6-8-2021 Journal Entry aka How I got Lyme's disease

I bought a house today!  All by myself!  It's for my mom to move up to Kansas City.  My brother will too once he finds (or I find) a house here.  Then I'm going to sell Sue's house.

I had an appointment with a Lyme's nurse practitioner today.  The appointment lasted 3 hours and I brought home a big bag of test kits to do.  Plus 2 pages of labwork to be done.  She thinks in addition to Lyme's I also have Bartonella and Babesia.

I was telling Kimberly's boyfriend about ho I got Lyme's.  The kids hate the story but if I have to have a disease, at least the story should be good.  It reminded me of how Scott always had my back, so I want to share it.

I had an appointment at the GYN and there were doctor's buildings and a hospital all right together.  I had to park across the street in another medical building's parking lot because there was no room.  When I got upstairs and checked in, I couldn't find my phone.  I assumed I'd left it in the car, but it made me anxious the whole time.  It was around Kimberly's birthday and the 4th of July and the moms were in town visiting.  After I was done, I ran downstairs and the phone was not in my car!  I dumped out my purse in the seat, searched the whole car, but it wasn't there.  I began to panic. I retraced my steps, I went into the doctor buildings and the hospital to see if anyone had turned it in.  I went back to the GYN office and asked if I'd left it on the counter, I even rummaged the sofa I'd been sitting on.  I asked to use the phone and called Scott.  We had a tracking app on the phone and he said it appeared to be right where I was.  I had no idea where else to look.  I left my name at the doctor's office and the hospital.  When I left, I felt so lost without it.  When I got home, Scott said the phone had started to move through Overland Park, away from the way I go home, so he started calling it.  After a couple of calls, it started going straight to voicemail.  Someone had turned it off!  Someone had my phone!  Which was crazy because no one should even have wanted my phone!  It was an old model, a Galaxy 5, the screen was broken (something unknown happened to it in my purse), and it had a pink and rainbow zebra case on it.  It was only worth something to ME!  It was my brain and it had my pictures on it.  It was password protected, so useless to anyone.  We figured a kid had picked it up.  But I was dejected.

Later, I had been looking up ways to wipe it remotely and the tracking app showed it back on and at Longview Lake.  I was so mad!  I wanted my phone, so I said I was going down there.  Scott said if I insisted on going, he would drive me.  One of the moms asked what would happen if it wasn't a kid and the person was violent.  I was feeling pretty violent myself, so I grabbed a big pole we used to take the cover off the patio umbrella.  Scott went to the bedroom and I didn't know he'd gotten his gun out of his gun safe.  He said if things did get violent, he wanted to be prepared to back me up.  In my mind, I saw a crowd standing around at the lake and me using my laptop to set off the phone and catching someone's pocket ringing.  Then explain THAT to a crowd of onlookers!  As we got in the car and zoomed off, we didn't speak and I could hear "Bad Boys" playing in my head.

When we got there, it looked like it was in this brush behind a building.  Adrenaline was pumping and I jumped out with my pole, despite Scott's protest.  Adrenaline took me about halfway into the woods before I got tired and common sense started to ask, "What. Are. You. Doing?"  I fell in a small creek and had recently hurt my back, so I had to use the pole to get back up.  I pressed on in the mud, until I reached a wall of brush with no break in it.  At that point, I decided to call it quits.  I turned around to go back, but decided another route was easier.  It wasn't.  There were stickers so bad, it was like they were reaching out to me.  By the time I came out of the clearing, a little ways down the road from where I went in, I was scratched and cut and muddy.  Scott was gone!  He'd heard a commotion and thought maybe some kids were crashing out of the brush, scared that way by my thrashing, so he went searching.  We decided it was probably deer.  The tracker seemed to be moving, so we drove all over the area, looking.  We even flagged down a park ranger and told him what was going on.  Meanwhile I was sending messages to the phone, hoping to scare the kid: "We just want the phone.  Leave it somewhere and we won't call the police.  We know you're at Longview Lake and we're tracking you."  e could see the battery getting lower and lower, so I finally sent the command to remote wipe the phone before I lost the chance and we left.

