Camp guests

It is the middle of July and I am finally camping! …and blogging. I have been asked (read: reprimanded) by several people wanting to know why I have not put up any new posts lately. I guess my only excuse is that I have been doing other stuff.

For many camping trips, if we have room in the car, etc. we let the kids bring a friend to hang out with. It makes things go much smoother because then Pepper and I do not have to be the main “cruise directors” of each trip and have to find entertaining things for everyone to do… friend can provide entertainment.

Nothing teaches you better how truly trained your own children are until you take others for a long weekend! We took one kid (a friend of Macy’s) that lost his bike (we felt so bad that we couldn’t find it that we bought him a new one) We thought it had been stolen until a park ranger showed up with it at the end of the trip! Another child loved to poop. Seriously… in the RV. Big time. I am not sure what his mother fed him, but it wasn’t pretty… and the ventilation in our camper wasn’t as good as I thought. Pooping in the RV isn’t a big deal… its not like we make our kids hold it or feed them only hard cheese, but the shower house/flush toilets were just up the drive… our kids just know to use those. Many of the friends were messy. Underwear left in the middle of the floor, wet towels on the couch, spilled milk and cereal on the table those were all to be expected I suppose. One little friend of Dori’s woke up in the middle of the night. She came into our room and stood crying over us until we woke up…. That startled me a bit.

This trip we have brought just the boys (Dori is in Europe with Kiwi and Macy is on a church trip). We also brought along 2 siblings from church. These guests are (so far) my favorites. They are experienced campers. I am sure they could teach me a thing or two about ‘rustic’ camping. Boy guest is accident prone, daring and chatty. A lot cuter and more clever than I ever gave him credit for in church. Girl guest is charming. Polite, helpful, quiet but seems to be enjoying herself and a good leader for all the boys. She does a good job keeping boy guest in line and will also call for help saying things like, “He is not listening to me…. Could you tell my brother to step back from the fire before he burns his eyebrows off…AGAIN?!”

I was a bit worried about bringing them. One is vegetarian and the other is allergic to dairy. We eat lots of meat and dairy. As boy guest said, “Dairy products make me get really puffy and vomit…. A lot” Oh goody! And girl guest mentioned that her tofu hamburger could not come into contact with any meat products. A little tricky when cooking for 6 on a grill smaller than the average comic book.

But darn if they aren’t the most independent, self-sufficient kids I’ve met. They hauled in their own stuff, found spots to stow their gear, set up their own tent, bait their own fish hooks and I only have to tell them things once! We’ve had them with us less than 24 hours, but things are looking good so far.

I am a bit concerned that their Mother will be mad at us when we return. I am sure she won’t be happy that they ate pop-tarts for breakfast (they had never had anything except the whole grain kind they get at the food co-op). They also went up to the camp store/arcade. I went to check on them… Boy guest was holding a plastic rifle shooting at make believe bad guys and girl guest was watching, a candy cigarette dangling from her bottom lip. :)