Friday night was my ward's overnighter. I, of course, feel obliged to attend as many of the activities now that I can seeing as how I'm the RSP and all. This one, however, just didn't appeal to me. Winter was making one of several of its encores before Spring got under way and that meant a couple of feet of snow up the canyons. We were planning to overnight it in some one-room cabins at Camp Tracy, which is up Millcreek Canyon.

The thought of being cold, muddy and sleeping in the same room with some of the nice girls in my ward just didn't appeal to me by the time I got home from work. Plus, little Claire had a present that she really wanted to give me.

To try and cut down on my lengthy stories (because Kirk never reads through the long blog posts) here's the short version of deciding whether or not to go: I had time to wait for Jennie and Jarv to bring their kids over, Claire gave me her giraffe picture she made for me (which now hangs in my cube), and Lindsey happened to need a ride up a little late so I didn't drive all by my lonesome. Yes, I went.

The number of people at the overnighter was surprisingly high and, not-surprisingly, special. All of the misfit toys were there. I reversed my car into a "spot" between a tree, a truck parked at an odd angle, and another car... backed the ol' Volvo up just to the snowbank behind me. We missed dinner, but really, the party was just about to get started. For brevity, here is a "timeline" of the night (although I will probably forget things and there's a better timeline on my sacrament meeting program that Jenni and Mark now have)--times are approximate:

8:00 p.m. Lindsey and I arrive; some slightly normal "toys" rejoice.

9:30 p.m. Guitar playing around the campfire, but only country songs, nothing quite as sing-along-able as "The Cat Came Back."

11:00 p.m. Joel (in-the-box) arrives and the amount of laughter picks up

2:00 a.m. Normal people go to bed.

3:00 a.m. Out of firewood (and the Bronco with more wood is locked up), we make a 7-11 run.

3:15 a.m. Return to "camp" with firewood, hot chocolates and a small box of tampons.

3:30 a.m. Jacob joins the conversation. Jenni quizzes the circle on dating in the ward and riots begin when Adam talks about Morgan's dating dilemmas (Morgan was not present, but sleeping in the boys' cabin with his dog).

3:45 a.m. Jacob leaves the conversation.

5:00 a.m. Morgan wakes up to go for a run; firewood is dwindling so Joel puts a paper plate in the pit.

5:30 a.m. Joe Jarvis comes out to stoke our fire for a bit and tell us about volunteering for girls' camps (I didn't have any young men at my girls' camps, but maybe you did).

5:50 a.m. Joel convinces Morgan to get the keys to the Bronco from Emma sleeping in the girls' cabin as we are now out of firewood, plates, and all of the lower hanging wet branches from the trees around us.

6:00 a.m. Adam breaks down under Joel's suspicions that he has a crush on Jenni.

6:30 a.m. We take a ride in Joel's car to warm up and find ourselves at the Dan's buying energy drinks and donuts.

7:00 a.m. Normal people wake up.

8:00 a.m. Adam, Jenni, Mark and Joel leave to return to civilization. People are starting to eat breakfast.

9:00 a.m. I climb in my car to go home and take a nap before beginning the condo search.

The end.