Expect the Best, Accept the Worst

Super-long recounting of our camping trip!

We have been telling Finn since winter-time that we would go camping this summer, so we finally did it this weekend. It was a crazy adventure. (and I realize I haven't blogged in about 2 months, so I will catch you up on all of our other goings-on pretty soon!)

Firstly, we drove up to Aunt Laci's in Montana a few weeks ago (I'll post pictures of that soon) and the first night we were there the kids slept in the same room and had a hard time going to sleep, but the next night was better. So, I decided that if we have to go somewhere where they will be sleeping together I would have them sleep in the same room the night before to kind of let the novelty wear off. So Friday night we set them up in Burgundy's room. Well, it didn't go so well. At about 2am I heard noises, and it escalated until about 3am when I finally went in and put them back in their own beds. So we were a little nervous about the sleeping situation. But I am getting ahead of myself...

So, since we had been up late, we slept in later than we wanted on Saturday. So we definitely weren't getting out by 10 like we had planned. It seemed to take forever to pack up the car, and Finn was driving us nuts asking if we were ready to go, but we were finally ready at about 1:30. So we all get in the car, and... the car is dead. Ok, so at this point I am thinking, ok seriously, are we not supposed to go or what? So, Cody jumped it but decided that he didn't want to risk it being far removed in the wilderness so he wanted to buy a new battery. So, $106 later, he had a heck of a time getting the old battery out so that took about an hour to get accomplished. So we FINALLY got on the road at 2:30.

We found a nice spot to camp just before 6 o'clock. It was pretty flat and open. It was right off the turn-out road, but only 1 car went by the whole time we were there so it was really nice. So we set up the new tent and got a fire going. Finn had a great time helping Cody gather firewood and we made hot dogs then roasted some "mahshlooms", as Finn calls them. We hung out by the fire for a little while and got the kids in their jammies and had fun playing with glow sticks in the tent. At about 10 Finn asked to go to bed, so we got them set up in their room in the tent. They went to sleep pretty quickly. Cody and I were able to hang out by the fire for a few hours and relax. Cody had put a huge log on the fire pretty early and the ends of it stuck out of the fire pit. We didn't want to go to bed until the log broke in half so it was all contained. As Cody says, camping is always more fun with a mission, so that was our little mission: to keep the fire stoked and try to break the giant log! It was great to hang out just the two of us. We haven't been camping together since I was pregnant with Burgundy, so we were enjoying ourselves.

So it was probably after midnight when Cody and I decided to go to bed, and then the real fun began! I have this issue where I never sleep very well the first night of camping. For whatever reason. If we ever go more than one night I sleep great after the first night, but that first night is never too much fun. Anyway, it was stressful just trying to get in the tent, trying to unzip it without being all loud and waking up the kids, but we managed. We got on our inflatable mattresses which we just bought and were using for the first time. It wasn't very cold, so it was pretty comfortable. Right as I was starting to doze off, I suddenly had to pee like I hadn't gone for hours, even though I just had. So I had to get up and battle the zipper again, and luckily didn't wake anybody up. Then it seemed like every time I dozed off for a couple seconds, something woke me up. Burgundy kept making little noises and of course that woke me up several times. Apparently she is a very "active" sleeper. Very noisy!

So a bit later, it rained for about 5 minutes and that woke everybody up. After that, I was suddenly FREEZING. Like shaking uncontrollably. The kids were awake and I was trying to re-cover them up to make sure they were warm enough and told Cody how cold I was. We had bought a little camp-heater, so, great guy that he is, he went out and got the heater and set it up, so that helped a lot. Throughout the night, the tree we were under kept dropping pine needles on our tent like crazy due to the infestation of pine beetles up there so that kept me awake. Then Cody went out to pee and sat on my bed to get his shoes on. He came back in, and I realized that my hip was resting on the ground. Within minutes, my entire body was flat on the ground. So I got onto Cody's twin-size mattress and that was great. We were smushed, but having a king-sized bed, we never run into each other in bed! So cuddling with him was nice... & very warm! But he was getting very frustrated at how Burgundy was awake and kept talking. So he decided to get the air pump and go onto the other mattress to try get some sleep.

So I was by myself and finally, since it was obvious Burgundy was not going back to sleep and I was worried she was keeping Finn awake, I told her to get in bed with me. I guess I had resigned myself to the fact that I would not be sleeping. I loved having Burgundy in bed with me. Every few minutes she would reach over and touch my face, or she would hold my hand and rub it. It was just precious to me and I loved it. I think we both finally fell asleep for a few moments when Cody woke up with a terrible Charlie-horse in his calf! He was trying not to wake anybody up but he couldn't help it, he was in terrible pain. Apparently the mattress was totally flat, and so he decided to climb in bed with Finn. So fitting with the theory that our kids are totally mini-versions of us, Cody & Finn slept great and Burgundy and I did not. But luckily we didn't keep them awake and just got to snuggle together in bed.

So I guess we must have fallen asleep for at least an hour or so, and then about 7:30 some noisy chipmunks woke us up! (and by the way, I wish I had an alarm clock that sounded like that!)

