I lied

Remember when I said I had NO pictures from the great camping disaster of '08? I do! I had exactly two. Here is the only one with the tent in it. Here is Back Seat Girl and her friend playing in our tent. Since I was posting pictures I also included the one we took during our hike this past Saturday morning, and the rest are eating smores with the Wonders in the backyard.

A sign I may not be the best person to teach them how to play sports

This evening I got frustrated when my 1 and a half year old--who just started walking--and my 3 year old couldn't play baseball with each other.

I had to actually tell myself to take a step back, breathe, and think about how ridiculous my expectations were. Then I realized I will probably live longer if I just buy another whiffle ball bat and big bouncy ball.

We could have just put the tent up on the edge of a really high cliff and then all of my deepest fears could have been faced

This past weekend may classify as the least successful camping trip of all time if by successful camping you mean to actually camp the nights you had planned on. Instead, I found myself in a hotel room at a well-known Wisconsin Dells resort re-heating chicken ole (a camping favorite in our family) on a camp stove sitting on a countertop while watching the weather channel. This was actually an improvement on just a few hours earlier when I was in a handicap/family shower at the campsite strategically planning the best place to put the kids so I could throw my body over them if the worst happened.



I'll spare you the details, including the part where we were driving to said bathroom in what felt like the dark of night and since it was the first time I had my back to the kids I started hyperventilating, which sparked Back Seat Girl to ask "Mommy, why do you sound like that?". Other than that instance I felt I kept it together pretty well for them. Had it just been Driver and I I'm pretty sure he'd still be trying to scrape me out of that shower. (If you're wondering what I'm talking about just google Lake Delton. That is the area we were camping in this weekend. At least tried camping in this weekend.)



Either way, we have exactly zero pictures from this weekend. Zero. Which means this is the first camping trip we've ever taken where we don't have a picture of the campsite or anything. It also means I don't have a picture of the giant orange tent, which, by the way, stayed up and relatively dry even after we abandoned it. Also-it was awesome. I can't wait to use it again. I think even people in campers were jealous of us. That is, of course, until we all fled. When Driver went back to the site on Sunday to pack up all of our stuff so we could come home he said the park was eerily quiet. He didn't see anyone.



Moral of the story: I lived through a severe thunderstorm with the threat of tornadoes and flooding while I was camping with the kids, and I feel like I should never have to do it again. You hear that weather gods? NEVER.

The big orange monster

We here at Station Wagon Tales are a camping family. We love to camp, and take at least two camping trips every year. Driver and I thought it would be nice to buy a camper while walking through the fair last year. Not a big one, just a little pull-behind, nothing too fancy. Then we realized that we only have the ability to save up for one big purchase at a time, and a new house takes precedence, so we decided to buy a new tent instead. Our old giant tent had a bunch of broken poles, and to be honest, was bought for about $40 on Amazon.

So, we ordered a new tent a couple of weeks ago, and long story short, it arrived yesterday. I went out to the front porch anxious to see it. I bent down to pick it up, and realized it was too heavy for me to just pick up and carry into the house. The thing weighs a ton! I'm not wuss, but I ended up having to half drag, half roll it into the living room. We set it up last night in the yard, and even though it's only a foot wider than our old tent, it seems so much bigger. The walls are not sloped, but high, which makes it much more roomy inside, but also makes it look like we're setting up a small cottage to stay in. We're going camping this weekend, so I'll make sure to take some pictures to post later. Oh, yea, and did I mention it's orange?

Here is a bunch of pictures from May. There is no rhyme or reason to them, but I needed to slap them up there because Back Seat Boy is not going to take a good nap and I've got some major packing to do.

From the spring gymnastics show. She's the one in the middle with the navy blue and red leotard on. This picture does not do justice to how much smaller she was than eveyrone else.
In case you were wondering, yes, it is hard to be Back Seat Girl.

Where did the top of my head go.

Holding a leech!

Driver took the kids on a little nature walk one weekend while I was working, and after he showed me the pictures I said "Do you realize that BSB's shirt is on backwards? The buttons are supposed to be in the back." I still don't think he believes me.

BSB LOVES the sandbox.