Faking Homeless

Oh, what to do when your husband promises the kids that he will take them camping?

Call your friends who own an RV and "invite" them to camp with you.  :D

1.  If they are true friends (And these people really are, RV or not!) they will take pity on your sad eyes and pathetic whimpering and invite you in like a stray dog.

2.  I can only imagine that it is more fun to be homeless with people that you love spending time with but don't get to see near often enough.

This particular homeless event was scheduled to occur in Hershey, PA.  This means a road trip for the North Cackalackians.  (Did I just admit to being FROM NC?)  Jeremy had a few necessities to take care of so we went up to PA a day early.  That gave me (not near enough) a smidgen of time to see my lovely grandmother and my other kids that live with my sister the bulk of the year.

Have dogs.  Will travel.

Not happily, mind you.

Poor Semper has reached that stage of old ladyhood where she appears to have some Sundowners Syndrome going on.  She isn't very happy anywhere we go.  She paces and looks lost.  It's sad to watch, but I know she would be more miserable if we left her behind or sent her to a kennel.  This was her hanging out, doing her heavy panting routine at my Grandmother's house.

Sweet puppy.

The best part about being AuntieMa?

All those fun/bad things you WANT to do for your own kids, you can actually DO for the nieces and nephews.  We took Sarah to Target and because she is a girly princess dress up kind of gal (who has no issue with letting you know when you have crossed a line or putting her rough and tumble brothers in their place) she had to have a ring pop.  And who can say no to that beautiful face?

After a day in York, we moved on to our camping spot at Thousand Trails Campground in Hershey.  We started the getting settled part but had to take a break for pizza/subs.

So glad these boys pick right up where they left off when they were together last.

Look who is getting into the cooking!

That's Jeremy preparing my Grandmothers famous Chicken Corn Soup.

A PA Dutch favorite.  No camping trip or fall even is complete without a steaming bowl of Chicken Corn Soup.  And a Sweet Lebanon Bologna sandwich.  On white bread.  With mayo.  And crushed Martin's Chips.

Throw in some red beet eggs and a whoopie pie and it's all my favorites from my childhood all wrapped up in one meal.

I love so much about the many places we have lived, but nobody has local cuisine that's as good as what the PA Dutch serve!

The Dad's took the kiddo's fishing.  Amelia caught this all by herself!

Proud Papa and his girl.

It's a catch and release kind of thing.  Fish should be square and breaded when you first see them.

My culinary hat goes off to Rick who managed to pull off perfect dippy eggs over a camp stove.

Way to go, Chef!

Semper had her "wandering" moments while we were camping as well, but when she had her seemingly lucid moments, she was so incredibly happy.  It's nice to see her just sitting and smiling.

I know I am completely biased, but I think she is the prettiest dog I have ever seen.

Effie is very cute too.  Poor Effie had to tolerate Semper's takeover of her RV and both of them like to be boss lady, so when the kids were out playing, they did really well at just existing next to each other, but when the outside stimulation got to be a bit much, they seemed like they needed to establish a dominant dog.  I'm not sure they got around to working it completely out during the weekend, but hopefully they have figured out that it's not an island and no one is getting voted off.  ;)  Just going to have to love each other, ladies!

Leave it to Uncle Jeri-O to teach the kids how to wet the bed.

I mean become pyromaniacs.

Sorry, start a campfire.

He really is at his element when he is camping.  It is so fun to watch him being so happy and content.

The Meem's hanging out in her zero gravity chair.

(That or tent life is getting the better of her and she needs a nap.)

The first few weeks of September in PA are still a bit warm and quite humid.

That perfect chill to the air just hadn't come to PA quite yet.

My hair just kept getting bigger and more unruly as the time went by.

One morning while waiting for breakfast, Marshall said "My hair is climate controlled."

Yeah.  Me too, Buddy.  I just don't wear it as well as you do!

Abby makes friends wherever she goes.

The people at the site next to ours had this little sweetie with them one morning.  They went camping and left their kids with the grandparents.... only to come across people selling puppies in the parking lot.  The amazing part?  With no kids with them, they BOUGHT A PUPPY.  Seriously?  Who does that!?!

Throughout the course of the weekend, we would occasionally hear the kids say 

"The coffee pot has two hats!"

This would cause Beth and I to look at the regular coffee pot in the kitchen (which clearly had zero hats) and shrug our shoulders in a perplexed manner.  We figured it was some code talk with secret meaning.  It wasn't until one of our last days that I looked back in the bedroom, high on a shelf and saw the meaning of what they saying...

The coffee pot really does have two hats.

Now the world makes sense to me.

On physical assessment, you'll see that the Meem's has a full on +Camping Sign.

Dirt √

Scrapes √

Blood √

Smile √

For the price of a rather nice hotel room, we took the kids to a local GoKart/Bumper Boat/Batting Cage/Arcade type place.  I suppose it was a nice break from poking things with sticks, hanging out at the stream, making fire and running amok.

(In fairness to Thousand Trails, they have a rather nice mini golf, swimming pools and Rec center that we took advantage of as well.)

The Moosh in the lead around turn 1.

That Meem's LOVES the feeling of going fast.

Uncle Rick deciding who to decimate with his water gun.

Always be afraid of the thinkers.

One dad attacking.  Another being attacked.

Does anyone else think this looks a little unfair?

Highly trained Marine warrior vs. 8 year old

In the end, they were all soaked!

And it was humid.

So no one dried.

Man, I miss AZ!

Our Bumper Boat Warriors!

Once they were good and wet, we brought them inside for some arcade games in air conditioning.

Abby thought this game where you run yourself ragged trying to hit all the lights as they light up looked like a fun way to nab some tickets.  It's kind of like the grown up version of Whack-A-Mole.  She worked really hard.  Her hands were all over the place.

Imagine her shock when she got FOUR tickets at the end.

When our camping trip was over, we packed everything up and stopped at a Cracker Barrel together for one last group meal.  Jeremy showed NO MERCY to Caleb during a very competitive game of checkers.

But, Uncle Jeremy, you can't watch Spirit with your eyes closed!

Somebody wore himself out camping.

The kids looked out of the car window and saw Jeremy spidermanning his way into Lorry's house.

I never thought I'd hear the phrase "Daddy could be a professional burglar".

They were quite excited.

When it was all over (aka Jeremy needs to go back to work), we packed it all up and headed back home.

Mr. Regal always wears himself out playing nonstop with Riley so he sleeps all eight hours back to NC.