Johnsons' Journey

Well… I guess that since we’ve been home for 3 days now, it’s time to update the old blog. I’ve finally got all the posts I wrote while we were camping, up. I was waiting on Flickr, as I wanted to add pictures to the posts. All day yesterday I was trying to get the pictures uploaded, but Flickr was being a pain in the other side of my lap. Finally, this morning I skipped one picture, and the rest went and uploaded… Wish I would have tried that yesterday! … I have no idea why the one picture wouldn’t upload to Flickr, but I am glad that the rest are finally being posted.

Anyway, back to Prineville, as I never wrote about the last day.

I got up at around 7:00 and went and took a shower in the camp showers… Turns out that 7:00 is a bad time, as everyone and their mother is taking a shower. *lol* … But I managed to get a mostly hot shower, which is better than no shower at all.

When I got back to the campsite, Joe and the kids were all up. So we had a simple breakfast of toast and/or cereal, and then I sent Joe and the kids to take a shower while I did the dishes. Once they were back, I did the girls’ hair and off we went. I wanted to do our “homeschool portraits”, so they had all dressed in nicer clothes… We went to 3 different areas and I snapped a bunch of photos of them. When we got home, the hard part came when I had to choose the pictures to be the “official” school pictures. *lol*

After I was done taking pictures, we headed back to the trailer and got ready to go. I think it was around 12:30 when we were pulling out of the campsite.

Joe had called 511 again, and it sounded like parts of hwy 126 (the Santiam Pass) was possibly closed due to the forest fire, so we decided not to chance trying to go home that way… Wouldn’t want to try to make a u-turn while pulling a 26 foot trailer with our little Durango. So instead we drove north west and went on the pass by Mt. Hood… I have no idea what that pass is called. *lol*

The kids were quite impressed by how close to Mt. Hood we got, but I didn’t bother to take any pictures. The top half of the mountain was hidden in clouds.

There were some delays on hwy 26 though, as they were doing the “Hood to Coast Relay” … While Joe drove, the kids and I watched all the runners… I would have watched more closely, had I known our friend, Erika, was running in it! … Joe and I used to work with Erika at PayLess, and I found out today, on facebook, that she ran in it for the first time… Pretty cool!

We made it into Sandy, Oregon by 3:30, by which time we were all pretty hungry. So we stopped at McDonald’s for a late lunch, and then headed home… I think we were home sometime between 5:00 and 5:30… We spent the next hour and a half, to two hours, unloading the trailer, unpacking, cleaning up after the cats (you WOULD NOT believe the mess two little kittens can make in the bathroom!!!), etc.

The first thing the boys did when they got home was to run into their rooms, grab out their bowling balls, and kiss them. *lol* … Going 7 days without bowling about killed them.

The boys wanted to go bowling as soon as everything was put away, and Joe thought it would be easier to just take all the laundry to one of the laundry mats in town and get it washed all at once, instead of having me spend all weekend doing it.

Joe thought we should go to the newer laundry mat, as it was nicer, but I am now wondering if it would have been better going to the old one… The washing machines cost $2.00 a piece to run them! The ones in Redmond were $1.50 to use… When you have 11 loads of laundry, that can really add up! … Plus, while the dryers cost the same as in Redmond, they didn’t dry as well so you had to run them longer, which meant that they really didn’t cost the same. … So 2 hours and $29 later, all the laundry was washed and folded.

While I was at the laundry mat with Amanda, Joe and the other kids went to the bowling alley and bowled 3 games… The boys were sure happy about that!

On Saturday, Josh and the girls had a Bible Day Camp to go to, with their Sunday School class. Like they did in June, we dropped them off at the church at 11:00 and they were bussed to Feyrer Park. Then we had to meet them back at the church at 3:00… They had a lot of fun, got to have a BBQ, play games, and came home with lots of little goodies.

While they were doing that, Joe, Jared, and I went to the bowling alley again, as a treat for Jared, now that he is in the youth group and didn’t go to the Bible camp… Jared talked me into bowling too, and he was thrilled to have us both to himself. We had lunch there too, since the others were having the BBQ.

As for the rest of the evening, we didn’t do much of ANYTHING. Just sat around on our rears, watching movies and bumming… And I’m sure that Joe got some naps in.

Oh wait! … I forgot… Joe, Alicia, and I did go to Walmart on Saturday, to get some groceries for the week. We left the other kids at home, but Alicia needed new shoes, so she came with us… We had to buy her size FIVE! She can fit perfectly into size 4s, but we wanted to give her some growing room.

