Egg Hunters and Memory Loss

At our house on Easter Sunday, we like to enjoy a traditonal egg hunt. With all these kids, it's a must. Mom and I hid 135 eggs (yeah, yeah, overkill, blah blah blah) boiled and plastic, around my yard. The dads were working swiftly on the new treehouse during the hiding, so it was up to us ladies to remember where every single egg was.

 . . . .

What was I talking about?


Oh yeah.  Easter. And so,

Underneath these calm, smiling faces are wheels and fireworks waiting to burst into action!  How cruel of me to make them wait just one more moment.... Ready, set, GO!

In a blitz of energy, everyone sprints off to find the little hidden treasures.

Like father, like son.  Tate and Dad wore their matching work blues today.

Victoria's eggs were the coveted "golden" eggs of the day.  There were only two, but Tabi found one.  The prize was a grand feeling of victory and a pat on the back.

Tate.

Hopers found a few of the eggs we dyed with turmeric.

And Faith found the other Victoria egg.  Give yourself a pat on the back, honey, I'm holding a camera.

Teegan.

 

 

Faith and her Daddy, searching for more eggs. Somehow (yet not surprising because it happens every year) we didn't find all the eggs. I swear the missing eggs are the ones Mom hid.  She swears they're the ones I hid.  But at any rate, there are nine out there in my yard right now.... or in my dog's stomach.

 

Happy Easter!

Thanksgiving Camping

For the last several days, I've been living in a tent, cooking over a fire, and not bothering to brush my children's hair. No, we didn't suddenly become vagabonds.  We celebrated Thanksgiving!

Our tradition, going back since I was a kid, has been to pack up and slip away to the woods for several days during this special holiday. No one has to worry about hosting a fancy dinner at their house (or even cleaning it for that matter).  No one has to answer work email or phone calls (no cell service).  Nothing but God's creation, plenty of play time, and of course, lots of food!

This year the involved families were: ours (Me, Seth, Noodle, Hopers, and Poppy the dog), my parents' family (Amie, G-Daddy, Tobi, Tabi, Teegan, Tate, and their 5 dogs), and Seth's sister's family (Jena, Dave, Kirsten, Katelyn, David and their two dogs).

We went to Aiken State Park in South Carolina. Originally, I was skeptical because 1. it wasn't booked up for Thanksgiving like every other state park in America, and 2. most of the reviews I read said it was "quiet", which in my mind translated to "ugly and boring."

My skepticism was for naught.  It was gorgeous. The landscape reminded me of the rolling, hilly woodlands of North Florida. The park boasted of two small lakes and a winding little river passing through it.  We soon discovered that, yes, it was quiet, and no, it was definitely not boring.

I think we were the loudest ones there.

Tate, Teegan, Katelyn, and Jena

We played a few games of impromptu football and soccer.

Hopers, Tabi, Noodle and Tobi

The kids roasted marshmallows pretty much any time they thought about it...which was whenever they were awake.

Dave and Seth

The guys channeled their inner manliness and spent lots of time hunting down wood and chopping it for the fire.

Seth and Poppy (left).  Poppy and Kirsten (right)

Poppy enjoyed camping as much as the rest of us because she got lots of attention.

On day 2 we found a big tree to play in.  It was my dad's idea: create a zip line for the kids.  You know whenever my dad thinks about trees, it means my husband will end up in the top of one.

Dad brought all kinds of climbing ropes and gear to play with.  Everything was super-duper rated for holding up huge things.  Like Tabi.

Me making a harness for Katelyn (left).  Seth trying his own harness (right).

I learned how to make a harness out of a single strap, some knots and a carabiner (Dad researched it and taught me). I became the harness queen, tying and untying straps on children as they took turns on the zip line. Seth thought it would be faster to use a ready-made harness, but after OW OW OW PUT ME DOWN he decided not so much.

Noodle, takin' a crack at it.

Everyone took a turn flying through the air and loved it.  Well, not Teegan and Tate.  They declined in favor of staying close to the ground.

Hopers

Katelyn zipping toward Tabitha. Aghhhhh! Tabi moved just in time.

I decided I needed a turn on this crazy contraption. I whipped up a harness for myself (I knew all those hours of knitting would pay off!) and clipped in.

Me, David, Hopers, Katelyn, Tobi, Noodle, and Dave

The kids thought it would be a breeze to pull me up to the highest point.  (They ended up needing a little help.  Darn you, apple pie!)



