Vacation

Last week Tim and I took the kids on what was supposed to be a week long camping trip. We planned on going up to the Gaylord area for the first half of the week then get a hotel room for Wednesday night and then head south to Ludington area to camp the rest of the week. The plan sounded great. I spent the whole week before planning and packing for the trip. This was the first vacation we were taking with the four of us and it was stressful thinking of everything for four people. So, Sunday morning we got on the road and headed north. We got up there at about 4:00pm. We just got the camper set up and the fire started and the rain and lightening started. After about 45 minutes of down poring rain it finally stopped. I took one step out of the camper and I was in rain up to my ankles. Not a good start to the trip. Having a 3 year old and a 1 year old trapped in a camper with all their toys still did not help there anxiousness to play outside. So we decided to go for a ride looking for deer and "funny buns" (also known as elk). Where we were is where the wild elk heard is in michigan. The kids did great getting back in the car and it killed some time while all of our stuff dried. We ended up see a ton of deer and 2 elk. It was awesome to show the family the elk!! My family use to travel up there every year and spend hours upon hours looking for elk. With that being said I thought that I knew my way around the area and all the dirt roads. Well, I was very wrong. On top of dealing with the rain, I got us lost the first night. We got back to the camper finally and cooked some dinner and got the kids to bed. They fell asleep great but Emily woke up at least 10 times through the night. When she got up she was sick. She had a fever and her nose was running like crazy and her eyes were so swollen she looked like she was crying all day. It was cold all day and everytime we would just get things dried off it would rain again. So off on a ride again and once again I got us lost!! During the drive Tim and I battled what to do with Emily being sick. It was supposed to be in the low 50's or high 40's over night and we don't have a furnace for the camper and we just didn't want her to suffer and freeze all night. So we decided if she still had a fever when we got back we would pack and drive home. Well, she did and so we pack all of our wet stuff back up and headed home. I was so bummed but knew that is part of being a parent. You have to worry about what your children need before what you want. Mason was a champ though and was fine with it because we promised him a marshmellow and a cheeseburger (good healthy meal)!
We made home by 1:00am and got a good nights sleep. Emily woke up with a 103 fever and we knew that we had made the right decision. She relaxed all day and she started to feel much better by late afternoon. Tim and I then started to plan the next attempt to go camping. We packed up again after everything dried and decided to leave Wednesday and head up to Ludington area. Off we went with both kids feeling much better. We got up to the woods where we planned on camping, set up and finally started to relax and eat the huge amounts of food that I had brought (I swear I thought that I was feeding a football team with the amount of food that I brought). The trip was going great other than the bugs. We went through 3 cans of bug spray and we still were getting eaten alive. But we had a blast. Thursday was beautiful, we got to go swimming and fishing and out for ice cream and got to just relax! As we were getting in the car the weather reports are for thunderstorms and rain for the rest of the week. At this point Tim and I are SICK OF RAIN! So we may have jumped the gun a little by saying "lets just go home and not deal with the rain again" We packed up again and headed home again late Thursday night.
I just laugh when I think of what we called "vacation". We put on 1000 miles only slept 2 nights in the camper and we still walked away smiling and the kids had a blast!