She sure is growing up in a hurry! *sigh*

Since Sunday was the last day of his vacation, Joe wanted to be bad and skip church. He wanted to sleep in and get a lazy day in, since he won’t get another vacation until March… So that’s what we did… We did do a little bit of housework, but mainly we just bummed.

As for today, Joe is back to work, and the kids and I got some housework done… I’m also doing some laundry, as Mondays are my usual laundry days (along with Thursdays)… Well, the dryer just stopped, so I better run! … Catch ya on the flip side!

Man, was Saturday ever a busy day!

We left the house at around 10 o’clock to head to Clark Park in town… Molalla Communications, where we get our internet service, was having their annual customer appreciation picnic… Though we’ve been a customer of MC since 2007, this is the first time we’ve ever made it to one of these picnics. It seems like usually they fall on the same day as a reunion, or some other plans we have going on.

So anyway, we got there by 10:30-ish, and went and registered. We were given a ticket for the door prizes, and a list of activities, etc. Then we went to the tent for the meeting, which ran from 11:00 to 12:00… That was the boring part. *lol* … But if you want to do the fun stuff, and have a chance at the door prizes (which were really nice), then you have to deal with the boring meeting.

Sadly, we didn’t win a door prize… I would have been happy with any of them. There was so many cool things. A Nintendo Wii, a large digital frame, a digital camera with memory card and case, a 1 TB external hard-drive… Stuff like that… But what I REALLY wanted was the iPod touch, and we came SO CLOSE! Our last two digits were 82, and it was 76 that got it. Boooooo! We came close to a couple of the other items too, as 86 and 87 were called.

At noon we went out to enjoy the activities… There were a few of those huge blow-up things for the kids, face painting, a DJ, stuff like that. They were also feeding us for free too! We got hotdogs, chips, cookies, soda, and water. As much as we wanted. It’s was a pretty good deal, and the kids enjoyed themselves.

We had one scary moment though… Alicia stuck her finger inside her pop-can, for some unknown reason, and ended up cutting her finger. The cut itself wasn’t bad, but it was bleeding pretty good. So we went and found a napkin and got to bleeding stopped. Then we went to stand in the Molalla Communications booth, so that we could spin the wheel and try to win a MC shirt… Anyway, we were standing in line when Alicia told me that she felt like she was going to be sick. So I put my arm around her shoulder… The next thing I knew, she was falling to the ground. I called her name, and tried to catch her, but no luck (she’s getting heavy). She fell against Amanda, and on top of the feet of the guy behind us… Her eyes were open and staring into space. I kept calling her name, but she wouldn’t respond. She had passed out!!!!! … I was about into panic mode, but Joe kept his head on. He had a little water left in his bottle, so he poured it over the top of her face, and that woke her up. She looked at Joe funny and said, “What did you do that for, Daddy?” … Which made us laugh a little, though we were still worried… Anyway, I sent Jared for a bottle of water for her, and Joe carried her to the shade (the temps were in the low 90s). She ended up drinking a bottle and a half of water, and after resting for a bit, she seemed fine.

I never want to do that again!!!

While Alicia rested (Amanda and I stayed with her), Joe and Josh went to go spin the wheel, and Jared went to get Alicia an animal balloon, since she didn’t get one when Amanda did, and wanted a horse one. (Isn’t Jared the sweetest! He was worried for his sister, and was doing all sorts of things for her. So sweet!) … Then, since her face painting got messed up when Joe poured the water on her, we took the girls back to the face painting booth for another painting. When that was done, we headed out.

After leaving Clark Park, we headed to Feyrer Park, so that the kids could go swimming in the Molalla River… Josh has been DESPERATE to go, and I don’t think we really had an option! *lol*

At that point in the river, the water only comes up to the boys’ shoulders, and the current isn’t very fast, so it’s a good place to play. The only downfall is that the bank is covered in rocks, which makes it hard to walk around… One nice thing about the rocks though, is that someone made a couple circles of rocks along the edge of the river, which made a perfect place for Amanda to play. We just told her that she had to play in the circle. She was content to do so, and we didn’t have to worry about her going out too far. Win-win!

The three older kids had fun swimming, while Amanda amused herself with catching tiny polywogs along the edge…  We stayed there for about an hour, and then headed home.

And we stayed home just long enough for the kids to change into dry clothes and grab their bowling balls.

