Camping and Other Methods of Torture

I'm back from camping again. Why, oh why do I torture myself like this? For the pleasure of sleeping out in the wilderness for two nights, I spent a week planning and packing and now I'll spend another week unpacking and cleaning. Although some people would call this a vacation, I believe this actually falls under the category of torture by the Geneva Convention, Amnesty International, and the United Nations.

We actually had a nice time camping with my brother-in-law, Ross, and sister-in-law, Kelly, who have an awesome new camper complete with HDTV and DVD player. All was good until Saturday when it started raining. It rained all afternoon with a brief intermission for s'mores over the fire, then it started up again and stormed all night long. Now Nana, Boo and Princess were in Kelly and Ross's camper watching Pirates of the Caribbean (really roughing it, huh?) and they were all planning on sleeping in their camper that night. That is, until Princess allegedly started snoring and Nana and Boo bailed on her. OK, no big deal, we all scooted over, made room for Nana and Boo who promptly fell asleep in our camper. Then the thunder and lightning started and I spent the rest of the night worrying about Princess who was still in Kelly and Ross's camper. She gets scared and always climbs into bed with me when it storms and I had this fear she was going to try to leave their camper and come into ours in the middle of the night in a thunderstorm. While I laid awake worrying about Princess, my sil was awoken by the sound of Princess trying to open the door to her camper. Thankfully, sil had locked their camper door. She got up to see what was wrong and found Princess sitting in a chair, crying. My wonderful sil calmed Princess down and slept with her so she wouldn't be scared (Princess, not my sil. Although my sil may have been scared too. I'm not sure about that.)

The rain probably wouldn't have been such a big deal except that we'd requested a nice shady spot since our air conditioning was out. Well, we got what we asked for. We got a very, very shady spot. In fact, it was so well shaded that no grass grew there. After the night of rain, we stepped out of the camper and into a lake of mud. And to top it off, it was pleasantly cool and we had no need for air conditioning or shade anyway. Damn that Murphy and his law.

This is my weather forecast for the next five days. It should be fun having the kids, who are already bored with summer vacation, cooped up inside all week. I know I'm looking forward to it.

Uncle Ross (Note the beer. My kids have that effect people.)

Aunt Kelly (It may not be the best picture of her, but at least she isn't flipping me off.)

"Can I keep him, Mom? Pleeeease! Pleeeease? Pretty please! I'll take care of him. I promise!" We did not bring him home, by the way. At least, I hope not. ::::going to check Boo's room::::

This is a bag filled with frogs. Actually this was MY bag that was filled with frogs. It's no longer mine. I think they caught eleven frogs, one caterpillar and two thousand lightning bugs this trip. What is it about boys and their need to catch wildlife wherever we go?

This picture just struck me as funny. It looks like they're walking on water.

Shoot me Now!

This is where my twelve year old and my eight year old will be spending their summer vacation next year - St. John's Northwestern Military Academy. They have a summer camp program! Forget Super Nanny. Bring on Lieutenant Colonel Jim Kebisek, B.S., M.S., U.S. Army Engineer (Ret.)!

What prompted this decision? We're going camping again this weekend so we're (and by we're, I mean my eleven year old, Nana and I) doing laundry, packing up, grocery shopping, cooking, etc. Know what Aj has done to help? ::: sound of crickets in background ::: Know what Boo has done to help? He shucked one ear of corn for me. One out of twelve ears. Know where he peeled this ear of corn? On my couch. Know how long it took me to vacuum all those silk fibers off the couch? Too long. Know how many times I've heard one of them scream, fight, cry, or otherwise bug each other today? A number large enough hasn't been discovered as of yet. Thus military school.

As far as camping - the air conditioner in our camper broke and the part my husband ordered to fix it hasn't come in yet. It's supposed to be 480 degrees this weekend. I'm camping with my in laws. I'm packing rum. Lots and lots of rum. See you Monday.

Camping for Large Families (as long as your family isn't too large)

We were going to go camping this weekend at a place called Happy Acres. I mean, Happy Acres! What could be bad about a place filled with acres of happy people camping? I perused their website and was impressed with the fact that they used the word "family" nine times on the first page! Wow, this place is really geared toward families. In fact, their website states - The modern concept of "family camping" has led to the success of many campgrounds. It also has given many families, especially large families, an opportunity to go out camping at an affordable price.

