Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Jellystone Knightstown Campout, Day 3

Ah yes, another rainy morning. 


The kids started the day off gangbusters, with another epic battle of Crazy Eights.  
Even Jacob was figuring it out and finding his groove. 



The kids ate breakfast and played cards, while we began packing up the food. 
No extensive cooked meals this morning. 
Have a banana. 

Then we kicked them out while we commenced tear down.


They found a snake hole, and all kinds of critters in the mud.  
I honestly didn't mind their scientific investigations.  
I just wanted to clean out the camper with minimal interruption. 


Chris helped out immensely. 
As a reward, he got to be the person to retract the porch. 


Go ahead little brothers, jump in a mud puddle. 
I know it sounds like I'm swearing.  
But really, mud was Everywhere, there was no avoiding it.


Even our Step was sinking into the mud.  
So we opted to leave Eric and Chris outside, running things into cars, while Mom and I stayed in and packed up, gathered clothing and bedding, and passed things out the door to our mudballs. 


Making holes in the mud. 
I tell you, these yahoos were cracking me up. 
When we did laundry, the next day I found the jaw of some animal hidden in the bedding.  
I know it wasn't my boys.  Lisa has reported finding things before.  But she didn't believe me. 


Meanwhile, my eldest channeled his inner Scout Badass.  
Yes, that's Chris getting the supports out from under the back of the camper, and helping to wind them up and put them away.  
Bad-Ass. 
He was immensely helpful. 
My Mom didn't believe me that he's now stronger than me.  Until she saw it.  
This kid is going to make an Awesome Camper as he ages.  My Uncle Ron would've been so Proud.


My husband is rather a Badass too. 
This was the moment I was proudest of him. 
He figured out how to dump the sewage so we could drive home. 
I had no idea how, nor was inclined to learn.  He got it all figured out, and done.  
Badass. 
And we camped. With a potty. 
In three days of rain. 
My family is Awesome.

And the sun shines!  
There was a break in the clouds as we drove home, just long enough to get it into the backyard, and get our stuff out before the rain started again. 
We did it!
I call our first camping trip with the Camper a Success! 

Jellystone Knightstown Campout, Day 2

My snuggle buddy upon waking.  

We got stuck in the rain again. Apparently, they were calling it the 'guacamole showers', where the map shows a dark center over Kentucky and lighter green storms radiating outwards, it looks like an avocado.  And it's rain.  We got rained in Friday night, with internet on the fritz.  It worked out ok, we taught the kids some card games.  And Nana had an ipad.  But then our neighbors started partying late, and kept it up until midnight.  Too bad for them.  Our kids were up at 7.  We tried to keep them quiet.  But it's hard to keep this kind of Cuteness quiet. 





Nana broke out her ipad.  
Charlie got the pukies.  
The running theory was too much sugar before bedtime.  But I wanted to keep her away from any kids other than ours until we knew for sure.  She's hard to keep down.  There was no way my kids were keeping away from her.  They wanted to play.  


Chairs in the mud. 
The aftermath of the rain from the day prior, and my chair is sinking into the mud.  


And another round of storms rolls through.  


I forgot to take a picture of Chris's mouth after getting his braces adjusted.  At the beginning of July, he had surgery to open the gum to see where that tooth was, immediatly it started to descend.  Thursday he went in for an appointment and they loved the look, and put a bracket on it.  His smile is looking so good, I don't know how much longer he'll need braces.  Such an adult smile!


Check out our Bathroom! 
So Grateful our camper has it's own potty.  It prevents us from having to go up the hill in the rain.  We decided not to do #2 in there, just #1 unless emergency.  We have Thieves wipes.  And Thieves Foaming Hand Soap.   And Thieves Bar Soap.  Camping is a dirty activity. I wouldn't do it without Thieves. 


As the next round of rain set in, the kids returned to resume similar activities.  Crazy Eights and  Ipad games with Nana.  Good Times. 