When we got back to town we hit McDonald’s for dinner and an ice cream cone, and then went to bowl their two free games at Molalla Bowl… By that point we were all so tired, that when we got home, we VEGGED for the rest of the night.

Jared had a good time at the Youth Movie Night at church on Friday. I guess they watched a movie called, “Glory Road”, which is a basketball movie… Basketball is one of Jared’s passions, so he was quite impressed.

This coming Friday the youth group is having a bonfire/bbq, which I think he wants to go to as well.

Tonight was the kids bowling league night… We went in an hour early, so that the kids could bowl their two free games, and then they bowled their three league games… Anyway, Jared did very well tonight. His scores were; Free games = 146 & 141 (Josh’s were 166 and 120, and Alicia’s were 102 and 88), and Jared’s league games were = 129, 199, and 164 (Josh’s were 127, 157, and 114 and Alicia’s were 93, 86, and 106). On the 199 game, he bowled 5 strikes in a row!!! How awesome is that?!

All the kids have really improved their bowling skills this summer. The kidsbowlfree.com was the perfect program for them, for being able to practice all summer long. They are going to have a marked improvement when they get to the official league this fall.

Well… I suppose I should get off my lazy rear and tell ya’ll how how weekend camping trip went… I could should have blogged about it yesterday, BUT… I had no kids, and couldn’t convince myself to do anything productive. *lol* Yes, I was beyond lazy yesterday, so today I am having to play catch-up and am extra busy. (That’ll teach me!)

Compared to some camping trips I’ve blogged about, this last one was pretty uneventful (which is probably a good thing)… So try not to get too bored with the details.

We got a late start on Friday… When Joe got in to the plant from his regular route in Salem, they asked him to do a drop trailer (which is to take an empty trailer to a store and exchange it for one they have filled up with product), which also happened to be in Salem… Salem is around an hour and 15 minutes from his work, one way, so it takes a while to get there, change out the trailers, and get back… Then, he had to stop by Walmart and KFC to get groceries for the trip and chicken for dinner. By the time he got home and got the trailer hooked up to the Durango, it was 7:15-ish when we were leaving home.

Jared on the Molalla River

It’s a good thing the campground is only 5 miles from the house. *lol*

When we got there, we pretty much ate right away… Everyone else (Joe’s parents and the Mewings) was starving, as were we. Then, after the trailer was hooked to the water/electricity, we just hung out around the campfire for the rest of the evening and chatted.

The next morning I made French toast for breakfast (yum!), and then Joe and the kids walked down to the Molalla River, while I washed the dishes, cleaned the trailer, and took a shower. By the time I was done, we didn’t have too much time to veg before it was time to leave for the reunion.

As for the reunion (which was at Eagle Fern Park, north of Estacada), I figured that I would just sit in the background, and wait for the time to pass… But I didn’t take my new ancestry blog into consideration. *lol* … Turns out that some of the Lane side have stumbled across it. I had 3 different people come up, tell me that they found the blog, and then went on and on about how wonderful it was, etc…. And though I am technically related to them (through marriage), I had no idea who any of them were. *lol* … But I am glad they liked the blog!

Charlie Lane is the oldest Lane left (in this area). He turned 99 in June, and he and his wife, Nellie, were able to come to the reunion (their daughter brought them) … Charlie and Nellie are the ones we rented that house in Sandy from, in 2006… Anyway, here is a clip of Charlie playing his “bones” and harmonica… Not bad for 99, wouldn’t you say?

At around 3:30 – 4:00 Joe and I had to grab the kids and head back to camp… We needed too pick up the cake from Safeway and get the 2 liter sodas from the house (for the party) before everyone showed up for the party at 5 pm.

Amanda with her new Hannah shirt

Since no one was really hungry yet, Amanda got to open her presents first… And boy, did she sure make a haul!

Joe and I gave her the Dance, Dance Revolution thing for PS2, some Hannah Montana stickers, and a Hannah Montana shorts outfit. Jared gave her a Lily (from Hannah Montana) Barbie, Josh gave her a Hannah Montana DVD game, and Alicia gave her a stuffed dog that makes doggie noises (which Amanda named Sam). Grandma and Grandpa gave her a Hannah Montana pants outfit and a Hannah Montana vanity set. The Pence family gave her a Book (with a listen along CD), a monkey shirt, and a mini coloring book with crayons. The Quamen family gave her some Disney Princess pompoms, and some Hannah Montana candy. The Mewing family gave her a Hannah Montana DVD (not the new movie, but some episodes from season 1). I think her favorite gift was what Earl gave her, which is a Hannah Montana guitar. She loves that thing! *lol* … She also got $1 from Josh, $1 from Sheila, & $5.00 from Great-Grandma Johnson.