That night, I found a tick on me, so Scott checked me and found 3.  The next day, I found another one, so he checked me again and found 3 more.  No idea where they'd been hiding!  One on the back of my thigh itched for a year.  That's when we went to the doctor because I had a bout of depression and extreme exhaustion, plus more symptoms that I never would have connected to ticks.

I miss having adventures with Scott.

The Misadventures of Robin

So, today is not a day for an Express Lane blog post. There's no way to convey a day like today in twenty words or less.

I knew today wouldn't be a PLEASANT day because first thing, I had a GYN appointment. I know no one likes those, but I've had some particularly bad experiences that have kept me out of *those* places for a long time. 

So, my GPS on my phone was trying to get me to go past the office and make a u-turn to go back to it. I ignored it and turned in the parking lot and looked for a nonexistent parking spot while the GPS continued to squawk about leaving the parking lot to go a different way. The doctors' building is attached to a hospital that has free valet parking so I thought I'd let someone else park it for me. I stood by the valet podium for a few minutes but never saw a valet. I was going to be late, so I decided to park across the street at another doctors' building and walk over. When I parked, the GPS was still whining, so I was shutting it up, juggling my keys (I'd taken the fob off, intending to hand it to the valet), grabbing my purse, and locking the door so I could hurry across the soggy just-watered grass and across the street. I took the elevator to the 4th floor and checked in. When I sat down in the waiting room, I looked for my phone. I couldn't find it. I dug through my purse, but no luck. I left it in the car. I must have. But a bit of panic set in that grew as the time in the waiting room stretched on. I watched the end of one DIY show and a whole other one. I was getting more agitated as I waited, wondering if my family was trying to call or text me. What did we ever do without cell phones? I was hesitant to even make a follow-up appointment without my "brain" to show me my calendar.

I hurried out to the car and the phone wasn't there. I dumped my purse out in the seat. The anxiety was very real. It wasn't so much the PHONE but the LOSING it that had me nearly in tears. I've always been forgetful but it's gotten so much worse lately. I can't focus. I've been reading and taking self-assessments and I'm sure I have ADD. This was just one more example of how much I struggle and it was humiliating. I went back to the doctor's office and asked the receptionists. They called it for me and dialed my husband so I could ask him to look at our family GPS tracker. He said it was showing that it was still right there. I checked the sofa cushions in the waiting room. There's no central desk in that building that someone might turn it in to, but I stopped in the first office when you come in the door, but they hadn't seen it. Someone suggested asking at the hospital's front desk, so I walked over there and was sent to the ER to check with security. Security was on a call, so I waited, very agitated, for a while. I decided to go check at the other doctor building in the parking lot where I parked, so I walked back over there, checked under my van, then drove to the building's main doors. It was the same setup, with no main desk. There's a pharmacy, though, so I asked in there. They took my name and my husband's number and a description in case it was turned in. I drove back to the ER and met the security guard as he was coming back. He even radioed the pediatric ER to check with their security. He also took my name, number, and description and said they sometimes get turned in at the end of the day. That made sense because no central desk might mean someone would have turned it in to the receptionist at any of the offices they were visiting. I couldn't imagine stopping in every office of two four-story buildings. I was exhausted so I reluctantly went home. Maybe someone had answered when my husband called it and he knew where it was. Only one way to find out.

As I walked in the door, my husband said, "It's gone. Someone stole it." The tracker had showed it moving and he thought maybe I had it so he called. After multiple calls with no answer, the phone was shut off. The last location was going a different way than I was going. I felt awful. My son was upset about his Pokemon Go game but he saw I was upset and tried to comfort me instead. I got on my laptop and started changing passwords on anything I thought could be accessed. My phone has a pass protection home screen but eventually someone could hack that. I remote locked the phone through Google and sent a message to my phone, invoking my autistic son in the plea, in the hopes that the thief had a heart.