Eric was undeterred by the rain. 
He decided we were cooking out for lunch.  He'd moved the wood into our car the night before, so we still had dry wood. Thank goodness.  Wet would never have lit.
We'd brought a ton of meat, hot dogs and hamburgers.  They needed cooking. 
Sure, we have a small stovetop and microwave in the camper, but it's not going to cook for 7 people.  
He stood in the rain, over the "smolder" trying to get it to catch.  
It felt like he was at it for hours.  I'm sure it wasn't.  
But the man was persistant!


It worked! 
He got enough fire going between raindrops that we were able to start a fire. 
It was just enough to cook some hot dogs.  
The kids took over for Eric.  


Kids grilling out! 



Mmm!  Don't those Dogs look good!  
I love this picture of them cooking their lunch. 




And of course, no camp cookout is complete without cooking out some S'mores!
The rain was light during lunch, but we were expecting another big round in time for dinner.
So if we were going to do S'mores, it was going to need to be during our lunch 'break' in the rain. 




Mmm.  Reese's Peanut Butter Cup S'mores. 
That's My Favorite! 
The kids did a great job burning up a marshmallow for me. 


In the late afternoon, before the last round of rain hit, we hit the playground at the top of the hill.  
There was a tie-dye activity going on.  There was a nasty line.  The kids opted to go play on the empty swings while I waited. 



They were pretty sweet out there on the playground. 
I didn't fight too hard at stopping them to do tie-dye. 

 It was the only playing Charlie got to do, and it was because there weren't any other little kids nearby.  Only, they never came back to tie dye. 


The kids played on the swings, while I did they tie-dye myself.  
Then they got soaked and filthy.  And it started to rain again. 
Good times. 
Eric took them to a brief swim in the pool in the rain.  I tried miserably to nap, it didn't work well.  
But at least they got out of the camper for a few minutes.


Snack Time. 
They got outside for a bit, and got soaked. 
After drying out, there were no clothes left but their jammies.  


Charlie brought some toys and the littles got to playing with them. 
Charlie was not happy we made her stay in, and not play with other kids, except ours. 
24 hour rule yo. 


Homework time.  
Even Camping is when Kumon gets done! 

Dinner was leftovers, casseroles that Lisa sent, and leftover dogs from lunch heated up in the microwave.  So Handy!  If you're going to get rained out on a campout, doing it in a sweet camper like this is the way to go. 


Dueling ipad time. 
After two days of rain, I caved and let all the boys bring their ipads in the camper after the last round of rain set in, they couldn't take any more, and neither could I.  I let them play.  
Jake and I went to bed, while the big boys played a little longer.  
It was sweet. I'm glad I held out a little while. 



Monday, July 23, 2018

Jellystone Knightstown Campout, Day 1


This weekend, our family ran away with my Mom.  We began testing out her new Camper. She bought it with her inheritance from my Uncle Ron who loved to go Camping. We may even call this Camper, Big Ron. He was my Godfather, and we always got along well, being of geeky minds.  He loved spending time and camping with the boys and 'unclefying' them.  So this was the first campout we got to try out the new camper.   First we had to meet up at the Camper place, because there were a few things left undone.  Mom wanted us to drive "to get used to it".

I drove to the Camper place.  I hadn't driven with a camper trailer attached before. It was really scary for me.  It kept shifting when I transitioned from 25-40 mph. Mostly that was just exit ramps, but still It gave me a case of the willies.  I've never been so happy to see my minivan. You know how I joke, "I'm tired, I drove today."  I made Eric drive the next leg and get it into the campground.  Putting that beast into reverse was insane.


But Woohoo!  After less than an hour on that second leg of the journey we arrived at the Jellystone Campground in Knightstown, IN.  

As we struggled with backing the trailor in, the Ranger came and backed it in and rescued us.  
Ugh.  

As we were dealing with that, I realized it was 12:30, soon it became 1.  We were all Hungry.  
So Lunch was Next. Or During for some. Luckily, we had lunchmeat, chips at the ready.  
No fire necessary.


Our Lovely Campsite! 


Eric and I go on an Ice/Wood run. 
Mom was weirded out that we didn't pack wood or ice, where would we get it.  We also knew it was going to rain soon.
This part we knew, we headed Back Up the hill, for supplies. 
Driving by ourselves. 
It was almost like a date. 
Given that it was a Family Trip, I knew that it would be the only time we would be alone all weekend, so I took this cute picture of us by the Pic-a-nic baskets. 


