The classic image of the evening was of four girls aged 5 and under all simultaneously roasting marshmallows:

That led to some gooey mess with one of the girls (Sadie):

Which led to a very attentive Molly:

Meanwhile, the boys were playing with their Go-Gos — using some oversized Janga blocks to build structures for them (these structures were later destroyed by Girl No. 3 in the first picture in this post — younger sister of the two non-Wilson boys in this picture):

So, where was Benton with all these young kids running around? Asleep on his bed, face down and fully clothed. He’d been at a sleepover the night before and had stayed up until 4:30 AM! The sad thing was that he was the one who suggested the fire in the first place, and he was the one who helped collect and cut up the firewood! Nevertheless, the next day, Sunday, he was up for more firewood collecting with Carson in preparation for the fire we’ll have on Halloween (or, at least on the night that trick-or-treating happens, which isn’t Halloween, which is just odd):

Early on — while the pizza was still being consumed — Chris got out the electric remote controlled car that he used to race when he lived in Connecticut, and Benton rigged up a makeshift ramp for it in the road.

After the first jump, Bill decided to add some “thrill” to the experience by putting himself (partially) in the flight path. After the car easily cleared him, he talked his daughter into extending the feat…

…and then, talked his son into extending the jump even farther!

Oh, the adrenalin!

This last Friday was shaping up to be a little dicey weather-wise, but Thursday evening was gorgeous, so Julie shot a note out to our cul de sac’s Facebook group on Friday morning to see what people thought. By the time I got home, she announced that it looked like it would be more than just the Wilsons, but not much more, as several of the other families had conflicting plans for the evening.

Well, somehow, by the end of the night, I’d counted fourteen kids and eight adults — several families’ plans got fortuitously adjusted. And, since I had a camera in my pocket from photographing Alana sans training wheels earlier in the evening, I snapped some pictures over the five or so hours the evening lasted.

As Benton and I discussed whether we’d eat the pizza inside or out, we settled on out, as he’d already gotten the fire going. Hearing this, Alana immediately grabbed her table and hauled it from the front porch out into the driveway so she would have a table at which to sit and eat with the girls o’ the ‘hood (from left to right: Caroline, Gabby, Sadie, Alana):

Properly fortified, and riding high from their recent mastery of training-wheel-free bike riding, Caroline and Alana then headed up a tree (there was a brief moment where it looked like Alana might have “pulled a cat” and managed to get up without being able to get down, but she figured it out pretty quickly):

Convinced that Caroline’s dad, Chris, was ready to play fireman and catch any tumbling kiddos, I turned around and snapped a shot of our driveway — fairly common set-up, although the adults are typically able to sit down and converse more than this picture is showing:

At some point, the conversation turned to golf…and then to illuminated golf balls…and then to Chris going to grab his pitching wedge to see what it was like to hit one of those balls. That turned into three of us taking turns hitting the ball. After one hit a piece, we realized that, with 12 kids roaming the area (at the time), a change in tactics was needed. Bill went and grabbed his indoor/outdoor pitching set that has softer (safer) balls, shown here (note Alana has returned to her bike at far left):

Shortly after this picture was taken, we had the one accident of the evening, when Caroline and Allison collided on their bikes. I know, I know — you want to know where the picture of that is, but I’m not the type of photojournalist who preys on calamity. And it wasn’t all that calamitous, anyway.

A bit later, the rains did come. They built from a light mist to a steady drizzle. Rather than calling it a night, we headed across the street to the Yapp’s screened porch. Some more neighbors showed up (their conflict had been a school play). For chuckles, we glued Gabby to the ceiling:

Well…not exactly. Gabby ultimately fell asleep in her mother’s arms, but not before she got a little punch drunk and started viewing the world through her legs. Properly orienting the photo:

After the rain stopped, we did get the lighted golf balls back out, and five of us (three adults, Benton, and the 13-year-old who arrived late after being in the school play) played a little game of night chipping.

All in all, it was a darn enjoyable evening. And two of the regulars families-wise weren’t even there!

• Gorgeous weather (which seems to be in abundance)
• Friday or Saturday night
• A portable fire pit
• Firewood (thanks, Bob)
• At least 2-3 parents from different houses seeing each other and realizing that no one has big plans for the evening

Sometimes, it’s drinks only. Sometimes, it’s “let’s all pitch in for pizza,” and, most recently, it was “let’s wheel the grill out and everyone bring something to throw on it.” The kid count has ranged from 10-18, Julie usually pulls out a tube of light sticks to distribute once it gets dark, and the evenings tend to run pretty late, but they are consistently a good time!

It helps that Benton loves to build campfires, and he’s quite good at it. A few weeks ago, we’d talked about having a fire, and I asked Benton if he was good to go out and get it built. By the time he was done, our driveway looked like this (he even took the picture!):

It’s another Friday, and tonight is Benton’s month+ delayed birthday sleepover with a handful of his friends. That means it’s probably NOT going to be a cul de sac social tonight, but there will be more!