My husband and I had therapy 30 minutes away from home in the afternoon, but on the way there, my stomach cramped up and I had to visit the bathroom. While I was in there, my husband found out our therapist had gone home sick and they'd tried to call my cell phone. Touché, phone thief.

We looked at new phones and started to make an insurance claim but that was a joke. We've paid for insurance for two and a half years but to replace it is a $200 deductible. On an old phone. (Who even wanted my phone? There's been two upgrades since mine and the screen is broken. I was in the wealthy area of town--why the heck would anyone want my stupid phone???  Besides ME!) I checked eBay and Amazon and found new phones the same version as mine for $180. That insurance is worthless!

I was about to head out to get dinner and checked my Google tracker and saw the phone was back on and it was showing location near a lake South of us. My husband tried to call it a few more times with no luck. I wanted to go out there. I was fully mad at this point. It didn't take much convincing to get my husband to come. I took my laptop so I could trigger Google to ring the phone so we could hear it. I pictured people hanging around the lake and the phone ringing in someone's pocket and a confrontation ensuing. I grabbed a thick wood stick, just in case. My husband brought a "just in case" too. Only his was a handgun. He was worried the thief would have a weapon.  He said that this is who I am, the kind of person to go charging after someone, but that it was potentially dangerous and he was worried.  He didn't try to talk me out of it though!

My adrenaline was pumping as we headed to the lake. I could hear badass theme music playing in my mind. Mama bear was ready to charge.  Maybe the mamas will get this--we were watching Bolt last night and I felt like Rhino (he's my favorite!). We got near where the signal showed and it was behind a building in the woods. I hopped out and grabbed my stick (it was more like a pole). I charged into the woods, but about halfway in, my adrenaline failed me. The brush was thick and thigh high. I was stepping on top of the brush and below it, I could feel branches and it was very unsteady. I came to a small stream which my son could have easily jumped, but I'm 40 and have a ruptured disk. In the middle of the stream, there was a pipe, so I steadied myself with the pole, put one foot on the pipe, grabbed a branch on the other side, and stepped over. It was so muddy because of all the rain we've had and there were lots of thorns catching me. I was praying that there were no snakes, spiders, or poison ivy. I heard a noise and saw movement up ahead so I stopped to watch and listen but I decided it was probably a deer. I fell at one point and was glad I brought the stick or I might not have had the strength to get back up. The brush became so thick, it was impassable and I couldn't see a break. I moved laterally, hoping to find an opening, but there was no way. I decided I had to turn back. But, the path back from where I ended up crossed TWO small creeks and had so many thorns! I hadn't dressed for a hike. I had on my slip on shoes (athletic type, not flip flops) and capris pants. I was muddy and my ankles and legs were getting scraped up. I was picking barbed thorns out of my hands and laying my stick across thick thorns to try to walk over them instead of through. When I finally got back to the road, I was panting. I haven't exerted myself this much in a long time. My lungs still burn. I came around some trees and my husband and the van were gone. I walked back to the driveway by the little building and waited and pretty soon he pulled up.

