Tuesday, May 31, 2011

It was fun. I promise.

We went camping over the holiday weekend along with pretty much everyone else living in Oregon. Here's the run-down:

We got a little bit of a late start and once on the road we quickly realized that ALL of the kids had diarrhea. I SO wish I was kidding. We ended up stopping a million times quite a few times on the drive and every.single.stop was "it's an emergency! Seriously - you have GOT TO STOP THE CAR!" so the kids could go to the bathroom. Only they never had tummy aches at the same time, so what should have been a 2 hour drive took us almost 4 1/2 (poor kids). I'm pretty sure that between all three kids, we used every public restroom between our house and our camp site. We stopped for coffee on the way and right after pulling back into traffic after the coffee shop stop, I realized that mine was pretty much just espresso with luke-warm milk (they forgot the flavoring and didn't really heat the milk) - so instead of actually drinking my "coffee," I just held it and practiced the lamaze breathing I never got to use during labor to get through the never-ending drive.

When we finally got there, it was wonderful. Our sweet family had the campfire going hot and we had about an hour of blissfulness before unpacking our stuff in our trailer and turning in for the night. The next morning fun was had by all (except when I realized that the batteries for my camera were dead and I would get ZERO pictures of the whole weekend). The weather was wonderful and we had a nice morning and lunch outside. Then it started to hail. Like the kind of hail that will bruise your skin if you're not wearing long sleeves. For about an hour.

And then, after the hail, it snowed. And snowed. And snowed. For the rest of the day and into the night. Luckily, Jeremi and Shane (Jeff's sister and her husband) brought their big fifth-wheel and we all piled in for some warmth, cards, and a hot dinner. All was going as well as can be expected when it's freakin' snowing during your camping trip great until Jack decided to randomly projectile vomit all over me and proceeded to dry heave for the next half hour.

The next day we woke up to a COLD morning. The snow was still covering the ground, but at least it was dry out. We decided that after being cooped up in the trailers the whole day before, we should go garage saling for a while (and yes, there were plenty, even in the snow in the low 30's - nothing stops Central Oregon from their garage sales) and in search of a coffee shop (that ironically didn't make coffee any better than the cup I had bought on the way over). Papa (Jeff's Dad) gave each of the kids a dollar for the garage sales, to buy something loud and annoying for the car ride home special, and they had a blast holding out until they found the toy that would push their parents over the edge perfect thing.

It's funny, because when I write it all down, it sounds like it was a horrible experience. But when all the less than desirable stuff was happening I just remember laughing... and thinking, "Seriously? This is REALLY happening right now?" followed immediately by, "Yeah, you can't make this stuff up."

But mostly, when I think about this weekend, I just remember having a great time with a bunch of people I love being around. Certainly a weekend none of us will soon forget, even if there aren't any pictures to remind us.

3 comments:

  1. You're not going to believe this (but, yet I think you might) but I was on here to post about our Newport trip and how crappy it turned out (includes vomiting as well!) but yet the kids kept saying how much fun they had and we laughed more than we have in a very long time.
    We grown ups, we tend to stress and remember all the things that went wrong. But, the kids, they just go with the flow and enjoy themselves. Now, who's the wiser of the two? ( :

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  2. I know, the weather, the illness, *the bad coffee*... none of it phased the kids. :) I'll be waiting to hear about Newport. :)

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  3. Glad the kiddos felt better... And SNOW? Seriously? You guys are hard core campers!

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