Camping

I’ve worked in this post three times; once Friday, writing in future tense, then Sunday in present tense, and now today changing it to past tense. Life…

We’re camped last weekend. Sunday was Liberty’s birthday; she’s thirteen! We headed to the lake nearby Friday through Sunday.

The kids were so excited. Pierce asked over and over if I could wait to leave. I finally couldn’t help myself.

“Buddy, we don’t camp for us. We camp for you kids.”

He looked bewildered. “You don’t like camping?!”

Umm, camping is fine. The lake is fun. Being away from home with my nine favorite people in the world is great.

Sleeping a tent is not my favorite.
No fans or AC in 90°+ heat isn’t fabulous.
Leaving running water, my dishwasher, laundry facilities, instant hot water, and a refrigerator for the struggle of keeping things cold in a cooler, walking to the bathrooms, hauling water and heating it to wash dishes by hand… no, this is less than fantastic. Vacation is not a vacation for me.

But the kids had a blast. Except for Elliot. She spent Saturday slightly fevered and not impressed with anything – except for maybe the muffins Liberty made to take. Seventy seven muffins… some blueberry, some chocolate/chocolate chip – Liberty provided our breakfasts for the weekend. Elliot ate her fair share of those.

Saturday a few of Blaine’s co-workers were planning to pick us up with a boat for a boat ride. They did… with two boats and an inner tube. Everyone but Elliot and Stellan rode in the tube. Everyone came away with burns in spite of sunscreen. An emergency trip to town for some cider vinegar calmed down the burns, and Sunday was spent swimming and in a borrowed canoe. The whole weekend and that canoe was all I got photos of. Bathing suits not lend themselves to easy camera carrying. Blaine got more; I’ll track them down at some point.

Saturday night, we were hanging out, some of the kids were fishing, some were swimming. Pierce decided do both. One minute he was fishing, the next I see him paddling around in his life jacket with the fishing pole in his hands. He wanted to fish and he wanted to swim, so he jumped in with the pole. Ruby went to rescue the pole, and he let go… Hard lesson: fishing poles don’t float. Liberty had loaned him her pole and it’s now somewhere on the bottom of the lake. Oops.

Stellan celebrated Liberty’s birthday with the eruption of tooth #2. Crabby baby! He took many a stroller ride over the weekend. He was happy in there and would go to sleep, and I have five willing and able stroller pushers. Note to self: always take the stroller. I almost didn’t.

The camping trip was enough of a success that we hope to go again this summer. I counted to eight a couple thousand times over the weekend, but overall, it was pretty relaxing.