He had heard the commotion in the woods and then the tracker started to move.  He thought I had flushed someone out.  There was a little gated road down the way a bit that was locked or we'd have gone in that way.  He thought  they were coming out there, according to the tracker, so he headed after them.  He couldn't see anyone though, so he came back to get me.  We picked up the signal in the middle of a field, but we couldn't see anything.  Then it jumped to the next field over so we kept going.  We drove down a twisty driveway and disturbed deer, but saw no people.  The signal jumped again and showed the phone was north of us, so we headed through this nice neighborhood.  I got out again and walked down a trail that should have given me a clear view of whoever had the phone, but I saw nothing.  We went at it a different direction but we still saw nothing.  We stopped and talked to a park ranger who was interested and seemed to think the whole thing was pretty cool.  I was not amused.  Give us a hand, Barney Fife! The signal had stayed stationary so we wondered if it had been ditched.  Then it jumped around again and ended  up back at the same place we started!  Ugh!  We had driven around for about two hours.  We had originally suspected it might be some kids, so I tried sending messages to the phone that we were tracking them and that we didn't have to get the police involved--we just wanted the phone back.  I even said they could leave it somewhere and just let us know where they left it.  No response. The battery was at 11%, so I finally made the decision to remotely wipe it and send it back to factory settings.  Then we headed to get Kimberly's birthday dinner and home.

We had thought that whoever had it must be on bikes or dirt bikes, moving through the fields and trees like that.  But, my husband now thinks it might have been a boat.  Even though the pin was in the woods, the radius was large, so it's possible they could have been on the lake.

I came home and cleaned up my scratches.  Then I found a tick on my knee!  I forgot to add ticks to my "no critter prayer."  Then I felt one crawling down my arm.  I took a long hot bath and then we found another one on my back! I've got itchy bites and my skin is just irritated but more than 24 hours later, we found 3 more ticks on the back of my thigh. Where did they come from? I hope there are no more! I am so sore and tired. Remind me that I'm 40 and shouldn't do crap like that! Wait, nevermind. My kids kept reminding me that I'm too old and I am not all big and bad. Then Arrena refused to go to the basement because there's a mouse down there. Mmmmhmmmm. But we won't talk about that. 

It was an adventure for sure, but we upgraded to new cell phones. I have a new high - tech brain! I definitely didn't want to have to pay more and I hate changing phones because I get used to the way I have things, but at least I don't have a cracked screen anymore so the jerk thieves can keep the broken, factory reset, decommissioned phone. 

Family Reunion 2010

This year's Cooper Family Reunion was really fun. I had hoped that this camping trip would be quite simple, but it turned out to be more complicated than I had planned. The kids were supposed to be at their dad's, so packing and cooking for two is much easier. However, their dad never called, so I had to pack for all five of us. It takes a lot to entertain the three kids. And much more to feed them. And my husband decided he didn't want to live on hotdogs and hamburgers for the weekend either, so he devised all sorts of meals, which made packing food and supplies a little more difficult. And I had forgotten about our dog Jesse. So, we decided to rent a U-Haul trailer to haul all of our stuff out there.

Scott had gotten his vacation time during Labor Day weekend, so we took the children out of school and headed down to Oklahoma on Thursday. We left later than we had planned to (which is always the case). It is a five hour drive from Kansas City to Heyburn Lake. As we got nearer to our destination, we saw lightning and dark clouds. We arrived just before dark and began to set up our campsite. Our rented site was next to the nice bathrooms/shower house, in front of the swimming beach, but the bathrooms were locked, which made us angry since that was the whole reason we rented that spot. We were clear on the other side of the camp from my family and quite a way from the other, smaller bathrooms. Kimmy and Billy had both been throwing up prior to our coming to the reunion. As we were furiously putting up our campsite, my mom and my Aunt Janie drove over and Janie offered us her campsite since they had played musical campsites. We hurriedly took down what we'd done and drove over to the other side and put everything up by them. It was dark by then, but we had help from my cousins Jill and Jimmy. There was lightning on both sides of us, but still no rain. We got everything set up and got the kids in their tent and in bed. We finished up and went to bed ourselves. We had been in our tent about five minutes when the storm started. The thunder and rain was deafening. My mom texted that if the kids were scared, they could come over and stay in the camper they were in, but I said we would get soaked just going the few feet from our tent to theirs, let alone across the street to their camper and that I hoped the kids were asleep. Somehow through the roar, Scott heard one of the kids say "mom". We tried to look through the window and saw flashlights on in their tent, but couldn't hear anything. I yelled, "I can't hear you! Lay down and go to sleep!" The seams on our tent were leaking a little and we had a couple of puddles and my blanket got a little damp.

