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The One When We Went Camping

A couple weeks ago Jordan said "I have a few days off I need to use up.  Let's go camping!" I must have twitched the wrong way or something, and I said "Yes."  It is not that I am down on camping, I am not.  For me camping is kind of like coffee.  It takes a few cups before you fall in love with it, and it is going to take me a bit to get to get used to it and then I will really enjoy it. 
We set up camp on Thursday afternoon.  It was chilly but we were having a good time.  After supper Audrey started complaining that her ear hurt and was itchy.  It was bright red!  A few minutes later she was yelling at the top of her lungs "Stop it!  You are so annoying."  We asked her to keep it down and quit talking to Jonah that way.  She started hitting her ear and explained that she was talking to it and not her brother.  I wiped off her ear, and we began to getting everyone bedded down.  About a half hour later she showed me yet another spot on her chest that was bright read and itchy too.  Then another spot with little bumps. 
We had some Zyrtec so I gave her that but I really thought that we (Jordan) should go to the store and get some Benadryl at 8:45 at night and not 1:30 in the morning.  Reuben was still bouncing off the walls (waking Elise) so Jordan picked him up and headed out to the van.  It was dead.  He switched the car seat and headed out.  He came back with a lotion for poison ivy, oak and sumac, and we rubbed her down.  Elise then woke up for the second time.  After that time bouncing becomes a blur, but Miss Elise screemed her little head off until 11:30.  She would not nurse , nothing would calm her.  I asked Jordan if he thought that I could find my way back to Urbandale by myself in the dark.  He didn't think I could, and he would have to switch more carseats because the van was still dead!  Finally she stop crying and started laughing.  She crawled between us in the bed smiling and laughing for an hour and a half.  I wondered if she would now take a bottle and go to bed, but we left the bottles out if the van.  Jordan bundled back up found a bottle. She ate and went to sleep. 
Jordan says that he got up with her three more times, but I have no recollection of it.  I really don't think that I could have slept through that, could I?  I did hear the pitter patter of Reuben's feet in the wee hours in the morning.  He crawled into be with us and a while later we heard rain.  Jordan bundled back up AGAIN to put the awning down.  He then crawled into Reuben's bed.
It was still raining when we got up in the morning, but Audrey's skin was clear!  The kids were completely unphased by our terrible night and the morning rain.  It was a clear example to me of how joy is not dependant on my circumstances.





Elise napped beautifully in the camper on Friday.  Whatever had been bugging her about sleeping the night before was either no longer an issue or was outweighed by the loss of sleep.  Even with her good naps Daddy said she was "forbidden" from sleeping in the camper again.  We spent the day feeding the fire.  The boys sat there and Jordan read Black Beauty to them.  It was the sweetest thing to watch.  By the end of the day they only had a few chapters left!  Elise and I stuck around for s'mores that night and then packed our recharged van with dirty laudry and headed back to Urbandale.  It was a great weekend and we will maybe try again next spring when Elise is a little older!

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