Probably around 5:00 or so, the rain did stop, and we decided to build a fire so that I could cook the sausages. Sean and I struggled with the fire for a long time, for the wind kept blowing out the matches and it wouldn’t catch onto any of the kindling we had. The rain came again, so we took a break, then tried again after it stopped. The second time we tried using our cloaks to make a sheltering tent around the fire pit, but the flames still kept going out right away. Sean finally remembered about pine needles. I was able to find quite a few dry branches of dead pine needles, and with these we finally got a good fire going. I was able to cook supper after all, so we had our second supper of the evening—Italian sausages, fried with onion and tomatoes. It was fun cooking over the fire. We also had had dinner rolls, having eaten most of them earlier with the Lembas Bread.

            After supper we weren’t sure what to do with ourselves. We whiled away the rest of the day with practice sword-fighting, exploring, the kids played in the trees, Justin and I cuddled in the tent, etc. While gathering firewood earlier I had found some ripe raspberries—we had enough for about 3-4 each—they were delicious. We also encountered a funny mushroom—shaped like a ball, each has a slit or hole in the top. When you nudge it, out poofs some green dust—like something you’d see on Harry Potter. I called it a puffball and took photos of it to try and identify later. These funny mushrooms were everywhere.

 Finally, it started to get dark. We all gathered into our tent and bedding. The kids told scary and funny stories. We settled down for the night. It was probably only 8:00pm.