Our Trip to Whitney Lake

Our trip started off without any major problems other than it was cold and wet. Who would’ve thought in March it would be 37 degrees and rainy the weekend of spring break? So we get to Whitney and set up the camper. Emma’s not to happy to be out of her comfort zone and Landon is bouncing off the walls with excitement at the thought of staying in the “Bus.” We play go fish and snack and unpack a few things. By 10:30 we are trying to watch a movie on my laptop. Emma wants to keep pressing buttons thus ensuing choruses of “EMMA!!!” She is sooooooo tired she can barely hold her eyes open but refuses to lie down. I take her out for a drive but I’m afraid if I go out the front gate, it will lock behind us and there will be no way back in, so I just do figure 8’s around the campsite on the grounds. Not very exciting but it does get the job done. She’s FINALLY asleep. Landon passes out in a pallet on the floor and Damon and I finally pass out in bed, but it’s not our bed and with it being a new place, Emma wakes up, so it’s not exactly a restful, peaceful night.

The next morning Emma desperately wants to go outside. We do, but it’s misting and about 43 degrees. Damon’s still snug in the bed while I’m outside chasing down munchkins and making sure Emma doesn’t fall off the benches. Which she does, by the way. The girl has her Mamma’s grace, what can I say. Damon wakes up but as he’s trying to get dressed Landon and I keep poking our heads in the camper for this and that, so it takes him longer than necessary because he’s trying to duck and cover anytime we open the door. Finally drag Emma inside, Landon’s had enough about 15 minutes ago, he said it was TOO cold. After sitting in the camper for another hour to hour and a half listening to a very tired 14 month old whine, we decide to take a road trip. This is after I bat around the idea in my head to call my mother and see if she’ll pick up the kids in Meridian and then Damon and I can have a few nights to ourselves…..sounds promising. This is why God said we should pray, and why He gave us Xanax. We cruise around Whitney Lake and Laguna Park. Not much to see but it does kill time, and gives the Princess some time to sleep.

We get back to the camper and place outside for a little while since the temperature is up some more. Emma and I go to the tiny playground by our campsite and play while Damon and Landon cook hot dogs and Landon rides his bike. We come inside to eat and Miss Thing has to sit in my lap and eat my food while I try to eat my food. It’s still pretty cold and windy. The kids and Damon start playing with toy cars having a good ole time while I do the dishes. Emma finds her toy vacuum and then decides it great fun to drag my purse behind her. We spend Saturday afternoon watching another movie on my laptop and trying to keep the kids from bugging each other and us. We all kind of laze around, me reading, Damon cat napping, Landon watching Transformers, and Emma basically getting into anything within reach. We’re all waiting for tomorrow and the warmer, sunny day it’s supposed to be bring.

The second night here went A LOT smoother than the first. We ate sloppy joes and macaroni and cheese. Damon went down and took a shower and I gave the kids a bath in the camper. The kids got ready for bed and I gave her Emma her bottle. Damon had a brilliant idea to put the pack & play that we brought that we don’t really have room for on the back bed so Emma could be in some place familiar and be closed off from us. We turned her lullaby CD in the stereo and put her in the pac & play about 3 foot off the ground in a camper bed. Landon wants to sleep on the floor. I’ve had to get Damon to reach in there a couple of times to get some things because I can’t reach. But tonight was definitely better. She squawked a little but not the full out screaming she was doing last night. So much less stressful. My husband is a certified parental genius. Landon and us stayed up till nearly 11 playing Go Fish, and had so much FUN playing it. Landon couldn’t play poker. One, he can’t really tell his numbers. Sometimes he’ll ask for a 3 and he doesn’t even have one, he just kind of goes by the picture. And then two, he shows you every card he draws and he giggles. Not really ready for the World Poker Tour I listened to several chorus’s of “Awesome Daddy! I booted up the computer to write down some notes of our day while I was waiting on them to finish the Go Fish game. One thing about Landon, we may need to take him to Vegas. He won, I think, every single game. And then when Damon finally made the choice to not “Let” Landon win, Landon won by default as well, because they TIED! If you see us with a sign that says Vegas or Bust when he’s of age, it’s all because of the games of Go Fish we played over the weekend. We capped off the night by Landon watching some Diego for a few minutes when he passes out.