The next day, we visited with family and Scott, Janie, and I went to the store to get groceries and supplies for the family reunion, while my mom stayed with the kids. The kids swam in the blow up pool we had at the campsite. I liked being on the family side of the camp this time because the kids could run around and visit and play and not get into too much trouble. Everyone watched out for everyone else. My great-uncle Gary and great-aunt Bessie came and brought their grand-daughter Courtney and she and Arrena really hit it off. After that, those girls were off on bikes around the camp the rest of the weekend. The problem started when the kids' dad's mom called me and said she was coming to pick up the kids. Chris and I had discussed this weekend the last time we talked and he said he would call me and arrange picking up the kids. He had not called and now here they were, looking forward to the weekend with us. They had hoped that he wouldn't call because they wanted to go to the family reunion. They were furious when their grandma called and they thought they would have to leave. They called their grandma back and asked to talk to their dad. He called them back and Arrena told him that they didn't want to go. He asked to speak to me and I told him that they had thought they were staying at the family reunion since he hadn't called like he said he would and hadn't shown up for his last weekend like he was supposed to. He backed off and said they could stay and the kids were happy. Janie and us combined forces and made up hamburgers and hotdogs to feed everyone that was coming in and setting up camp that night. We sat around a campfire and made s'mores.

Saturday was the family reunion. After breakfast and the morning visits, playtime, etc., we went up to the pavilion and started setting up. Family that hadn't camped started trickling in. It was nice to see lots of cousins I haven't seen in a couple of years. First we had lunch, then the kids got their toys. Then the annual auction started. We brought home a horse clock for the girls' room and some blue champagne glasses that my aunt is etching our names on. After that, the guys had their horseshoe tournament and the women did their "cake" walk. I thought Scott was going to win the horseshoe tournament for a minute--he made it to the final round and was ahead for a while, but my cousin Tammy's husband Randy beat him in the end. I won the second cake walk and got a kitchen prize basket. My mom and my brother left before I knew it. I thought I had longer with them and was disappointed that they had to leave so soon. I had brought an angel food cake and watermelon for my mama and hadn't gotten it out yet! Family started to leave and we started to head back to our campsites.

Sunday, we hung around, visiting. The kids went to pet a horse. They are putting in an equestrian trail behind where we were camping and we talked to a lady that is a part of it quite a bit, so she let the kids pet her horse. We learned from her that the bathroom problems we have had for years were because of the old caretakers and there is a new caretaker that just came in about six weeks ago and has already started changing things around there. He would have had the bathrooms fixed, but the plumber that came out to do didn't have the right licensing and had to come back later. I got my baby "fix", holding a cousin's baby girl named Eland. Then we took the kids down the the lake to swim. Arrena and Courtney were broken-hearted when Courtney had to go home. They had become good chums in three short days. We had another combined dinner with tacos and chicken chili and more fussing over Eland. Then we had an unwelcome visitor. A tarantula walked into my aunt's campsite. Not a good camp to visit, as she is deathly afraid of spiders of any sort. I have to admit that I am not too fond of spiders after that one unknown spider bit me and made me very unwell several years back. A large fuzzy tarantula doesn't appeal to me either. My great-aunt Ruthann said, "Jill, look out." My cousin Jill stood up from the picnic table she had been sitting at and I looked and there was a tarantula on the ground crawling towards her. Jill shrieked and jumped up on the bench of the table. She said that she would have run or jumped up on the table, but she was holding her dog Alexis, who was on a chain, hooked to something and she couldn't go far. In her hurry to get away from the tarantula, she nearly wrung Alexis' neck off! Janie jumped up and stood at a distance, I think trying to judge which was was the best direction to run. I laughed because she had been trying to convince me to look for one out on the road to poke with a stick because she had heard that they jump ten feet. I said, "Hey, don't you want to see if they jump ten feet?" Well, when someone started poking at it, it ceased being funny and I decided that was my cue to leave my chair, in case they DO jump ten feet. The poking was meant to get it to go back the other way and leave, but the stupid thing went the wrong way and came TOWARD us. It ran under the picnic table, causing a wave of panic and then went up the picnic table. That caused Jill to bolt. Somehow she got Alexis loose and managed to get away. Scott asked her later if she would have sacrificed her dog to the tarantula and she said most definitely. Janie, in the meanwhile, hightailed it into the trailer and stood peering out of the window. Jennifer and Jimmy managed to corral and scoop up the tarantula and took him out to the street and released him. I wish I had thought sooner and gotten the whole episode on video. Whether it was the same one or a different one, I don't know, but about an hour or so later, a tarantula returned to Janie's campsite and was again scooped up by my cousin Jimmy and taken back to the street and released. In the twenty-three years we have been out there, we have never seen a tarantula out there before.

