Sunday, June 17, 2012

Lessons from Camping

We use to do a lot of camping, almost every weekend, until our last child was born. When she was born camping got put aside for what seemed like forever as she did not sleep EVER until she was around 8. I was always exhausted for it always seemed she would sleep for an hour or two and then, as soon as I slid into bed, she sensed me, smelled me or just to take revenge on me she would wake up and then be up the rest of the night and all the next day. Not kidding or exaggerating there, she truly lived off of only around 2 hours of sleep every 24 hour period. The less she slept, the more energy she seemed to have and she loved to sneak out and well just get into mischief  which raised serious concerns on how safe camping in a tent would truly be for her.

From 8 to now, well it just seemed like we never had time, or money or a million other reasons.

Well the first week of June , hubby announced a surprise 3 day off in a row, what are ya gonna do, lets go camping! OH YEAH it has been too long! I am use to being the one who packs for this sort of thing but the fam really wanted to all pitch in, do their part and help...........perhaps this was a mistake.

You see I do everything in chronological order, very precise methods in my head........I do everything this way. Building a project, I see it all in my head with measurements and all, and get it done. I do my banking and finances this way and always know down the the penny what we have from what source all in my head. Packing is no different.

Yet their help was a distraction so my ordered thoughts started getting fragmented.........leading to 3 adults all of which ended up forgetting some MAJOR items. One of those hilarious yet so annoying mistakes that what are ya gonna do?

I left hubby in charge of bedrolls ( never leave a city boy who is always running hot in charge of bedrolls!) My adult daughter was in charge of the food, I was in charge of clothes and the miscellaneous things.

We get to a wonderful campsite on a 90 degree day late in the evening and set up the Tent. Then we go to set up the bedrolls and realize hubby ONLY brought a thin blanket to sleep on and a SHEET to cover up with ( knowing we were in for a cold spell!) He also totally did not bring ANY bedroll for our youngest daughter! He left the bedroll for our son in charge of our son who also only brought a thin sheet! WHAT? are you NUTS?

Well then we got the fire started and looked in the cooler to realize my daughter only brought the milk and drinks but left the whole bag of meats at home in the refrigerator!

Me? I forgot my poor kids jackets that I meant to grab on the way out of the house and all I had was a sweatshirt.

My son forgot to bring anything to do such as books to read or laptop or anything, no board games or cards.

Things cooled off considerably that night. The day did not really warm up yet my daughter was still determined to go swimming......we were after all CAMPING.

My son sat around wearing my sweatshirt and after his quick dip in the water spending hours trying to warm up. Hubby fished having fun LOL.

Hubby did see a baby owl and he tried to show us but as we were walking a ton of crows were dive bombing it and had killed it in the seconds it took us to walk there. Sad but nature, it was a tiny fluffy baby, too cute for words.

Well the second night was the most miserable night EVER getting down to 40 and the next night was suppose to be even colder. That morning we had no sun to help warm things up and my son was still wearing my sweatshirt as I felt bad I forgot his jacket so I was willing to freeze for him.

Well what can ya do, when the weather does not cooperate and hubby left the warm blankets all at home? We made the decision to come home a day early! BOY was I glad too cause the next night DID get even colder and rained much of the day! GOOD CALL on that one!

Yet we still had a wonderful time and it did not even feel like we came home early. We got to do so much that first day there including talking and meeting some fascinating people with wonderful stories, a wonderful DNR guy I could of talked to forever originally from Texas, collected snail shells along the beach while daughter swam, lots of walking, great food around a fire ( we ran to the store down the road for hot dogs and stuff LOL) and just had a wonderful time.

A family of 5 and their loyal dog ...............what fun!

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