I'm apparently running about two weeks behind on blog posts this summer. So look for the first day of school information sometime around early October ... or maybe I'll pull it together by then. [Don't hold your breath. August is CRAZY here!]
Two weeks ago [sigh ...] during the weekend of my birthday, we headed to northern Wisconsin - Trego, to be exact - for our annual camping trip with Grandpa V and Grandma and Grandpa N. This year, my sister decided to join us - as well as her friend Emily (more on her later). Thanks to Gma and Gpa, we had awesome sites right up the hill from the beach, complete with enough trees to hold a few pre-installed clotheslines (this will be more important than we could have imagined).
The week leading up to camping was really busy, with Mike going to a Twins game, swimming lessons, and something else (this would be the problem with blogging weeks after the actual event). Against all odds, we managed to get ourselves organized to leave by just after 9:00 Thursday morning. The kids and I were in the Durango and Mike pulled the camper in Grandpa V's new truck - that we picked up for him in the Cities. It was a pretty easy drive and we made it to the campground by early afternoon. Gma and Gpa were already there, so they helped with the short humans while Mike got us set up and the tent beds popped out. Then Mike took off to Duluth with the truck to pick up Gpa V and the kids and I got the camper organized and ready to for the weekend.
Once we were settled, I fulfilled my promise to the kids and we headed down to the beach. It was just us there and they happily splashed around for most of the afternoon. I didn't put my suit on that day and just waded out with them. It was pretty warm and there were quite a few moments where I rethought that decision. Mike and Gpa got back right around dinner time, so they worked on getting Grandpa's trailer set up and unloading the wheelers while the rest of us made dinner. We ate, took the kids for a wheeler ride, and then it was off to bed. It was pretty quiet pretty quickly in the camper. The adults sat around the fire for a bit and then called it a night.
Friday morning we all anxiously awaited Auntie's arrival. She and her friend Emily arrived just before lunch. As Declan sized up Emily, he deemed her unworthy of using her actual name and called her "Emma." He knew that wasn't her name, but he wasn't going to say it correctly. I was teasing him and said, "Is her name Watermelon?" No. "Is her name Hamburger?" No. "Is her name Enchilada?" [big grin] Yes! And with that, Emily #1 continued to be Auntie and Emily #2 was renamed Enchilada. Because she's awesome, she was totally down with that. At one point, Fiona thought we should call her Emchilada, but that didn't stick.
We ate an early lunch and spent all Friday afternoon in the lake. There were not a lot of people at the campground yet, so the beach was pretty quiet again. We swam with the kids who were fish all weekend and loved the sandy lake and wonderfully groomed sand beach. We took turns going in groups of tall people out to the swim raft in the deeper area of the swim area - and of course, going down the slide on the swim raft. The only problem with the swim raft slide was that it was clearly not built for adult-sized hips and no one felt terribly graceful going down it. But that most certainly didn't stop us!
Then we took a break and had ice cream birthday cake that Mike's mom so very kindly brought for me (because ice cream cake is my favorite). The kids continued to play in the sand and we got the fire going for dinner. After dinner, we made s'mores, I rinsed the sandy children off in the lake, and off to bed they went. That's when the real excitement began! And we'll finish that story another day.
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| Such a FUN group!! |
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