These pretty purple coneflower was growing outside the bathrooms, which were at the top of the hill.  Luckily, we figured out how to work the bathrooms in the camper, so we didn't use the ones at the top of the hill except for #2 or to shower too. 


Naptime, Ha!
After our adventures, Jacob was getting crazy, and I was toast. 
I tried to get a nap with him, but it didn't work very well.  
He's so cute, and our naptimes are limited, so as it began to spit, I tried to nap. 
Nope.


Meanwhile, the kids broke out the deck of cards, and had some snacks. 


A little rain became a lot of rain. 



Luckily, we have this wonderful camper to hang out inside. 
Nana made this super excellent chex mix.  It did not the survive to the end of our adventure. 
It was Yummy!  
Who knew Chex mix would be such a big hit with everyone.  I'd forgotten.


Meanwhile, my sister sent a peace offering. 
Kani Salad. 
At least I thought it was a peace offering.   She knew I loved this crab/cucumber/spicy may salad that she makes.  And I do.  I knocked it out for my snack, and finished it off with Charlie for dinner. ;)


An Advertisement! 
Thieves- the Bar of Soap. 
I packed this as a last minute idea, thinking we might want some soap with us, as it's Camping. 
Brilliant!  
#AllTheThievesProducts
Remind me that I need All the Thieves Every Time we Camp! 


Charlie couldn't take being cooped up in the rain, so she and Jacob both were ootsy, they wanted to go for a walk.  We let them go for a walk in the rain.  As the rain was ending. 




There they are, as the sunshine broke through, the littles headed to the park just around the corner.
They are walking in the street in this shot.  




Charlie slid on the slide.  
After a rainstorm.  
She was a mess. 


Jacob followed suit. 
Jacob slid on the slide, and he got his djibooty all messed up. 


All the kids got mad and soaked when a second round of storms rolled through. 


This one was even harder rain than the first round. 
Uh Oh. 
We thought our chairs would be protected under our 'porch roof'. 
Nope. 


There's no protection outdoors from That. 
This was my favorite rain shot of the weekend.  


We eventually sent Eric back out to the park after the kids, to bring them in from the rain. 
Lightning was our limiting factor.  I was ok if they played in the rain, but with lightning and thunder, they needed to come back in. 


Meanwhile, our porch flooded. 


Inside, the kids all played Crazy 8s with the Original! 
Nana taught me Crazy 8s, and I taught them, so we all had epic card battles. 
I'm so glad we packed two decks of card. Nana and I resumed our old Gin tournaments of old.  I'd forgotten how to play gin.  But we taught Eric, and we had battles all day, all weekend long.  No points, no gambling, just cards.  Everyone usually cleaned my clock, but I had fun. 
When Jacob won, he was the most cheerful kid ever.  When he lost, he was not. 
We needed to teach him how to be a gracious loser. 



After getting soaked in the rain, the kids were happy to come in and get dry for a while. 

Dinner prep.  
Hot dogs in the microwave for the kids, and leftover pasta for us. 


It seems silly to have hot dogs without being grilled out on a campout. 
Cooked in a microwave seems like a cop out.  But when there's so much rain, there was no hope of fire for dinner.  The kids were happy though.



Mom and Lisa and made this yummy pasta casserole.  Lisa tends to just throw in whatever she had, so there were all kinds of veggies: zucchini, broccoli, mushrooms, yellow squash, onion, in a light marinary with parmesan and penne pasta.  It was kind of like a primavera, I think Giada started it, but my family mutated it.  And I ate the crap out of it.  It had been a long exhausting day, lots of work, my back was Done.  And so I was glad for some yummy home cooking without having to cook much. 


The closest we got to Smores on this campout. 
This was a Smores flavored stout, beer, that Eric and I picked up at the Wine and Table next door to the Kumon place.  So Yummy!  
And since there was no evening fire, this worked for improvising.  


Once the sun went down, the kids were Toast. 
My bunkmate was out cold as soon as I laid down and held his hand. 
Our neighbors (who were very close) were noisy until like 1 a.m., so I slept crappy. 
He's so beautiful when he sleeps.