So we got up, ate some cereal, and played a little. We started to get packed up and then something really scary happened. Finn and Burgundy were hanging out in the car with the doors open. Finn was playing his video game and Burgundy was resting and just sitting in her seat. Then she came to hang out by me and Cody while we were packing up the tent. We were folding the fly and after Cody got it rolled up, I looked around and didn't see Burgundy anywhere. I called for her and started looking around. She wasn't in the car with Finn and we didn't see her anywhere. So we were calling her name and just looking all over. I could feel the panic rising in me and was calling her name, which started to sound more and more frantic. Cody took off down the little road and after what seemed like forever (but was probably only a minute at most), he called to me that he saw her.

Somehow, while we were focused on folding up the fly, she decided to take a little walk down the path. She had gotten a decent distance away. When Cody saw her she was running towards him, apparently having heard us calling for her. She didn't seem scared at all. Of course once I saw her walking up the road with him I started bawling and couldn't stop for about 10 minutes. I was shaking and just couldn't believe how fast that had all happened. We all went for a little walk together to calm down. She couldn't have gotten that far away, but to suddenly look up and have her not be there and not know which direction to go to get her was very scary. I never had to deal with that with Finn, he was always pretty much attached to my side and now he knows not to wander off. This is actually the second time she has ever done this, once in the children's museum I was watching Finn for a minute and looked back and she was gone, having wandered off to another exhibit. Scary stuff. I would say I guess I have to keep a closer eye on that one, but gosh, I do. I am very mindful of it. But it only takes a second. Sheesh.

Deep Breath! Anyway, after we all calmed down and played for a little bit, we got in the car and left to come home. The kids went to bed early, they were worn out from the busy trip! And, to be totally honest, so are we... probably more so.

So that was our crazy excursion. Fun, frustrating, scary, tiring, precious. So when do we get to do it again?

When we first arrived, Finn went pee and decided he wanted to remain bottomlessOff to find firewood

Getting ready to start the camp-fire
Playing
This morning
Still in their jammies
Finn with his Mahshloom

ice cream & feng shui

Tonight, we went to our new pizza joint and for the past couple weeks I have been wanting to go to the ice cream shoppe with the kids so we went after dinner. It was a rainy evening, not exactly the hot summer night I was expecting but we still had plenty of fun!

This is the first time we've all gone to get ice cream and it was fun to show Finn all the flavors, and let him sample them and pick which one he wanted. He chose bubble gum (one of my favorites as a kid).Also here are a few samples of areas I've added a couple things to in order to begin the process of feng shui-ing my house. (I have much more to say about this, but I'll save it for another post). Here is the lamp that Heidi & I fixed. Heidi & Brady came over the other afternoon and we were discussing feng shui and I mentioned this lamp. Here's the abridged story of the lamp. While living in Chicago, I bought these lamps that I just love. One floor lamp and one table lamp. Once, while packing up a moving van, the floor lamp got broken. But it was just one piece of the stem and I knew it could be fixed so I saved it. Well, that was 7 years ago. Cody has begged to throw the lamp away every time he comes across it but I refused. It has been sitting in the closet downstairs. Mind you, it is bad feng shui to keep broken things, but I love these lamps and wanted to fix it, I just had never gotten around to it. So Heidi says, let's pull it out and fix it! Bless her! So we fiddled with the thing for about an hour or more and finally the lamp is now in working order - as a table lamp! So now I have matching table lamps. Hooray!So part of feng shui is to make sure all the elements (wood, fire, earth, metal & water - with each element being represented by materials, shapes & colors, etc.) are balanced and in harmony, without too much of one, too little of another, etc. So with a couple rocks here, and a little candle there, I am on my way to balanced ch'i.
(PS - if anyone is looking for a birthday gift for me - I want a feng shui consultation! I know of a lady who does it here and have contacted her - now I just need the money to make the appointment!)
Now these pictures probably won't make it into "House Beautiful" or anything, but the point is I have balanced the elements without having to go out and buy anything new! These are areas that might have been heavy in one element or too light in another, but now they are more balanced. So as long as the ch'i is balanced and flowing, that's what's important!

much better

Firstly, I would like to say sorry to anyone who may have been offended or depressed or left feeling generally icky by that last post. Darned hormones and things happening at bad times will do that to me. So... sorry. I try really hard not to be a mega-bitch (well, it's not like it's an everyday battle, I think I'm mostly a nice person, just at times things get the better of me).

So, with that out of the way, here are some pictures. Yesterday, out of the blue, Finn asked me if we could go to the roller-coaster place. He continued to tell me about the cars and the motorcycles and the strawberry cars and the big slide and the fire truck he can sit in. (All of this was from Sunset Days which we went to LAST year and we hadn't spoken about that at all - crazy memory on that kid!!)

So today I looked to see if there were any carnivals in town because it's all he wanted to do all day. So in the morning we went to ihop for breakfast and then after nap time we went to South Ogden Days. The kids had a lot of fun riding the rides and then we listened to a good band for a couple songs. It was a fun summer day.