Monday, we spent the morning visiting and packing up our campsite. Everyone was leaving, so we were all saying our good-byes. We finally left around lunch time and got home about dinner time. The weather was so beautiful the whole time we were there. The high temperatures were only in the 80s and with the breeze off the lake, it was lovely. It was even chilly early in the morning and in the evenings. I wish I had checked the forecast for the lows and packed the kids some jackets at least. We couldn't have asked for better weather. It was getting a little warm on Monday, I think in the 90s, but the wind was so strong, we hardly noticed.

I am beginning to think that I am allergic to camping at Heyburn Lake...or my family. I have camped down there twice and both times ended up with a migraine. The last one I got while I was down there, this one I got two days after I got back and has lasted five days so far. Wonder if I got bit by a migraine bug. Is there a repellent for that?

Our First Family Camping Trip

We had our first foray into camping this weekend. As we are planning to camp for three nights in Oklahoma in a few weeks, we decided to make a test run: an overnighter at nearby El Dorado Lake. I was determined not to be the big baby on this trip, supposing that my whole family would be all gung-ho and I would be the one that hated camping. Boy, was I wrong!

We went out Friday afternoon to check out the campsites and figure out where we might want to camp. We would have reserved a site, but the site host had taken his wife to the hospital with a broken ankle. So we just looked around.

I went on to work Friday night, then went to the store afterwards. We still had supplies we needed and Arrena and Kimmy were having a tea party with their friends Monday, so I wanted to make sure I didn't have to go to the store again before that. The shopping took forever. My stomach had been feeling yucky for a few days and I was tired, so I think I just moved slowly. I finally left and went home to get some things packed and organized. Chris had gathered up gear in a corner of the garage that he would load into the truck in the morning. I laughed out loud when I saw the huge pile of stuff he had planned to take! I finally made it to bed around 4:30am.

Chris woke me up at 7:30am with a desire to get an early start so we wouldn't lose all the good camping spots. Needless to say, I was exhausted. We loaded up the truck. That was so funny because we had taken out the third row of seats in the Expedition and filled the back, floor to ceiling, plus there was more stuff packed into the floorboards beneath the kids' feet and mine as well. For a one night camping trip! Ha, ha! You'd have thought we were moving out there!

We got out there and picked a very large, shady spot, right next to a walking bridge that led to the swimming beach. It's in El Dorado State Park, but it wasn't really near the lake--you couldn't even see the lake because where you turn off to go to the campsite we were at, you're right by the huge dam. We were by the Walnut River. We set up our campsite and then headed out to explore a bit and get some lunch. We had some miscommunication along those lines. I thought we were leaving first thing Sunday morning, so I only packed food for lunch and dinner Saturday. Turned out, Chris had planned to leave after lunch Sunday, so we were two meals short. We decided to eat at Freddy's Frozen Custard for lunch Saturday. I suddenly had an urge to go shopping when I spotted a store on the main street in El Dorado called Robin's. I had never heard of it before, but I guess they have been featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show, have made TV commercials, and have a website (http://www.shoprobins.com). From looking at the display in the window, Chris concluded that they carry my style clothing. From looking at the website, I would say that might be true, but it is likely doubtful that they carry my current size. Still need to lose that weight!