Amanda with her Hannah Montana cake

After a while everyone finally started to get hungry, so Joe fired up the BBQ, and we had dinner… By the time we got around to having cake, it was probably around 9 pm… I don’t know if people were too hungry, but the gates to the park close at 10 pm, so we needed to do the cake and ice cream before everyone had to leave.

Amanda sure is funny… All the other kids are like me, and don’t really like to be the center of attention, and don’t like it when people sing Happy Birthday to them… Amanda, on the other hand, LOVES it. *lol* You should have seen her grinning when everyone was singing.

I wonder if she’ll ever outgrow that, or if she will always like to be the center of attention, like her Daddy does?

After everyone left, and we got the dinner/cake stuff cleaned up, I took the girls into the trailer so they could take a bath and go to bed… When they were done the boys grabbed the shampoo and their jammies and went to take a shower in the campground showers… I think it was well after 11 pm before they were in bed.

Josh, playing with what's left of the fire

The next morning we all slept in a little, which was nice. … We had a simple breakfast of cereal and toast out by the fire, and then we started to break camp… I decided to wait until we got home to take a shower, seeing as we were only 5 miles from the house. *lol*

Just before we left the campground, Debbie called Joe. She asked if the boys could come bowling with her and the twins. (Which led to the boys doing a happy dance all over the campsite) … So… We kissed the girls goodbye (they spent Sunday night at Grandma and Grandpa’s house) and drove the boys to the bowling alley before we headed home with the trailer.

After I took a shower and we got the trailer unloaded and put back up in the trailer area, Joe and I headed into Woodburn. We had an early dinner at Pizza Hut, and then went to Walmart to do some grocery shopping… While we were there Debbie called and asked if the boys could just spend the night… I didn’t really want them to, but neither Joe or I could say no (It was Jamie and Debbie’s idea, the boys didn’t even know at the time), so we ended up being kid-free for the rest of the night.

And that about wraps everything up… You’re all caught up on the Johnson Journey.

Just wanted to let you know that we’re going camping again this weekend… Back in May, Amanda told us that she wanted to go camping at Feyrer Park for her birthday. We tried to get reservations over her actual birthday weekend (next weekend… her birthday is on the 16th), but that’s when the Feyrer Family reserves the entire campground for a huge family reunion… So we had to go this weekend.

What’s really annoying is that as soon as we made and paid for the reservations, we got a notice that the Lane family reunion was on the 8th. *sigh* … Now, if it were up to me, I would just skip the reunion. Joe hardly knows anyone on that side of the family. All we ever do is sit off to the side and talk to Joe’s immediate family… Seems like a waste of time to me. *lol* … But Joe’s dad would FLIP if we didn’t show up, so Joe will NEVER miss it, just because I think he’s afraid to make his dad mad. (And I HATE that Jim has such control over Joe, even after almost 15 years of marraige…)

Soooo…. We will have to leave the campground on Saturday and go to the reunion for a few hours. Then we have to come back and set up for Amanda’s party, which will be at Feyrer. We were going to have it at around 4 pm, but we had to bump it up to 5:30, because of the reunion.

The boys sure came back from bowling hyper yesterday… They had a really good time… In fact, Jared talked non-stop bowling All. Evening. Long. (Man, that kid is a chatterbox!)

Anyway, they did really well yesterday. For the 3 league games Jared’s scores were 44, 51, and 70. Josh’s scores were 58, 47, and 43 … Then they played a game just for fun. Jared got 72 and Josh got 92!!!!!!! … NINETY-TWO! Amazing! … Josh was disappointed that the 92 was on a just for fun game, and not on a league game. It would have really helped to bring his average up.

We didn’t see much of Alicia yesterday… She spent most of her free time outside, playing with Darian. (Amanda was grounded for the day, and had to stay inside)… What are those girls going to do when school starts and they won’t get to play as much? *lol* Poor girls! They better enjoy it while they can!