Sunday started off well. I woke up before my family as usual and took advantage of the peace and quiet by finishing off one of the Christian chick-lit novels I was reading. Sooo good by the way, The Prince Charming List by Kathryn Springer. Emma woke up first, of course. She and I went outside for a little while which meant me in my red yoga pants that I thank God that I’ve been working out a little bit, because only my family sees me in them because they are skin tight and a t-shirt and Emma in her footie pajamas and tennis shoes. Yes, did I mention that we are Redneck??? That gave Damon and Landon a good 45 extra minutes of snooze time. It was warmer than yesterday but the clouds were still hanging around. We got dressed, ate some breakfast, and went out on the boat to try and do some fishing. Sitting on the boat trying to fish you were fine, but going across that water late in the morning it was really quiet chilly, plus Emma was being a demanding Diva, because she had missed her nap. We got out of the boat and decided to go to another park that had a playground shaped like a ship. It was about a mile down the road. We didn’t get to the gate and Emma was passed out. So we parked the truck close to the playground and Damon and I played with Landon and checked in on Emma every so often. It was fun to just be the three of us every now and then, like it was before Miss Demanding came along. I sometimes miss the times when it was just the three of us, not that I don’t LOVE Emma, it’s just that those days were special and precious. These days are special as well, but like the song says “it won’t be like this for long” so I try to thank God every day for my healthy and loving children and husband, because soon, they won’t be so little anymore.

Sorry, got sidetracked. We let Emma sleep for about an hour and then went back to our campsite. By that time the sun was coming back out and boy did it feel GOOOD. We played outside nearly the whole afternoon. We went down to the water and the shore, which someone should tell these people the bank is supposed to be dirt, because here, it is all rocks. We skipped rocks and Emma had a blast doing just like Daddy and Landon throwing tiny rocks in the water. Landon rode his bike up and down the side road, and is really getting good at it. Damon went fishing out on the boat again and caught a 22 inch and 5 pound striper and another smaller fish. He was so excited because we didn’t get a bite earlier. And I packed the base part of the electric knife but no blades. Yeah, that might have helped. Oh Well, put the fish on ice and decided to cook steaks. While Damon was fishing the kids and I went to the little park next to our campsite and they went down the slide and climbed and basically had a blast. Got the kids in bed by 10 pm on Sunday night. Landon wanted to watch Transformers, but didn’t get twenty minutes into it before he passed out. I kept asking Damon if we are leaving at 8am tomorrow, because I’m ready for my bed and my shower, my house, my food, more room than a 16 foot trailer, well you get the idea. It works out that Damon ran all the gas out of the boat, which means that we can’t take it out tomorrow unless we put more gas in it. Which didn’t budget for that, so darn it!!!

It’s been a great weekend, really it has. I had so much fun today when it was warmer and the sun decided to come out. Landon and I played go fish outside at the table while Emma wanted to sit in my truck and push buttons, and I made sure the keys were out of the truck. It was nice to spend time together without a tv, a game system, and all the other stuff at the house that seems to distract us from spending time together. I got some good pictures of Damon and the kids down by the water, and Landon took a great picture of me and Damon. I have a few clumps of hair missing, but I think the memories and laughs from the trip outweigh the “Oh my Goahhh” pull your hair out moments. We spent quality family time together and had a lot of fun. Oh and poor Emma brought home a few parting gifts, included a bruised forehead from either banging into one of the cabinets or falling off the bed, I’m not sure. Then she fell down on the boat while we were not moving, and the boat kind of listed a little and she fell down and skinned her nose.

Well, as soon as we got up we started packing up. But Landon’s stomach started bothering him. He had to use the bathroom several times, and then when we were at the dump station I heard “Momma! Momma!” Yup, it wasn’t pretty, there was a severe mess in the floorboard of the truck. The bad thing was that we had used all the clothes up, and he got it on his shoes and socks. We had no socks and shoes for him, so he was wearing his houseshoes, no socks, and some pants I had dug in the diaper bag and found.

We got home and unloaded and poor Landon is still running to the bathroom. And then after eating dinner, Emma made a noise and then suddenly there was throw-up all over her and the floor. The bad thing she was sitting in my lap. We got her to the bathtub, and she seemed like she felt better. So I’m hoping we didn’t pick up anything while camping. I’m hoping Landon feels better tomorrow because we have t-ball practice.