Anyways, after lunch, we headed back to camp and got changed to go swimming at the beach. The beach was nasty with goose droppings. I had seen a flock of geese through the treeline earlier, but hadn't thought what that would mean. We waded for a while, then headed back to camp. Our shady campsite had become decreasingly shaded as the afternoon progressed. Fortunately we had brought a blowup pool and set it up and filled it with the icy water from the spigot our campsite boasted. The kids splashed and played and Chris and I dragged chairs over and put our feet in. I think it was 98 degrees this weekend, so it was plenty hot and if you're not familiar with Kansas' humidity...you are very fortunate indeed! It was so hot, we went through seven bags of ice in our two small coolers! For, what, 28 hours? Yikes!

There was a family with a little girl, almost four, camped next to us, so the girls invited her to come over and play on their inflatable that we brought (yes, they lugged that huge thing along with us!) and wade in the pool. After she went back to her mom and dad, we started dinner. Chris had said a couple of his friends might come by to meet me. I have been giving him a hard time because he has several friends with motorcycles that he rides with and hangs out with, but I have never met them. So, they showed up when Chris was halfway through making dinner. Okay, first I must tell you that I was really not in the mood to entertain. For one, that three hours of sleep I had gotten was really not cutting it. Then the heat was draining me even more. I felt like I was melting into oblivion! All I wanted to do was lie down in a coolER spot and and stay there. With the heat, goes my appearance. I was pouring sweat; my hair was a frizzy, damp, matted mess; any makeup I had started off the day with, was long gone. Not the condition in which you want to meet anyone! As they arrived, Chris abandoned his cooking. I had been in the middle of making plates for the kids and myself, but I had to run over and take over the cooking to rescue the burgers and sausages from being burned. Chris had made extra for his friends, but they didn't want to eat. I finished making the plates for me and the kids and we went to the screen house to eat, so we wouldn't be plagued by flies and I invited his friends to come sit with us in the screen house so we could visit, but they declined. So I sat with the kids in the screen house while Chris and his friend, his wife, and another woman friend of theirs (girlfriend of another guy friend) conversed far enough away from me that I couldn't participate in the conversation. Between the heat, my lack of sleep, and my stomachache, I was getting irritable. So, when they left me with the children and wandered off chatting, I nearly lost it. When Chris returned and they left, I informed him that I was not the babysitter or the hired help, but that that's how he makes me feel sometimes. He had been offended when some of the parents that brought their children to Kimmy's birthday party had refused to come in the backyard to chat or even meet him--I pointed out that his friends just did the same thing to me. I then retired to the tent to lay in front of the fans we had brought. He said I was pouting, but I was trying to cool off, literally and figuratively.

Billy had started to break out in a heat rash. He has really bad eczema--landed him in the ER last year--so heat is a big problem with him. Chris packed us up in the truck and drove to WalMart...and bought an air conditioner for the tent! We had talked about it for the three-day camping trip, but I was sure we could last one night without one! And I was fine as long as I laid down in front of that fan. I knew it could only get better as it got darker and cooler. I was prepared to tough it out. But, with the rest of the family whining about heat and lack of a TV, I turned out not to be the biggest sissy in the family! It did make it cooler in there, but I worry that it will make me want to hang out in the tent all day instead of being out doing other things!

There was a Vietnam reunion at the lake this weekend, so when it got dark, we drove over to watch the fireworks display they had. After that, we went back to the campsite and went to bed. I thought the girls would be scared and would end up sleeping with us, but they must have been really worn out because they fell asleep right away. Billy took a little more time and woke up once in the night crying and screaming. It took a long time to get him calm again. I woke up a few times, listening to the sounds of crickets, locusts, frogs, and other noises that I couldn't identify.

