Camping Fun

This Thursday we left for a camping trip with friends.  We tried a new campground and it was so amazing we will likely return there in future visits.  The swimming pool was literally gigantic, with two water slides, one of which was a tunnel slide inside a structure made to look like a pirate ship.  Needless to say the slides were a hit with everyone who went!

My camp stove finally died but I can't complain as I have used the same one since 1979!  Luckily my friends let me borrow theirs for a bit so I did some cooking, but a lot of the time we were at the little cafe that was poolside for our meals.  Not "real" camping in that sense but sure a lot of fun! LOL

There were a lot of bears in the area so I was very vigilent about our site having nothing around that would entice them.  The bear visited my friends site which was just up the road a teeny bit from ours, but did not venture into our site at all.  This campground backs up to a national forest so such things are to be expected, though I have noticed that bears are becoming increasingly common even in more populated areas.  We humans don't always share the earth all that well and many are struggling for enough contiiguious forest to have a proper range for forage and mating.

We went to Santas Village one day as that was what my friends wanted to do.  The kids did not mind that we had gone there last year. The rides are great and KC still intensely believes in Santa.  He talked to every single reindeer there and took the lions share of his spending money to buy himself a stuffed reindeer. Said reindeer is named Sonic, for those who are wondering!

Rob was a real trooper helping with the kids in a very child oriented theme park. Though some of the rides are fun for adults, I know he was just being a great big bro most of that day.  So the next day when we decided to stay at the campground and let the kids play at the playground and swim and do some of the camp activities (like candy bar bingo) I gave him the day off. I said he could do whatever he wanted at camp and did not need to stay with me.  He checked in three times during the day but mostly was on his own from 8 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.  Ironically we were in some of the same places but a lot of time he hung out with the teens in the arcade, playing pool.  I like that he is stretching his wings but still willing to be with his family.  A family in an adjacent site to mine commented on how her 16 y/o refused to come camping with them and she had only brought her 4 year old. Rob not only came and participated but he and I are truly a well oiled machine getting a campsite up and down quickly.

And in another landmark event, KC and Lissa slept on the double air mattress in their sleeping bags and I had a twin air mattress all to myself!  Also KC is old enough to enjoy reading by flashlight in the tent before lights out and Lissa wants to be a big girl so she would look at a picture book with her flashlight during reading time!

Now it is back to the real world of work and also to the eye doctors to have my eyes dilated as my regular eye doc wanted me to see a specialist.

.