Coming Up For Air

Hey, I'm still alive, really!

We left town Friday night to go camping. It ended up being late Friday night, as my husband discovered a flat tire on the RV. He took it to Just Tires and they took Just Two Hours to fix it.

Around eight p.m. we loaded up for a six hour drive with all eight dogs. The puppies rode in a crate.

I had unthinkingly done something very stupid on Friday morning. I cooked up a large batch of meatloaf so the men could have meatloaf sandwiches for lunch. The stupid part was giving some to Boots.

Boots intermittently shared little whiffs of swamp gas with us on the way. Oops, did I say "little" whiffs?

SJ rode in the front for part of the journey. He had a blanket on his lap. Boots would fart. SJ would smell it and shriek in anger while pulling the blanket over his head. What can I say? We're such a lovely family.

We made it to the RV park at one-thirty am. The in-laws had held our spot. SJ was mad because he wanted to go visit with his grandma and poppa. They love him dearly, but not at one-thirty in the morning I would think.

As soon as we got there, I laid out a plastic swimming pool for the puppies to pee in. SJ kept yelling loudly, "Grandma, Papa blue truck."

Yep, the rednecks had arrived at Quail Valley Recreational Village.

We were out of bed by seven the next day. The puppies started crying at five so I was awake long before I was out of bed.

The vacation consisted of visting with my in-laws and my parents. My parents came up Saturday.

I didn't sit down much of this vacation. The puppies were in a crate part of the time but most of the time seemed to be spent feeding them and cleaning their poop.

We gave up on the pool. They were learning how to jump over the sides. Luckily, we had a playpen the former owners had left in the RV. It was too nice for puppies but it's not like I'm having any more children.

I worried the whole time about parvo to the point that everyone was tired of hearing me talk about it.

My parents gave me an early Christmas gift because they knew I needed it. It was a Kitchenaid bowl mixer. Now I can make gluten-free breads without killing the motor. Hooray! They'd best not buy me anything else for Christmas. Actually I think the next two Christmases are covered.

The kids played in the river/brook that was behind our lot. They also went fishing, something I was too darn tired to do with them. SJ didn't fish, but "A" caught five. My oldest daughter was too cool to go fishing.

My MIL gave me lots of clothes for the kiddos. They were cute clothes. One pair of pants she got for SJ looked huge. He put them on and they fit. When did that happen? When did my baby get so tall?

I had hoped to sleep better on Satuday night than I did on Friday night. I cleaned off the couch so I could sneak on it when SJ started hogging up the bed.

When I went to the couch, in the middle of the night, I could hear someone snoring on it. I was out of luck. I laid on the edge of "J's" bed, hanging partially off.

Later SJ woke up and I went back to my bed. The puppies whined a lot that evening too.

I finally took them outside to eat and pee at five in the morning. The big dogs wanted to go too.

When I came back in the RV, I realized nobody was on the couch. It was strange because I had heard them snoring. Thoughts of a haunted RV entered my head.

My husband pointed out quite sensibly later that I had probably heard a dog snoring. So much for my ghost theory!

We left early Sunday. A lovely time was had by all. It might take me a month to recover from this "vacation."

And I still need to finish cleaning out the RV.