Feast of Booths - With Friends and 2 Diapered Goats! Sukkot

We celebrate the feasts of the Lord, and last night the Feast of Booths/Tabernacles (Sukkot) started. It's a reminder to us of the Israelites wandering in the desert for 40 years, living in tents, and comes from Leviticus 23:34 - Speak to the people of Israel, saying, "On the fifteenth day of this seventh month and for seven days is the Feast of Booths to the Lord."

Yesterday we sat up our tents where we will sleep for the next seven nights. It is rainy season in Panama, so we set up our tents under the pavilion next to our house. I was thankful at 1:00 in the morning we were under shelter because it started pouring rain!

Our friends came up, saw what we were doing, and decided they would join us as well! What fun! I asked them if they were going to bring their goats and they said they were planning to if that was okay with us!

Everyone got their tents set up. Two kids were sleeping in one tent, another put up a tent in a container apartment, another set up a sleeping area on top of the outdoor kitchen, one hung a hammock, and three of us slept in our family size tent.

For our tent, my husband brought in some mattresses. I thought these would be nicer than the floor, but they are pretty terrible with wires poking into me all night and super hard! I guess it was better than sleeping on the floor though. Ha! We also had our fan, so I guess you could consider ours glamping!

We had dinner with our friends and then it was time to get ready for bed. Our friends had to hang their hammocks and then the goats needed to have their diapers put on. Ha!

I asked the goats if it was their first time to sleep outside. Ha! I think they've only slept outside a handful of times, and they did pretty well last night. It was late for our kids who go to sleep at 8, but it was early for the adults as it was around 9:30!

One of the goats tried to get in the hammock with her dad and their dog slept in the hammock with her mom. Ha! One of our tents also had a cat in it.

During the night, we had dogs barking, cats meowing, loud raindrops falling on a metal roof, a son talking in his sleep, a goat eating part of the decoration (banana leaves) from our tent at 1:00am, and a few other noises! Plus I had a little cuddly girl sleeping on my mattress with me. She told me it was a great night's sleep. Ha! I'm glad someone slept well!

It usually is a lot of fun, and we make good memories doing this with our kids! Now with some goats and friends thrown into the mix, I know it's going to be even more memorable!