Boating and Smores

There are a couple of things that I dislike about camping, other than the fact that you feel dirty and smell of smoke the whole time, the first being having to walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I would have asked Spense to go with me other than the fact that it is probably not very safe to leave your children in an unattended tent. I just made sure that I ran really fast when I got out of the bathroom! The other thing is that you wake up as soon as it starts to get light, and all too often that is too early!


After having some breakfast it was time to pack up again. I have to be honest and tell you that this didn't put me in the best of moods. I was tired of having to pack up every morning and Zach didn't make things easy for us. He tends to like a lot of attention, but when you're trying to get things done that's not always very convenient. It just made it hard because one of us had to hold him all the time since he wouldn't sit in the pack and play and you can't let a crawling boy wander around in the dirt (he would probably love it, but I wouldn't love the laundry!). Then to make my mood even better as I drove out of the spot I hit one of the posts and pulled it completely out of the concrete. Even after all these years of driving in the US I still have issues understanding what's going on over on the right hand side of the car. I must admit to every now and then unlocking the car door and sitting down in the passenger seat expecting the steering wheel to be there. I guess that some habits die hard. I am glad to report though that when Spenser surveyed the damage all I had done was bend the license plate!



We headed down into Coeur D'Alene to see what was done there. We thought about taking a boat trip or going on a kayak, but the weather was kind of windy and the kids spotted a huge playground. We had fun playing there for a while and then headed out to find some lunch.


Zach fell asleep after lunch and so I decided to stay with him at the cabin while Spense took Thomas and Olivia out on a paddle boat for a while. Spense said that they were pretty good, but that Thomas got a little unsure once they headed out into more open waters and was very good at telling Olivia off when she wasn't following the rule of not moving around in the boat! When Zach woke up we walked down to the lake to find them. We saw them rowing back and jumped in the boat for a little while, but Thomas and Olivia were both eager to be back on dry land so the excursion didn't last for too long.




The evening ended in true camping style with smores around the campfire after putting a screaming Zach to bed and dealing with a screaming Olivia. Ever since she has been potty trained Olivia has hated to go poop in the potty for some reason and so she just holds it for days on end. She was at about day 3 today and so we knew that we were in trouble. As I tried to make dinner I had to also run up and down to the bathroom every time she squealed out in pain from inside the cabin. In the end I just made her sit there for about 10 minutes, but she is just so stubborn that she wouldn't do anything. In the end she let the whole campsite know what a nasty dad Spenser was when he took her up there, but at least she came back relieved. Needless to say I know that our camping neighbors were glad when we left.


Around 3:00 am I woke up not feeling too great and spent the next 3 hours running back and forth to the bathroom with a nasty tummy and some throwing up. To make matters worse the door to the cabin scratched against the floor everytime I opened it making Zach's night less than easy. As I walked back and forth the words of Thomas' first feelings about this trip came back to me and I too had to feel that this might simply have turned out to be the worst vacation ever!