When we awoke, I went to the screen house and found crumbs all around and all the cookies were gone and there had been a hole chewed in the bag of hotdog buns and most of the buns had been chewed up. We had forgotten to store the non-perishable food away and had just left it in the closed up screen house. We're guessing a raccoon raided us. Lesson learned.

We went and ate breakfast at Braum's in town. Then we packed up most of our camp and went fishing. Chris had restrung the kids' poles several times, but had let them practice casting and Billy and Kimmy's had gotten tangled until he was tired of fixing them and put them away. He and Kimmy fished on one side of a cove, while Arrena fished on the other side, with me and Billy cooling off with our feet in the water nearby. Billy didn't seem to mind that he wasn't fishing--he was amusing himself throwing rocks in the water and scooping up water in his bucket. I don't fish. I don't like the idea of the hooks in the fish's mouth or of "cleaning" the fish. When my dad used to take me fishing, he would give me a pole without a hook on it and I would just cast and reel in all day and be perfectly happy with that. I think daddy was proud because it reminded him of one of his favorite songs (Red Sovine's Daddy's Girl: "I recall the day I took you on a fishin' trip. You said: 'Daddy won't that hook hurt the fish's lip?' And you said if they don't get air, those things in the can will die. So we turned the worms all loose and chased some butterflies. Daddy's Girl, Daddy's Girl, I'm the center of Daddy's world. I know I'm Daddy's number one, for he loves me like I was his son. Daddy's Girl."). Anyways, the fishing only lasted about 20-30 minutes and we realized that the boats were too close (we were getting waves) and were scaring the fish. So, we loaded up, broke camp, and headed home.

Chris said, "I don't think this family was cut out for camping." I said, "We spent enough money on gear, a year-long parking permit, a fishing license, and an a/c unit we don't need. I don't care if we hate it, we're going to keep on camping and get our money's worth out of it!" It wasn't so bad (except for the heat). The only other bad part was that there was a group of teenagers nearby and they liked to tromp right through the middle of our campsite to get to the bridge. So rude. I would open my mouth to tell them off, then stop, trying to let my husband be the man of the family, but he never did say anything to them. I expected him to, I wanted him to, but was surprised when he didn't. He said that they are the type of jerk teenagers who would come back when we were asleep or away from the campsite and either steal or vandalize our stuff, so he just let it slide.

The only real outdoorsman of the family was Billy! Where we had camped, we were within walking distance of a bathroom, but a little too far for a three-year-old who is in the middle of potty-training. So, since he was a boy, Chris told him to pee in the bushes behind our tent. At first, it scared Billy. He couldn't do it. But, he finally acclimated to the idea and before we knew it, we'd look around wondering where he was and see that he was by the bushes, back to us, with his shorts around his ankles. Then he'd run over and exclaim excitedly, "Me go pee-pee!" I took a picture of this--but it's for the blackmail file, so I won't post it here! Then when we got home, hot and tired, wanting nothing more than a bath and to relax on the couch in front of the TV, enjoying the air conditioning, he immediately grabbed his sidewalk chalk and headed out to the back porch to sit in the heat and play. I couldn't believe it!

If nothing else, we learned what we need to do for a longer trip--for example, secure the food and I want an oscillating fan for the screen house--the wind doesn't penetrate the screen very well. It was a good trial run. I think with practice and repetition, we could learn to like camping. Though, I think spring and fall would be better seasons for us!

I wish I hadn't scheduled the girls' tea party so soon after our camping trip, but it was too late to change my mind. It was fun for them. My mom wondered why she had never done something like that for me.

After all of the adventures, I feel like a wrung out dishcloth. I think this week, especially with the hot forecast, will be a week to relax and recuperate.