Camping and Four Wheeling

David unexpectedly got two extra days off last week; a costly error in our cell phone service caused him to miss his call to work. He was ticked to put it mildly. We decided to try to make the most of the time off, so we went camping. David's sister and her boyfriend were in town and they had decided to go camping with my in-laws, who go every weekend from late April to mid-September. We just tagged along.

It turned out to be a lot of fun. David and the boys went four-wheeling with the in-laws and "Ezra" (this is what Owen started calling David's sister's boyfriend, even though it sounds nothing like his real name).

Owen and Drew get geared up to go.

David gets geared up to go four-wheeling.

Samantha and I stayed at the camper with David's sister and did as little as possible.

Samantha happily eating Cheetos.

After a long exciting ride (they saw trains, a river, an old restored cabin with old artifacts in it, cows, and horses), everyone came back to camp filthy and happy.

Owen and Grandpa arrive back at camp.

Drew, covered in dirt after his ride.

Owen goes to give Grandma back her cell phone and Walkie Talkie

Drew and Owen spent the rest of the afternoon happily playing with pails and dirt.

The in-laws know just about everyone at the campsite (since they've been going there every weekend of every summer for the last few years). On Saturday nights, they have a potluck. Since they don't really plan anything, we ended up with lots of food to choose from: two large pans of lasagna, steaks, hot dogs, home-grown corn on the cob, two different versions of green salad, and garlic toast. I had some of everything. And of course we had S'mores for dessert.

We sat around the campfire for a while, then I got the boys and Samantha ready for bed and we said goodnight to everyone. Drew was walking around saying goodnight to Grandma and Grandpa. He got too close to the fire pit and burned his hand on it. I whisked him up and took him to the faucet to run cold water on his hand. It didn't look too bad, and he didn't complain about it, but now, two days later, I see that it's a pretty bad burn (second degree), so we've been putting Vitamin E on it.

We put a tent up outside the camper and slept in it. It was a rough night. Samantha had to sleep in her car seat, which was really uncomfortable for her, because she prefers to sleep on her tummy and it just doesn't work in a car seat. So she woke up at 1 a.m. Her crying woke up Drew and Owen, and they decided they wanted to sleep between David and me, so I ended up sleeping on the ground between two air mattresses.

Finally, I decided to move up to the other air mattress (it was one of the tall mattresses, but it wasn't as comfortable as our low-to-the-ground one), but in doing so I woke Samantha. I grabbed her out of her seat and let her sleep next to me on the air mattress. I really dislike sleeping next to kids and babies. I'm always afraid of squishing them. So every time Samantha snuggled up to me I backed up until eventually I was on the very edge of the mattress smooshed up against the side of the tent with all kinds of cold air coming in and chilling me. It was a long night.

Drew and Owen woke up early. As soon as it got a little bit light, they were up and wanting to play in the tent. They woke Samantha up. She was still tired and therefore a little grumpy, but she didn't want to go back to sleep because Drew and Owen actually wanted to play with her. So after a lot of kids' squawking and parents' grumbling, we decided to just get up. We went into the in-laws' camper, where the heater was going full blast and the cocoa was steaming.

We got everybody dressed and headed to town for breakfast. We went to a little place called Amy Lou's Steakhouse. The gal that runs the joint, Amy Lou, is older, maybe in her late sixties. She was there by herself when we first got there, and one of the customers was taking orders and serving water to people who came in. Finally the real waitress arrived and the customer was able to sit and enjoy her own breakfast (hopefully she didn't have to pay for it).

When we got back to camp it was time to pack up and head home. It was a fun trip and I was glad we were able to go, even though the circumstances of why we were able to go were much less than ideal. Hopefully we'll get to go camping more than once next summer!