Wheeeeeeeeeeee!

Next to our zip line trees was one of the lakes.  Did I mention this place was gorgeous?  I managed to hold down a couple of girls for photo ops.

Noodle

The girls.  Aunts. Cousins.  Tobi (9), Noodle (11), Hopers (6), Kirsten (13), Tabi (7), Katelyn (10).

On day 3 we found the other lake and decided to do some fishing there.

It was pretty, but the only thing we caught were frogs.  I think someone lied when they said the lake was stocked with catfish.  Either that, or the catfish were smaller than the frogs.

Hopers enjoying herself while Noodle pouts about the fishing.

We hung up our fishing poles in favor of a little canoeing.  There were canoes for rent to either paddle around the lakes or to take down the river.  My gang, plus David, were the only ones brave enough to travel a river in 55 degree weather, so we rented two canoes and jumped in to our little adventure.  We brought Noodle's i-pod with its waterproof case with us to take pictures.

The river was beautiful, the water was freezing, and Noodle was REALLY nervous about the boat tipping.

Me, Noodle and Seth were in one canoe.

David and Hopers were in the other canoe. 

Being split up, we lost sight of David and Hopers for a while, as they were the first ones in the water.  As it turns out, Hopers wanted to race us, but they spent a good amount of time getting stuck in low branches!

Every night, we settled around the fire after eating (way too much food).

Noodle, Seth, Tobi, and Kirsten

The kids took to drawing and playing hangman in the sand by the fire and singing songs...

Tate and G-Daddy (left).  Hopers (right).

...and making silly faces....

Jena and Teegan

...and telling stories....

...and giving the doggies some love.

Even with the temps getting down into the 20's on the last night, we all stayed cozy in our tents thanks to the great invention of the space heater. 

G-Daddy with Tate's frozen pants that had been left out to dry.

The kids all got along amazingly.  The food was out of this world.  We had our feast, of course, on Thursday, with turkey, fried fish, ham, sweet potatoes, broccoli casserole, macaroni and cheese, winter squash casserole, baked beans, rolls, green bean casserole, and pies.  Then, on Saturday night, we had a chili cook-off between the three families.  Jena made Green Bay Chili, which is a sweet and tasty beef and bean concoction served over macaroni noodles.  Mom made vegetarian chili with a side of "Noodle's Chili" to please my picky daughter who doesn't like onions and bell peppers.  I made venison chili, which has become a mainstay around my kitchen in the winter.

It was a really great trip. One of my top favorites ever, I think.  The kids are all begging to go back there again next year.  However, today is Monday. I am home and in the throes of a two-ton-truckload of laundry.  The kind of laundry saturated with campfire-smoke-knees-in-the-dirt-playing-hangman-loving-on-doggies for five days.  I am inclined at this moment to ban all camping forever! 

Good thing my laundry memory is short and my love for tradition is tall.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Camping in Tropical Storm Debby: A Memoir

The trip was supposed to be a quick, fun, summer get-a-way.  Mom had just purchase a new camper and was itching to try it out.  The kids were thrilled to go to the beach and couldn't wait to have one big slumber party in the bigger and improved sleeping quarters.


Mom's new camper is much bigger than the old one.

We gathered our chicks and drove the two hours down to stay at the Carrabelle Beach RVC Outdoor Destination.  (Note:  I think this is a really weird name. Marketing Department, you dropped the ball on "catchiness" and easy to remember names.)

I must say, this is a really nice RV park as RV parks go.  I can't call it a campground because it has no place for "real" campers to set up a tent, only miles of concrete and manicured landscaping.  (*smirk*)  But, it's super nice for what it is.

Friday night was our first night there.  It was overcast.  Setting up the new camper was frought with hair-pulling issues like:

• A window cracked during travel.  What happened?  I dunno.  Find the duct tape.
• Handfuls of strange poles, a fabric awning, and no instructions make an interesting set-up.  A nice old guy with nothing to do hung around for hours with us, trying to figure out the "puzzle".
• Kids, go play!.....Not right there!!
• Why is all this water pouring down the side of the camper?  The air conditioner?  That's weird.... Hope the canvas is waterproof!  (Little did we know....)



I am really proud of myself for taking on grilling.  Never done it.  Never.  Woohoo! The chicken legs were awesome!!

