We went swimming and ate pizza and wings three times while we were there. I don’t think I want to eat pizza and wings again for a long time, but it sure was good. NY pizza and wings are so much better than what they have here.

Sunday, AM got to play in a Texas Hold’Em Tournament at the casino with his Dad. He didn’t win, but he had fun. I got a little (okay, a lot) pissed at him though. He left his wallet in the camper and my MIL had to take it to him at 9 am. She was gone all morning. I didn’t care that AM was at the tournament, but I got bent because I thought that the MIL, the kids, and I would hang out and do something while they were gone. As it turns out, she decided it would be a good day to go shopping all morning too so I was left alone at the campground with the kids to fend for myself. I survived though. It wasn’t AM’s fault and I shouldn’t have gotten pissy, Sorry honey! I just hate it when I always get stuck with the kids while everyone else gets to go off and have a good time. Sunday night I made Camp Stew (smoked sausage, corn, cabbage, tomatoes, potatoes, seasoning). It was yummmyy! But I will do a different variation next time.

I finally finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I was finished by Tuesday night. All I can say is Wow!

The Bad

When we arrived, it took us almost a full hour to get the stupid camper unhitched. First the electrical box was a good 3o feet from where we wanted to actually put the camper, and the power cord was no where long enough. The only place where we could get it in and plug it up was right on top of our neighbor’s site and literally 3 feet from the campfire. That’s real safe! NOT. We (I) ended up spending $83 at the camp store on a 50 foot extension cord. But now we have one (not that I think we will ever need it for anywhere other than there). Second, each time we tried to get the hitch off the ball it would stick and then the trailer would fall to the ground. This meant we had to start all over, re-hitch it, move it back on the leveling blocks and try again. My bumper is all kinds of scratched, because I am not the most graceful backer-upper and bumped into the hitch a few too many times. Did I happen to mention that we were racing a thunderstorm too? We finally got it unhitched and level by 5 pm.

Saturday night/Sunday morning it rained. I hear and rain on the canvas and didn’t think a lot about it. AM woke up and I half-sat up to see what was going on. He thought I was awake and asked why I wasn’t moving stuff under the canopy outside, (he gets easily confused and grumpy when woken up from a deep sleep) so I ended up going outside and pulled all the chairs, coolers, tubs, and stove in under the canopy so they wouldn’t get any wetter. I decided to go pee while I was up. When I got back I zipped up the windows, turned on the AC and had just got into bed when I felt it. My ass was soaked! I let out a small scream and put my hand out of the curtain ( I was sleeping with Wildman). Instantly it was filled with water. I jumped up and told AM that we had a leak. Of course it had to be on my side. We turned on the light and figured out a way to get it to stop until morning. AM lowered the front on the camper so that the water wouldn’t pool up. In the morning, while MIL watched the kids AM climbed up there with a silicone caulking gun and re-caulked that bad boy! Apparently, all the jarring from the drive up there had caused some of the old sealant at the seams on the roof to crack. But we fixed it up good as new.

Thursday was overcast and misty all day. But there wasn’t enough rain to get the ground wet. It was definitely a good lay around in the bed, read, and take a nap day. Too bad the kids aren’t old enough to recognize the greatness of these things. Thursday night, after building up enough condensation from the mist to pool on the roof, the OTHER side of the camper decided to leak. Drama Queen was in the camper with her brother watching Happy Feet when she opened the door and told us it was dripping. I went in, and sure enough, the other side of the camper in the same place was dripping onto the bunks where the table is. So AM got some more silicone caulk and up the ladder he went in the dark. After a few minutes the leak was gone. [We will be re-caulking the entire camper roof prior to our Labor Day camping trip thank you!]

The Ugly

Late Monday night/early Tuesday morning my FIL was admitted into the hospital. At first they thought it was gastritis, and we joked that he ate too much of my camp stew. (He had eaten 2 bowls of it the night before and then had a huge bowl for lunch the next day). He stayed at the hospital all day Tuesday, and that night they figured out that he was having a gall bladder attack and would probably need to have it removed. They would know for sure Wednesday morning. They indeed had to remove his gall bladder and he was out of surgery and in a room by 3 pm Wednesday night. His gall bladder was so bad that it had started to attach to his other organs and was twisted all around his bowels. Had they tried to treat him with antibiotics (as they sometimes do with a first attack) it would have given him gang green. Apparently, he had been having attacks for several years late at night and just didn’t know what they were. [NOTE: If you have repeated pain, you need to see a Dr!] He spent a total of 3.5 days in the hospital and was released and home by 6 pm Friday. Aunt C kept the kids for us on Thursday so that we could see him for a little while. (The kids had a blast!) We ended up staying an extra day (we were supposed to leave Friday morning) so that he could see the kids one last time before we left. My MIL said that he was really upset that he was “ruining our vacation” and that he wasn’t getting to spend time with us. He had planned on taking the rest of the week off so that we could all hang out together. He didn’t want us to leave without saying goodbye. So we stayed on more day. The weather was gorgeous and we really didn’t want to leave anyway. We got to spend some time with him Friday night and the kids hung out there for an hour before we left Saturday morning. He is doing well now so that is all that matters really. Hopefully, next years trip will be uneventful.

The drive home took FOREVER! 17 hours on the road sucks donkey balls! We didn’t any construction or anything, we just took our time. It was nice to get out of the van, and let’s face it…toddlers will only sit for so long…so when we would stop to eat we would walk around a little. We ate at an awful Truck Stop in PA (the buffet was the worse I have ever been to. WM refused to eat anything and he isn’t that picky) and a Shoney’s in WV. At the Shoney’s there was an Amish Bulk Store so we wondered around there for a little while. About 2 hours into WV we decided to just stay in a hotel for the night since we were at least half way and it was already 8 pm. Yeah….it would have been a good idea if we could have found a damn hotel room. There were NO rooms in Beckeley or Princeton. By 11 pm, we were told that the closest empty hotel was probably 1.5 – 2 hours away (we were only 3 hours from home at this point) so we just drove on. We pulled in the driveway at 2:30 am. I have never been so glad to be home in my life. We have decided that we will do out homework, and when the kids are with us, we will be stopping at one of the dozens of campgrounds off the interstate for the night. At least until they are older and can entertain themselves or sleep.


But overall, it was a nice and relaxing trip. We didn’t do a whole lot of exciting things and mainly stayed at the campground. But isn’t that the point of going camping anyway? The kids were really good for the most part. They both love being outdoors so much and I think they would live in the camper if I would let them. Neither one of them woke up one time in the middle of the night and they took naps every afternoon without a fuss. Maybe it was the fact that they were exhausted? I don’t know but me like it! The next day, DQ was already asking to go camping again with Maw-Maw and Pop Pop. I guess that is a good sign that they had a good time.