Dis cover Camp

Wednesday July 9th...
After a detour to the U of C we continued on to Camp. When we arrived we saw our friends Lisa, Sofie and Lily and I chatted with Lisa while Kris checked in. Afterwards I checked in and we headed to our cabin. Our cabin is ALL the way at the bottom of the page. They have a pic of cabin 2,3 & 4. We were in cabin 1 and so you can get the idea. My EXPEDITION was longer than the living space of the cabin by 3-4 feet. So if that puts things into perspective for you.

Our Cabin.

When we pulled up Lindsay said, "Oh look it is a playhouse!" I informed her that that was the CABIN that we were staying in and she asked me if I was serious.

Not long after we arrived our friends the Doubly Dynamic Coles arrived. Cindy and I have frequented on the same boards and never realized that we were the same people. Cindy has 2 sets of twins. Each are Boy/girl. 2 of her 4 have cranio and 3 of her 4 have chiari. We are in hopes that after they make Carson's head larger her chiari will resolve. (Hint hint...Everyone needs to pray for this ;) )

Fayeth

Riley C.

We played at the playgrounds and then Darren arrived. We unpacked the car and walked down to visit with Rachel and Janet. The kids were all awesome and played well and then the MOSQUITOES came. Now I KNOW that Cindy can attest to the intense viciousness of the damn little blood suckers but unless you were there I am not sure that you could even imagine. I have NEVER seen mosquitoes this bad before. While we were visiting another family came. These are just amazing families. All of our stories are alike and so different at the same time.

Darren decided that it was time to start dinner. Darren wanted to try to charcoal cook everything. So back to the cabin we went and we started the charcoal. During this time the sun started to go down and the mosquitoes came out worse. By this time Darren and I were ready to pack everything up and get a hotel room because this was more than we signed up for. Our bug spray felt like it was sugar water and was attracting the mosquitoes. Cutters Family with 7.5% Deet did NOTHING to protect us from these darn WI mosquitoes. It works wonders against the IN mosquitoes though. :D

Over 2 hours later dinner was finally cooked. While waiting for dinner to cook I made banana boats for the kids. They had a great time and Darren and I had to work hard to keep our (growing very negative) attitudes in check for the children.

In this picture I am not sure if you can see the swarm of mosquitoes around Gabe's head. But he was enjoying his banana boat. Of course after his shunt tap we had about 7 hours of pain free time and in this pic you can tell in his eyes he was hurting really badly.

After dinner we took the wee ones up for a shower and to go potty. Yes you read that right. We had NO BATHROOM in our cabin. Thank Goodness that the bathrooms/shower house was just a hop skip and a jump away. Even better was the fact that we had to PAY to shower. 25 cents for 10 minutes. You got to pay for the priveldge to strip naked and be eaten alive by the mosquitoes that infested the shower house. It was just GREAT! :D

Our biggest excitement for the day would be...Yep, we lost a tooth. AND the tooth fairy even found us in the back hills of hell.

We were in bed by 10pm and I called my mom. I am not sure how many times I said, "Did I tell you about this little problem we are having with mosquitoes?" And Darren and I would laugh hysterically.

We decided to tell Ghost stories and had Lindsay, Hannah and Fayeth freaking out. Poor Kids

Thursday July 10th...
Over night it rained a bit. We slept through that. Our little cabin with no air conditioning did okay with all the windows open and the fan running full blast. Thursday morning we were greeted with wasps. Lots of them. They were in the wall of our cabin and as long as we kept the window open they would come into the cabin. So window closed and problem resolved. The children woke with cheer and appeared to have the chicken pox. Oh no! wait...Those are JUST the 100+ mosquitoes bites that the children had while covered in multi layers of Cutters Family. While Darren and I contemplated how our bodies were revolting to the fact that they were not happy with the beds that we slept on this is how we were greeted.

Darren-No those are not man boobs, just his arm. He is trying to protect his body from the 100 renegade mosquitoes we had in our cabin.

Strong Man Gabe

Fayeth and her apple.Cheesey Hannah

Lindsay

Right as the Peds office opened I called the ped and spoke with the nurse, our conversation went something like this.

Nurse: Hi Michelle, how can I help you.

Me: Hi Michelle! I am camping with the children in the pits of hell, I mean Wisconsin. We are being eaten alive my mosquitoes and leaving is not an option. Can you please ask Dr A or B what % of Deet is okay to use because our 7.5% is not working on the kids. We are weighing what is worse, DEET or West Nile Virus.

Nurse: * GIGGLE * I will talk to Dr A and get back to you.

For the record. 10-30% deet is okay and anything over 30% the child needs to be washed down that night.