The place has a really nice pool, which we ended up spending allllllll our time in because:

1. It was raining and it's not very fun to sit in a camper all weekend.
2. The beach was disgusting.  It was completely covered in seaweed, in the water and on the beach.  We didn't really know why until Saturday night.  (more on that in a minute)

Tater-Tot

Tabi

Teegan

Tobi

Noodle

Hopers

Joey, Elaine, and Jeremy came down for the day to meet us at the beach.  They even brought Seth with them.  However, for the reasons mentioned previously, we had no beach fun.  We had a pool though!  Yay!  We swam and ate lunch.  At times, we ducked under floats to keep the rain from beating us in the face while swimming, while staying in the water because it was warm.

Eventually, though, that fun came to an end because SOMEONE, who shall remain nameless on my blog for all eternity because I'm a nice person....pooped in the pool. 

Yes.  You heard me right.  We're talking little-nuggets-all-over-the-place-everyone-get-out-of-the-pool-we-have-to-call-the-proper-authorities-someone-pooped-in-the-pool!

End fun.

Well, almost.  We did take the kids out to eat seafood Saturday night in Carrabelle at a great little place called The Fisherman's Wife.  Really good.  Yum.  I want shrimp just thinking about it.

Okay.  Now End Fun.

Unbeknownst to us, a tropical storm had been silently slipping toward the gulf coast, making little news until it decided to unleash it's full fury on our vacation.  The old guy who had been helping us came by and mentioned we should bring down the awning because "a storm" was coming.  That's about all we knew as we went to bed to a partly cloudy, breezy evening.

I awoke in the middle of the night to what felt like horrible airplane turbulance.  The wind was hammering against the canvas sides of our pop-up camper, shaking everything with a vengence.  I tried to continue sleeping but fears of being snatched into the ocean by a giant Poseidon-like hand kept me awake.

When morning dawned, things just seemed to be getting worse.  Tropical Storm Debby was now making headlines and floods everywhere.  We fed the kids pop tarts and tried to keep them calm with a dvd while Mom and I discussed what to do.  The wind was driving the rain sideways.  We cringed at the thought of trying to take down camp in it.  Another option was to stay another day and hope the storm moved off quickly without destroying the little matchbox we were sitting in.  We also briefly discussed abandoning everything and hopping in the cars to go home.  Finally, we came to the conclusion that seemed most right, yet least fun.  Take down the camper in a tropical storm. Ugh.

Step One:  Put on plastic ponchos and stuff  kids into vans.

Step Two:  Put everything possible into trash bags and run back and forth between camper and van in the driving wind and rain.

Step Three: Remove shreds of poncho from body and give up on the thought of being dry for the next several hours.

Step Four: Watch the camper fill with water as you lower the roof and tuck in sides.  Ick.

Step Five:  Drive for two hours in a crazy storm, but make it home safely.

All I wanted was fuzzy bedroom slippers and a bowl of soup when I got home, but Debby had other plans for me.  She followed me. This happened moments later:

One of my beautiful pecan trees lost a major limb to the wind, falling across the yard on to a white crape myrtle. I mourn the loss, but am soooo grateful for God's protection of everything. I mean, EVERYTHING!  We didn't get crushed like bugs or tossed into the sea.  We made it safely home.  The tree could have fallen on my house or my deck or my vegetable garden--but it didn't.

Thanks God.  You're awesome.

I did learn some things through this trip, though. (I'm really into making lists today, apparently, too.)

1.  Camping in Florida in the summer stinks.  (Didn't I learn that last time?)
2. Always check the weather before going somewhere in a pop-up.
3. That brown thing in the bottom of the pool is not dog food.

Camping, Airplanes, and Kids Going MIA

Memorial Day Weekend:  The Let's Do Something Weekend.  The Go Somewhere Weekend.  The Remembering Weekend.  We did.  We went.  We remembered.

To start off, the girls and I, along with my Mom and the Fearsome Four, decided to go and visit Paw Paw and Snookie in Pensacola.  In order not to trouble my grandparents too much, we camped in their yard.  It was great to see them and I'm still kicking myself for not taking a picture of them.

However, I was fully reminded as to why we Floridians don't go camping in the summer.

It was hot.  Stinkin', buggy, 100 degree hot.  We had to find some things to do other than sit around and sweat during the day.

Saturday, we went to Pensacola Beach.

