoes and sour cream, and dipped tortilla chips into that deliciousness. Piece. of. cake. Sorry...I forgot to take pictures.

After dinner, we continued drinking, jumped in the lake, and then hit the hay stacks. Then, Hallelujah!, the next day was full of more tubing!

Transferring some tubes to our drop-in point.

Natalie and her belly.

Troy and Shannon

Sam and me

Ungs (aka Matt).

Webb almost drowning. I laughed so hard at this picture.

MY HANDSOME MAN!

Webb, Ray, Nat, Me, Sam

Natalie almost drowned, too. Luckily, Ungs was there to rescue her.

After tubing we went back to our camp site, ate some mac and cheese, played more games, and ate some more.

Aimee and Chris

Kara and me.

For day three of tubing, my mom and Natalie's mom, Marcia joined us. They loved it.

Marcia, my mom, and Lauren.

Mama and me.

The day 3 tubing group.

You could probably guess what they're doing...

For dinner, we had ONION BOMBS! I did all the prep work in advance and they were incredibly easy to make. Step 1: cut onions in half and pair the outer layers together. Step 2: combine ground pork (not beef!), bread crumbs, ketchup, worchesterscheir (spelling?) sauce, and whatever else you normally put in a meatloaf. Step 3: Stuff meat in onion shells. Step 4: Cover each onion bomb in foil. Step 5: Place onion bombs over (or in) the fire. Step 6: Wait til they are done (30 minutesish). Step 7: Donezo. I used three pounds of ground pork and had plenty for eight people. They were delish.

After dinner, we played a few games and, after three long days, everyone was quite exhausted and went to bed pretty early. All in all, it was a really, really, really great weekend. I'm already so excited for the next tubing adventure...I just can't get enough.

Abby during our "beersbi" game.