We’re pretty sure that the issues with the computers are because of the wireless router… Right now I just disconnected the router, brought my laptop over to the modem, and plugged in the old fashion way… Kind of a pain to be here, especially with all my external hard-drives plugged in and situated at my desk. To be honest, I am too lazy to pull out the desk (which is big and heavy) to get the hard-drives. *lol* So now I am tied to the dining room table, with no access to my pictures or scrapbooking things… But that’s OK…

… Because I have currenly lost myself in the Belgariad series by David Eddings… I could have moved my computer over here sooner, but I couldn’t seem to pull myself out of my book to do so. *lol* … I haven’t read the series in more years than I can remember, so it’s nice reading them again. … I read book 1, “Pawn of Prophecy” on Sunday, yesterday I read book 2, “Queen of Sorcery”, and I am currently 1/2 through the 3rd book, “Magician’s Gambit”.

Anyway, we’re not sure if we’re going to get a new router or not… I am thinking that it would be nice to run some wire thingies from the modem, though the wall, under the house, and into the classroom/boys’ rooms. That way we can be directly connected to the modem. The wireless router has given us nothing but troubles in the last couple years, and the internet runs faster when you are directly plugged into the modem… Decisions, decisions, decisions…

Amanda lost her second tooth on Sunday… Still no drama. She just came to me with it in her hand, with a big grin on her face, telling me that she lost another one. She looks adorable! … I dont’ think she has any more loose ones right now, so for the time being, she’s done. (But both Josh and Alicia have one each that need to come out… As for Jared, it’s been AGES since he lost a tooth. I also don’t see any coming out in the near future.)

We had an early Memorial Day picnic on Saturday, at Feyrer Park. We met Joe’s parents there, as well as his sister, Debbie, and family. Also, Debbie’s FIL, Earl, came too. We just hung out and chatted while the kids played, and we BBQ’d hamburgers and hotdogs. It was a nice, relaxing afternoon.

The boys have been on a HUGE Monopoly kick. They spent the entire weekend playing the game… They would do their chores, and maybe spend an hour or so outside mid-day, but other than that, they were at the table playing the game. *lol* … I think they may have finally finished last night, because they didn’t start a new game this morning.

In the mean time, Alicia has been reading too. She is reading some Narnia Chapter books… She snuggles up on the couch next to me and we’ve been reading together.

Other than housework and the picnic, nothing much else is going on. Just a lot of reading. *rofl*

In fact, my book calls… I’ll be by later to do some blog hopping.

Alicia, our little toothless wonder!

On Thursday we took the kids back to the pool… While we were in route, we decided to call Debbie (Joe’s sister) and invite them to come join us, and they excepted (They live just a couple minutes from the aquatic center).

The kids were thrilled to have their cousins there to swim with, and all 6 of them had a great time… I don’t think they were ready to leave at 5 pm when all the kids started coming for their lessons.

It was nice for me too, because I got someone to talk to while Joe and the kids swam. *lol* Debbie and I sat on the bleachers and chatted while we watched them swim.

At 5 pm we bid them goodbye, and then buckled the kids into the Durango… We were all getting hungry, and trying to decided what to make for dinner. Both Joe and I decided that we would just eat out, because we hadn’t pulled anything out for dinner, and everyone was pretty hungry. We also decided just to grab something fast and take it home to eat it.

Now there isn’t much to choose from in Molalla, for fast food. You either have McDonald’s or Subway. Well, not a one of us wanted the golden arches, so Subway was decided and we headed over there… When we pulled into the parking lot, who should be there but Debbie and the kids! (Scott hadn’t come to the pool because he had still been at work when they left.) The kids all thought that was cool, and while I stayed in the car, they all went in with Joe to say hi to Jamie and Jacob while Joe got our dinner.

As you know, I spent the entire day on Friday painting Josh’s room, then I fell into bed exhausted by 9 pm…

Josh loves his wolf border!

On Saturday I got the wallpaper trim up in Josh’s room… I think it turned out pretty nice! I can tell that Josh loves it, if him kissing the wallpaper trim is any indication!

After Joe got home and I BBQd some chicken, potatoes, and corn-on-the-cobb for a late lunch, Joe and I got Josh’s furniture put back in his room. After the heavy stuff was in the room, Joe headed to the bed and his TV set, and Josh and I started getting his toys and things organized and put in his room… We only got around half of it done, because I was quickly getting out of the mood. *lol* … I convinced him that it would be a good time to settle in with a movie (by then it was around 8:30), and I ended up going to bed early on Saturday as well.