It was Tate's first time seeing the beach.  A first beach trip is a momentous occasion!  He loved it.  He let us swim him around out in the water.  He enjoyed digging in the sand.

It was still hot, but at least we could get wet!  The water was perfectly clear of any seaweed or jellyfish.  Though, we did see a big fish.  Possibly a barracuda.  It was in a hurry to leave us, so I couldn't say for sure.

Next to us, there was a middle-eastern family with two young boys.  The boys had life jackets on all day.  After lunch, I looked over to see a commotion going on with the parents and some other people.  There was an empty life jacket sitting next to their blanket.  A woman helping them ran up to us and asked if we had seen the little boy.  He was missing.  Everyone along the beach began searching for him.  All I could think about was that empty life jacket laying there as I scanned the blue-green water.  The mother tearfully held her chest and called for him, running down the sand.   The father stood in the water, beating it with his fists and pulling his hair. 

For about 15 minutes, everyone was holding their breath, until someone found the little guy in the bathrooms.  Mom and I were so relieved, we had to take a moment to wipe our tears and breathe deep.  He wasn't kidnapped.  He hadn't drowned.  He just didn't tell his parents where he went.  The happy day could go on.  (At least for most of us, anyway.  I'm sure that little guy was in a heap of trouble!)

That evening, we ate dinner with Paw Paw and Snookie and then tried to hit the hay.  Between the roach joining me in my bed in the camper, Tobi and Tabi's dogs barking every hour on the hour, Teegan's asthma coughing, and everyone needing to go to pee (which made the dogs bark), I remembered why I needed to bring my own tent next time.  I also considered sneaking off to a hotel.

The next day, we went to the National Naval Aviation Museum.  If you know anything about Pensacola, you know there's a Navy Base there.  This museum is on the grounds of the base, and it ain't no rinky-dink operation.  It was definitely the high point of our weekend.

Arguably, it was also the low point, but I'll get to that in a minute.

This place is awesome.  The kids loved it. Teegan's first question about the place was, can I touch an airplane?  Boy, can you....  Everything is touchable, rideable, get-in-able.  Teegan was in airplane heaven.  But not just airplanes.  There are helicopters, jets, hot air balloons, air craft carrier decks, blimps, and space stations from throughout history.

There are also lots of detailed models of different aircraft carriers.  One of them had a fun "Where's Waldo" type of scavenger hunt to do.  Can you find the sailor who is seasick?  There's a little guy throwing up over the side.  Can you find the man feeding the ship's dog?  Can you find the cook peeling potatoes?  That kind of thing.

My pictures are slightly misleading.  Somehow, it looks like we were the only ones there, but in reality, the place was slammed.  Everybody and their grandfather was there. It was Memorial Day Weekend.  The museum is FREE.  And it's a hundred degrees outside.  What would you be doing?

But the museum is also really big, too, so we had plenty of room to roam.

This machine gun thingy rotated as the kids cranked the wheel.

Every nook and cranny had something to see or climb on.

The floor tiles were made like an aircraft carrier landing strip.  The kids pretended to be airplanes landing and taking off for a while.

After, we drove over to Fort Barrancas for a picnic lunch (a historical site also on the base).   We had to do a quick height check, just to make sure everyone is still growing!

Left to right:  Noodle (age 10), Tobi (8), Hopers (6), Tabi (6), Teegan (4), Tate (2)

We were planning on going to the zoo after lunch but instead decided to go back to the museum to finish our tour.  That's how much we like the place.  There was an entire second building that we hadn't explored.

Back at the museum, the kids ran around fighting over who got to be first to sit in each cockpit.  Things spiraled downward to the point where Hopers and Tabi went MIA.  Mom had to call security, probably replaying yesterday's beach event with the missing boy over again in her mind.  I didn't get the chance to wonder if my daughter and sister had been kidnapped, because I was outside in the parking lot, waiting for a locksmith. (Remember that low point of the weekend I mentioned?)  I had locked my keys in the car, knowing it the moment my door snapped shut with an internal "Nooooooooooooo!!!!"

Sixty dollars later, I had my keys just as Mom came out of the museum hauling six cranky kids behind her.  Once again, no one had been kidnapped (or drowned), but I'm pretty sure there was a bit of prankster-style hiding going on in an airplane cockpit by two little girls who shall remain nameless.

The next morning, we sweated our way back through packing up a campsite, bid our goodbyes to Paw Paw and Snookie, and hit the road for home.