We headed into Walmart for a gas grill and mosquito spray. After we returned we used our new small gas grill to make lunch and let me tell you, the gas grill was the best $20 that we ever spent. The Coles arrived and had lunch near us and we showed them the 2 baby birds in a tree near our cabin. During this time this black cat that had been hanging around our cabin decided to climb the tree and eat a baby bird in front of the kids. Nothing like watching a cat chew the head off of a baby bird. The Mommy bird was going nuts. Darren was redirecting the damn cat to NOT go after the other baby. The cat left and we thought the other baby was safe. We go into our cabin and when we came out to head back to camp central the cat had already climbed the tree and got the other baby bird. The children (3 sets of twins and 2 singletons) had to witness the cat pulling the baby bird under my truck. So we had a quick lesson about the "Food Chain" and set off for Camp Central where they painted their shirts.


We also had the kids hands painted and stamped on a quilt for Dr. Frim.

In the warp humor that most of us parents have we were telling Kris about the Cat. Kris offered to take Bocci (their lab/boarder collie mix) up to the cabin and show the kids another lesson in the food chain when dog ate cat. We all thought it was hysterical and some of us contemplated that.


We visited with the other families and the kids played on the playground. Darren and I were very happy to hear that Jon whose family are avid campers said, "I was ready to back up and go home last night after those mosquitoes!" It made Darren and I feel much better about our thoughts the night before.

Rachel and her awesome iPhone informed us that a nasty storm was blowing in and we were expecting up to 70mph winds. Darren and I opted to head back to our site and start dinner before we got rained out. The Wags decided to head into town and stay in a hotel because their pop up was on a slight incline and they were concerned that their pop up might tip over. Rachel and Janet's families decided to start buttoning down the hatches.

The kids played while Darren started up the grill. He decided to move it into the porch and cook there just in case the rains came. And boy did they come. Darren and I even made smores over the grill for the kids since we had promised them smores. They sat inside and watched Robots.

Storm Clouds The Storm marching in.

The kids waiting for dinner in our very spacious cabin. It was constantly a mess because there was no where to store anything.

Making s'more Hartman Style

Eating a family dinner in our spacious cabin.

Our entertainment. THANK YOU KAR for leaving this moving here one night.

After the rain we let decided to start our camp fire before the rain started again. While we were waiting for Darren to start the Fire the kids Friend Sofia stopped by with her dad and we chatted while the kids played in the dark. They had a great time. Gabe has been given permission to date Sofia when she is 35. However Kris did warn Gabe that he was a US Marine and that he was able to hit 9 out of 10 moving targets. LOL

Over our fire we made cherry pudgie pies. Told the ghost story we told the night before and had Lindsay completely freaked out. The church youth group arrived and they were getting settled in the showers. By this time we are getting tired, it is starting to rain again so we got everyone ready for bed. I sent Lindsay and Hannah to the shower house to go potty before bed and while they were walking up there one of the youths from the church group was crouched down going to scare another girl from the group as she came out of the bathroom, when she heard something behind them she moved scared the crap out of Lindsay and she came running (screaming like someone was killing her) down the hill to our cabin. Darren and I STILL laugh over this. Laugh HYSTERICALLY over this.

We were in bed by 11pm.

Friday July 11th
1AM the lightening starts and the rain starts pouring. I of course wake during this time and have to pee. So I cover myself in a garbage bag and run to the bathrooms. I stay FAIRLY dry and we go back to sleep around 1:45 when the storm subsides. (Just Darren and I were awake the kids slept through this)

3:00am I am again awoken to a NASTY storm. All of sudden we see lightening hear a BOOM and we have no electric. Now it is raining so hard that we have had to close 2 windows, 1 was already closed because of the wasps. So we have NO fan. 1 window open and it is storming like no tomorrow. I texted Rachel to see what her phone was saying and she was awake because of the storm also. Of course I (again) have to visit the bathroom IN THE DARK, so I run there and do my business as quickly as possible as my (overactive) imagination flashes the memories of watching too many scary movies and I am just certain that Jason Voorhes is about to walk out of a shower stall and slit my throat. I was texting with She who shall remain nameless, and she was discussing how she had to pee. I told her that I was able to run to the bathroom and that she was not too much further from the bathroom and she could run for it. I get a text later that said, "Damn, now I need to do laundry. Cannot pee into 16 oz solo cup."

During this visit to the bathroom this black cat that has been hanging around our cabin follows me back to the cabin. It sits on our porch Meowing LOUDLY. Then it would beat on our door. This lasted for 5.5 hours. Finally at 8:30am I went to the bathroom, saw an employee and asked them to please remove said pain in the ass cat from the cabin since the kids were still sleeping and since Lindsay is allergic (epi pen allergic) to (some) cats. The gentleman came along and took the cat at 8:30am. 30 minutes later the cat gave birth to 2 kittens. She was looking for a to birth her babies. Thank god that they moved that nasty beast of an animal. I could not imagine having to deal with kittens on our porch and the momma cat.

