Traveling

At the end of the school year we pulled out the calendar sorted out all of our obligations for the summer and blocked off a week in August for a family vacation. This would be our first family vacation of our choosing since 2007, we were super excited to be able to spend a week doing what we wanted to do where we wanted to do it. We tossed around many ideas and finally settled on camping for a week in the Big Horn mountains, hiking, fishing, swimming, shooting, and relaxing out of cell range. As the summer wore on, our excitement increased as we came to realize how nice a relaxing week would be right before getting back to school for the fall.

We set up camp a day early to ensure we got the site we wanted, our plan was to camp the 7-17th of August with Daddy coming back down the 8th to his final day of work before our highly anticipated vacation started. Thursday, August 7, I made a trip to Sheridan for food and other necessities for our vacation, on my return home my mom called to let me know her mother-in-law passed away. After much discussion we decided that being there for my mom took precedence over our planned vacation. We camped in our vacation location on Thursday night since our camp was already set up, then Daddy drove home to work Friday while I unpacked camp and headed down the mountain.

Friday night we drove six hours down to my brother's house, then joined him on the trek across Kansas the following morning. We stopped frequently for gas, food, potty breaks, etc.  We arrived in Kansas Saturday afternoon with all of our camping gear in tow and prepared to set up camp. An hour later we had the Jeep and trailer unpacked, tent set up and everything situated for the evening, albeit drenched in sweat from head to toe and sporting a dozen bug bites each.

We spent the week sweating and reminiscing our previous lives in Kansas, but tried to make the most of the trip despite the circumstances. We visited my grandma; we got the kids a pool for the campsite; we went to the lake to swim, play in the sand and fish; fished in the creek; did some shooting; went to the fair and let the kids ride the carnival rides; ate at some of our favorite places; saw some old friends; went to a parade and demolition derby. The smiles on the kids faces on the carnival rides was priceless Mr N  rode the Ferris wheel with his older cousin with the biggest smile on his face, the squeals of excitement at the demolition derby are memories that last a lifetime.

We chose not to attend the viewing on Friday evening, but Saturday was full with the funeral, graveside services and family dinner. Mr N did surprisingly well with all three events in one day and even ate three rolls at the dinner.

However, Mr N's eating was poor, at best, all week; barely eating a thing many days but chugging lots of water all week long. I'm not sure if it was the traveling, stress or humidity that effected his eating so much but I'm inclined to think it was a combination of everything. The heat wasn't as bad as the humidity, we woke up wet and went to bed wet, dried off with wet towels, and ditched our wet tent after two and a half nights. We spent the rest of the time bunking with my brother's family in their camper, it was a wonderful reprieve.

We began our trip home Sunday morning with two children begging to eat every couple of hours, they had found their appetite once again. By the time we got to Denver we had fed them five meals, we stopped for two more meals in the last six hours of our trip and they both had 3-5 snacks, too. It was unbelievable the amount of food they ate on the return trip, today they showed no signs of slowing down the consumption of massive amounts of food.

Cancelling our vacation had it's effects on our emotions, but we are determined to get something scheduled in the near future.