Back from camping, what a Blast!

Well, we are back from our whirlwind camping trip with six kids. Three teenage girls and three little ones, what a blast. They got along pretty well considering the age differences. We went up to Calaveras Big Trees and returned to some of our favorite spots from last year. On the way up we had a flat tire on my new (old) van. I should have taken a picture. It was really bad with wires sticking out everywhere and a long gaping hole in the sidewall where it looked like it straight came undone. Anyway, the huge blessing was that it happened about 2 or 3 blocks away from a Chevron that just happened to have the right tires for the job (we got two new ones so they are even). And the name of the city anyone? That's right, Angels Camp. Truly we were watched over by Angels. Alan, (that stallion of mine) had our van packed to the roof with all our camping stuff and six kids. And then we found out that once he shut the back doors, there was no way to open them because the locking mechanism is broken and it has to be opened from the inside which is now packed tight with everything. So I climbed over all the tubs and camping gear to get to the back, literally six inches of space for me to go through and I still can't reach the handle from the inside. So Alan got me a screwdriver and I unscrewed the window latch and we were able to unlock it by reaching our arm up through the window and then down to the handle. Anyway, I'm tired. I'll get pictures up shortly and describe more later.