However, a little farther down that same page, they write - The camping rates are based on family units. One site equals one family, one family equals Dad, Mom, and up to 4 dependent children. Anybody else is considered a visitor or an overnight guest and is expected to register as such at the camp office and will be charged $12.50 per person, per night. Those who fail to register are considered to be trespassers, and may be prosecuted.

Ohhhh. OK, so let me get this straight. You offer affordable camping for large families, but if the "large" family has more than four kids, then they must pay $12.50 per child, per night or you'll prosecute them for trespassing. I see. Yep, that sounds pretty family friendly to me. I never realized that a family with four children is considered large and having more than four children is considered grounds for legal action and punishment.

Although an extra $25 a night may not sound like a lot of money, we will never camp at this "family friendly" (and I use the term lightly) place. It's a matter of principle! Instead we will be spending our weekend at Holiday Acres where you pay one price for your family no matter how many children you have. Maybe there aren't acres of happy people there, but there are sure to be people on holiday and holidays are good. Especially when you can bring ALL your children with you.

A-Camping We Will Go

Well, I'm home, showered, and rested (as rested as a person who slept on 2 inches of the bed because her 3 little kids climbed into bed with her and hogged 99% of the mattress can be), and ready to tell you about camping last week.

We got to the campground Monday evening after a quick, uneventful ride. We set up camp and sat down to relax around a fire with the kids. Not five minutes after sitting down, a truck pulled up at the site next to ours. A family got out and began to unload the truck and pitch a tent. As they made many trips carrying loads of supplies from the truck to the tent, they apparently lost track of their baby as he had wandered over to our site. Well, I completely understand how this can happen. Your child is standing next to you one minute, you turn around to grab something and in mere seconds, he's taken off for parts unknown. I understand how that can happen as I've been there and done that, but I have no idea how a one year old, wearing nothing but a dirty diaper, I might add, can leave a parent's sight for twenty minutes without them knowing. This mom and dad continued to set up camp seemingly oblivious to the fact that their one year old baby, barefoot and half naked, was toddling through our campsite and onto the road. This pattern pretty much continued the entire week. Now I don't know about anyone else, but I was not interested in babysitting their kids while I was on vacation. I have six of mine own to watch, for crying out loud.

The kids were pretty good all week. I only yelled at my dh once when the bowls he was looking for didn't jump out and bite his butt and he whined to me that he couldn't find them despite the fact that they'd been in the same spot in the camper all week. Spaz was attacked by mosquitos, Boo was stung by a bee twice, my dh got two flat tires on his bike, Spaz dumped the whole salt shaker on his eggs, we goofed up and accidentally parked in the wrong site necessitating a game of musical campers Friday night, and our air conditioner broke the last night we were there. In an attempt to fix the air conditioner, my husband, rocket scientist that he is, moved a picnic table over to the camper, then stacked a couple chairs on it, Wiley Coyote style, and climbed up the wobbling tower onto the camper. The kids made a sling shot out of the old inner tube from dh's bike and used it to shoot rocks across the campground (one guess as to who taught them that). We learned what Goji berries were, and that you don't have to go to England to see bad teeth - just go camping. We got to visit my best friend from high school and her husband and boys who live out that way and they generously treated us to Chicken George and Catfish Charlie (apparently they like to name their food in the small town in which they live) and let me use their washing machine. They invited the kids to play at their home while we chatted and loaded us up with firewood when we left. Thank you SO very much, Julie and Ron! We met a shirtless old man with a British accent who drove around in a golf cart asking people if they wanted to pet his puppy. We swam at the pool and went down an old fashioned twelve story high, metal slide of death at the beach. Our close friends, and camping buddies, joined us Friday through Monday and made the trip more entertaining. We've been camping with these friends since 1994 we always have a wonderful time together.