We start packing Darren up because he is leaving to go to work. I am being left with 4 small children in a small cabin with no bathroom and vicious blood sucking mosquitoes. Our friend Kris and Sofia came by and the kids played while I finally got to shower when the electric came back on and Darren visited with Kris.After Darren left at noon, the kids and I went to pizza hut for a warm lunch that I did not have to cook and that we did not have to fight said nasty cat or mosquitoes for. :D We got back and headed back to Camp Central and the kids played. We were having a pot luck dinner so we got going on that also.

The rest of the evening was spent with great company and swatting mosquitoes. The kids played with glow sticks, played on the playground. Lindsay disobeyed me and fell off of the teeter totter from the high position and landed directly on the top of her head. We got back to the cabin at 10:30pm, the kids got showered and we sat on our beds with the 2 dvd players between us and watched Enchanted until we all fell asleep.

Saturday July 12th

3:30am I wake up to feel that my feet at wet. VERY wet. Lightening struck and again it was raining in on my bed. I got up and had to close 2 windows. Of course, I have to use the bathroom. I look around the cabin for something to pee in and of course can find nothing that will work. I lock the kids into the cabin and I run (in the down pouring raining) to use the bathroom. (Before everyone gets their panties in a bundle, our cabin was literally a 45 second WALK to the bathroom. The only thing between me and the bathroom was a small slide)

I run back to the cabin and I am SOAKED. Change into dry clothes and get back into bed.

8am kids sleeping I get up, eat breakfast and visit the bathroom again. The area is currently a muddy mess. 9:30am kids up, breakfast eaten. Swollen faces from bug bites, pain meds dosed out, benadryl dosed out, everyone dressed and ready to go. I turn on my crock pot to start the green beans for dinner and I hear a crack. My removable crock from my crock pot is cracked. Pack up the kids and head out to target. After a stop at Woodmans I finally find target. THANK YOU GARMIN!!! ;) Buy a cheap crock pot to add to the 4 I have at home and head back to camp. Start beans and head to Camp Central.

2pm Bob offers to take kids on train ride. They pick up and drop off at camp site. So, the hartman 4 and cole 2 (Cindy only brought 1 set of twins Saturday) and Bob's grandson all get on the train. They are gone, and time passes. I get a little nervous and Janet tells me that they will be fine. That Bob is like a child too and they are in good hands. Rachel, Cindy and I are chatting when all of a sudden over the hill at the end of the playground I see Mark. I said, "Isn't that Mark?" Then all of a sudden I see the top of Bob's hat. Then I see Bob. Then I hear the noise that 6 children ages 3-6 can make as they crest the hill. They sounded like a band of wild Indians. They come running over the hill except for Hannah who is adoringly smiling up at Bob and Fayeth who appears to be about ready to fall over from double timing it on her short little legs. Rachel, Cindy and I about pee our pants in hysterics. All we can say is POOR BOB! Which Bob had a great time and what happened was the train got a flat tire so they had to walk back from the front of camp. Poor Bob. LOL

Gabe.

Lindsay

Poor Pitiful Hannah had a headache

FayethHannah and Riley Cole

Kris starts rounding up everyone for the group picture. That does not take long as Mr Marine is quite organized.

Dinner comes around and we start the practice of eating and smacking the hell out of ourselves and our children to keep the mosquitoes from biting us. We call it an early night and head back to our cabin. I decide that I do not have it in me to drag all these children to pay our 25 cents per shower to be eaten alive by mosquitoes. I use my wet ones to scrub my dirty children down. We brush our teeth and watch a movie as we fall asleep.

Sunday July 13th,
Fayeth wakes up and is unhappy camper and finally falls back to sleep around 6am and slept until after 9:30. By 10am I am packing the car. By 11:30 we have gassed up the car, bought lunch, made ANOTHER bathroom stop and got on the road to come home.

We survived the Eden's Parking lot. We survived 4 stops for water for Fayeth, 2 stops to pass out zip lock bags to Lindsay and Gabe who felt like they were going to throw up and 1 stop because Hannah had to poop but refused to poop because she did not like the looks of the bathroom. Oh, did you know said child also refused to poop the entire time we were at camp because the mosquitoes bit her on the bottom and there was too much noise in the bathroom and she could not concentrate on pooping.

We walked in the door at 2:20pm and by 3:30pm I was IN the shower scrubbing my body 4 times to get all the nasty germs off of me. We survived Camp. It was a MARVELOUS experience. I cannot wait to do it again next year. The families are amazing, the children are amazing. No one argued, no one got hurt feelings. Well except Drew. His sister took off her swim suit and stuck it on his underwear so his underwear was wet. He was not happy about that, or about how she got red glitter on his Camp shirt. It was a GREAT TIME.