Tree Frogs, Port-a-Potties and Singing Neighbors

"What could all of these things possibly have in common?" you ask yourself. Let me explain. We went camping this weekend and had a really good time - we just had a couple of snags along the way. We were going to head up to the mountains on Friday but decided that, since Jeff had just come home Thursday night, we wanted to spend the day together in town on Friday. We went to Boise to Julia Davis park and rented some paddle boats and went on the little pond there with the kids. They LOVED it!!! We brought some old frozen hamburger buns with us so that we could feed all of the ducks and geese that were there and then went to get some lunch. It was so nice to be able to spend uninterrupted time with the hubby and the kids where we could play together and just have fun.

We got home and started to pack so that we could leave early the next morning. Jeff saw how much I was putting together and piling up next to the door and he started grumbling. "We're only going for one night - the scouts don't even take this much crap with them when they go!" Hhmph! I tried to explain that no matter how many days you go you still have basic things you have to take with you...like tents, sleeping bags, FOOD!!! We were finally loaded up and I tossed the baby training potty chair in at the last minute. (It's a good thing I did.)

We had some directions that Eric had relayed to his dad who then told his mom who then typed it up and told us. We got a little lost while trying to find the designated camp site, but after driving past it a couple times we finally found where we were supposed to go. The kids were SO EXCITED!!! They wanted to go swimming right a way and so stripped down into their suits and we went to the lake. It was muddy. There were a ton of little tree frogs - everywhere. Emma caught several.

Next it was time for Abbey to go potty. She ran out of the water and we both ran back to our campsite. I was informed by Carolyn that there was a port-a-potty nearby but that it was full and you'd be sitting on some pretty disgusting stuff if you were brave enough to enter the little shed. This is where my genious shines through!!! Training potty to the rescue! Abbey completed her business and we were happy campers once again.

Jeff and Eric had been talking while we were swimming and had decided that it would be a good idea to take the kids to a little stream not too far off so that they could look around and commune with nature. I stayed at the campsite so that I could wait for the folks to show up and get dinner started as well. I had just settled in to start reading when a bright red Land Rover pulled up 10 feet away from our tent and people started unloading. I seriously thought that there were 50 people coming out of that car because of all of the noise. There were three. They were loud. Really loud. I thought that I'd go meet them and let them know that I wouldn't be afraid to tell them to shut up at 2am if they were still being rowdy. They laughed and told me that they like to sing and we'd probably be greatful for the lullaby that night. Uhhh...sure. I thought we came out to listen to crickets and the breeze blowing through the trees?

The van came back into camp and Carolyn jumped out yelling for water and a rag that could wipe up blood. Uh-oh. Yep, Emma had gotten hurt. She wore her flip flops to the stream so that she could rinse off her muddy toes and had stepped on some pretty pointy sticks and had stripped the bottom of her toes of all skin. (Okay, so she still had ONE layer left.) You'd think that they were trying to saw her arm off with all of the racket she was making while they were cleaning it up. As soon as her bandaids were on she was fine - must have hurt really bad. (yuk, yuk)

The kids put on a talent show for us after dinner. Ian stood in front of everyone and told us that he had 124 talents and that he was going to show us all of them! He started posing showing us his muscles - I swear he's going to join the WWF someday. Emma and Abbey sang and so did Savannah. It was really cute and a lot of fun to watch them. I couldn't find my camera but Carolyn took several pictures and I'll post them when she sends them my way.

Yesterday we packed up camp and headed for Hell's Canyon for lunch. The roads were really curvey and Abbey threw up - twice - in the car. I started to turn a little green as well before we finally pulled over for lunch.

All in all it was a really fun weekend and I'm glad we went. Will I go again in the near future? Probably not. Next summer I might forget, however, about tree frogs, full port-a-potties and those darn singing neighbors and will want to go again.