I got to read, a pastime I truly enjoy, but don't usually find time to do. I finished How I Write by Janet Evanovich, a book my good friend, Gin, gave me for Christmas. She insists I should write a book, but she has much more faith in me than I do. I finally read The DaVinci Code. I also read Cypress Point by Diane Chamberlain and Sea Swept by Nora Roberts. Lastly, I read the directions to get to the campground because, let's face it, if I left that task to my husband, we'd have never made it there.

I make fun of my husband, but really he does a ton of work when we camp. He oftentimes washes dishes, he dumps the gray water and starts the fire every night. He even gets up with the baby who insists upon rising at 7:00 every morning (she obviously doesn't understand the concept of a vacation!) so I can sleep in a bit. And when we left, he cleaned out the holding tank, which is a polite way of saying the poop tank. As he dumped and rinsed out the toilet, he informed me that I was very lucky that he let us go in the toilet instead of making us use the campground's facilities. He said that his father never let the family use the camper's toilet.

I stared at him for a minute and replied that "lucky" was a relative term. "I'm sorry I'm not more excited about the fact that we can poop in the camper's toilet, but consider this, hon. When you were bummed out that you weren't allowed to use your camper's toilet as a kid, I was bummed out when we had to stay at a Holiday Inn as opposed to a Hilton. You're lucky I ever agreed to go camping because honestly, my idea of a vacation is laying in the sun on the deck of a cruise ship as tanned men with accents bring me rum drinks with little paper umbrellas."

In the end, it was an enjoyable and relaxing trip and I'm thankful for the time spent with family and good friends and hey - our truck didn't even break down this time!


My best friend from H.S., her husband and one of her little boys (the other one was napping) in front of their beautiful new home

Her son giving my baby a kiss. Awww so cute!

Just relaxing with a popsicle after a long day

The old fashioned, 500 feet high, burn-your-butt-off metal, "slide of death"

Part of the gang making a tidal wave

In a Funk

I've been in a funk the past couple days. It started on Thursday, which just happened to be my anniversary. Fifteen years I've been married to Mr. Wonderful. Know what he did for our anniversary? He called me from work to let me know that he was going to be working all night and while on the phone, off-handedly mumbled out a luke warm "Oh, by the way, happy anniversary." This got me thinking about mother's day when he did nothing because "you're not my mom." And then there was my birthday when he did nothing because, well just because, I guess.

Then last night, I watched Bridge to Terabithia with my kids. Have you seen this? What a horrible movie! I mean, it was actually a movie worth seeing with believable acting, some fun special effects, and an overall, wonderful story of friendship, but there should definitely be a warning on the DVD - "Caution - the sweet, intelligent, compassionate girl you'll grow to love in this movie, suddenly dies at the end! May cause uncontrollable sobbing, sadness, and snotty noses. Do you not watch if you have PMS, or are in a bad mood because your husband blew off your anniversary." I personally like to see movies that are light, entertaining, and don't require too much thinking. There is enough drama in the real world and I have no need to see more of it on the silver screen which is why my all time favorite movie is The Princess Bride :)

OK, enough of my depressed funk. On to other things. We're gearing up to go camping this week. Wait, let me rephrase that. I'M gearing up to go camping. That means, I do forty million loads of laundry, I pack clothes and toiletries for eight people, I grocery shop and cook, I basically move three quarters of my house in to our camper. I'm sure I'll have some stories upon my return as we have yet to go on a camping trip where we don't run into car trouble. One time, a bracket of some sort broke, leaving us stranded at a K-Mart for six hours, one time the truck caught on fire, another time the alternator went out, a different time, the truck kept overheating necessitating the use of the heater in ninety-five degree weather, and yet another time, the camper flipped over, taking our truck with it and rolling it into a ditch. Sheesh, after reading that list, you'd think we would have long since abandoned camping in favor of safer vacations, but we're just gluttons for punishment. Well, that and the fact that there isn't any other kind of vacation where a family of eight can stay for $35 a night!

I don't have a laptop and if I did, my kids would probably bury it in the sand on the beach, use it for a fishing lure, or put it in the campfire to see what would happen, so my blog won't be updated until Monday or Tuesday of next week. I know it's basically just my mom my who reads this, but just in case someone else stumbles upon this by accident, you know why there won't be any updates for a few days.