I woke up early on Mother’s Day, and turned on iTunes and vegged in front of an episode of “In Plain Sight” while waiting for the kids to wake up… Joe was at work, though he did send me a “Happy Mother’s Day” text.

After all the kids were awake, Josh and I got the rest of his things put away in his bedroom… I don’t have any pictures yet, because we haven’t had a chance to hang his pictures/posters yet… But as soon as we do (Joe always helps with that), I will be sure to take some and post them… I also need to make the valance for his window, and runners for the dresser and the bedstand we want to buy him (his old side table lost a leg *lol*).

Joe got off work at 8 am (he requested to get off early), and he went to Wal*Mart to pick up a few groceries (and a last minute Mother’s Day gift *lol*)… When we were last at Wal*Mart, I had pointed out a couple DVDs on the $5 rack that I wouldn’t mind having (Ever After and Aquamarine), so he picked those up along with Bedtime Stories for the kids to give me as a gift… I think he grabbed that one because he’s a big Adam Sandler fan. *lol* … But I did want to see that one too.

Debbie, Alicia, Amanda, and Jamie

At around noon we packed up the Durango and headed to Feyrer Park (a campground which is 5 miles from the house). We met Scott, Debbie, and the kids there for a Mother’s Day BBQ. We had a really nice time, just chatting and relaxing while the kids played to their hearts’ content.

You can tell that the kids are all growing up… It used to be that the 6 of them would spend a majority of their time on the playground equipment, but not anymore… Now only Alicia and Amanda are interested, while the boys and the twins would rather do things like volleyball… It’s kind of sad to see them leaving the joys of childhood behind… *sigh*

After a couple hours we put everything away in the SUVs and walked down to the Molalla River. We stayed there for a while, and let the kids play along the river bank, while we talked some more… We headed home at around 4:15.

There should be 5 candles. *lol*

Sunday was also Cuddles’ 5th birthday … It doesn’t seem possible that we’ve had her for almost 5 years now (we got her when she was 6 weeks old)! … As per tradition, we had to celebrate her birthday with a can of soft cat food and a singing of Happy Birthday. *lol* … The kids would be very upset if we forgot to celebrate her birthday… In fact, they had been telling her “Happy Birthday” all day long.

And yes, Buddy got a can of soft food too.

So far, Buddy hasn’t had anymore “spraying issues”, but we aren’t taking any chances. We’ve moved his “snip-snip” appointment from the 23rd to this coming Saturday… That will give us 2 weeks of observation before our vacation, to see if we’ve nipped the problem in the bud… Or he may be spending the week in the bathroom, which I really don’t want to do, but I will if we have to.

For now, he’s being watched All. The. Time… At all times one of the kids is on “Buddy Duty”, and if we’re all too busy to watch him, he goes in the kennel.

Here’s praying this ends soon!

In other (bad) news, we’re having troubles with the Durango… For a while now it’s been making some strange noises… Since we’ll be pulling the trailer quite a ways on our vacation, Joe wanted to get it looked at before we headed out, so last night he took it to a place in town. They messed around and told him it was his transmission. I guess where he took it don’t do transmissions or something, so they suggested a place in Sandy… When Joe went to leave Eriksons, the Durango started making a terrible noise… To make a long story short, the people from Canby had to have the Durango towed to their shop. *sigh*

What really sucks is that it’s going to cost $500 ALONE, just to have them take the transmission out and see what’s wrong. Plus we’ll have the cost of the repair on top of that. *sigh* … If our vacation wasn’t already reserved and paid for, we probably wouldn’t (shouldn’t) go… Mainly because the money for the car repair has to come out of our line of credit… It feels wrong to be going on vacation when we can’t afford to fix the car.

BUT… We haven’t had a “real” vacation since before the kids were born. We’ve gone on a lot of camping trips (4 days at the most, but usually just weekend trips), but this is the first time we’ll be gone for an entire week, and we had lots of things planned (which I will get into AFTER we come home, the internet being what it is)… The kids are REALLY looking forward to it, and we feel like we can’t cancel now… *sigh*

Pontiac Grand Am

Anyway, since our only vehicle got towed, Joe had to rent a car from Ericksons… I guess they were out of the $25 a night cheap cars, so Joe ended up with a red Pontiac Grand Am (for $35 a night)… When Joe got home the kids ran to the door to see what car Daddy had rented, and Amanda came back to me with a snicker in her voice…

“Daddy bought a girl’s car!”

Snicker