Going out with a BANG!

Our camping trip with friends from Omaha has become something of an annual event. Amy and I worked together at Jim's for several years. Our lives have some sort of parallel universe quality with a six year delay; I was pregnant with Josh when she was pregnant with her last, she has a boy-girl-girl combo, her husband was gone a lot for work and so she is the ONE person who truly knows the struggles that come along with basically being a single, working parent to three children.

Camping with them is always a blast and we always come away from it with good memories, funny stories and one time we even came away with a baby on the way! ;-)

Nonetheless, preparing for such a trip always tends to be last minute (due to my poor planning) and extremely chaotic. I left work at noon to do my grocery shopping sans children and Dustin loaded the camper with twenty loads of clothes, toys and random crap you never use while camping.

We decided to pick the girls up from daycare on our way out of town and as soon as I picked Josh up from school we finished up some last minute things and were off!

As any good pet owners do, we brought along with us both Miss Mattie and Fishy Fish. However, about two minutes into our endeavor Fishy Fish came dangerously close to "sloshing" right out of his bowl. **phew** I quick called Jaime, our daycare provider, and asked if she was registered to care for fish as well as children. After I assured her that all Beta fish look the same and if by some odd chance something were to happen...we would never have to know.

A quick exchange of two girls for one fish and we were officially on our way.



We normally camp at Saylorville Lake near Des Moines; however, they were under some re-modeling projects so we headed to Lake Ahquabi State Park in Indianola, IA. I don't know if I completely lost track of time or merely didn't do the math, but we didn't end up pulling into the campground until 8:15...in the dark.

Let's just say that when you combine a campground you've never been to before with complete darkness on Labor Day weekend you have a recipe for disaster. There were children running around everywhere and while Dustin was trying to keep an eye out for random people I was frantically trying to locate the water spicket.

I filled the tank with water while Dustin headed out on foot to find our campsite. He came back and said, "It ain't gonna be pretty."

Why, you ask?

Our spot was at a very odd angle so backing in would be tricky (even if it were daylight), we were also at the bottom of a slight hill and the rain had washed away the soil from next to the road so there was about a eight inch drop off the edge of the road so we had a small margin for error. On top of that we had no flash light and Lauren was done sitting in the car.

As I normally do, I got out of the truck to try and help Dustin see where to go. There I stood with my cell phone in one hand and my iPod in the other like some air traffic controller trying to direct aircraft with a couple of lit matches. He couldn't see me at all, he couldn't hear me because Lauren was screaming and I was cursing everything that had to do with camping.

About 45 minutes into it I realized that we were giving the rest of the campground quite the show. Not only were people looking over at us, but they had literally turned their chairs around to watch. Nothing like having an audience to make any situation more stressful.

After a little over an hour we were all backed in and only another twenty minutes and we were level. I'm sweating again just thinking about it.

The next morning we got up, made breakfast and headed into town to pick up the several things I inadvertently left off my list. By the time we got back to the campground our friends were there!

Once they got settled we headed off to the lake with the entire group - four adults, six kids and two dogs.

Mattie was more than happy to get in the water and even loved swimming in the moss and muck! **shakes head**










Saturday night involved burgers, campfires and beer. And of course any good campfire includes smores.




Everything was going great and then Lauren had one of her tantrums. Oh, Lord. I have no idea what set that child off but it was bad. Dustin had her inside and she was getting ready for bed, I walked in the camper to get something and she was crying and he was yelling for paper towels.

She made herself puke and got it all over her bed. Oh, yes. Then she came running to me and puked on Josh's bed. I carried her into the bathroom and she puked all over the bath mat. I moved her out into the hallway and she puked right into the air register. Ohhh...my. It's about that time when I usually walk away from the situation because mommy needs some time to count to ten. I put her in the shower and listened to her scream bloody murder and imagined other campers whipping out their cell phones to call 911. I helped Dustin clean up all the puke and returned to find her completely normal.

As I got her to bed and looked all around to see puke stained sheets and clothing, I had to laugh that of all nights to have strawberries I chose the wrong one.

I left her to fall asleep, returned to my beer and left Dustin to clean out the vent. Yum, yum.

When we woke up the next morning I realized we had missed the puke on the walls and doors and that thanks to the strawberries, it looks like someone was beaten with a baseball bat in our camper.

Ahhh....good times.

We also awoke to find that some raccoons had searched our campsite high and low for some scraps.




The rest of the weekend was filled with card games, Smirnoff Tuscan Lemonade and relaxation.

Before we knew it it was time to say good-bye and head home.





Thanks again, Yardleys!!! See ya next year! (If you'll have us. ;-) )