camping trip 2012

I'm gonna go ahead and title this Camping Trip 2012 because I'm not entirely sure they'll be another one this year.
Maybe come October when it's cold enough to kill the bugs.
Or maybe if we can find someone to take Remy for the weekend while we go without him.
Because this trip is not going down in history as one of my favorites.

Which may or may not have to do with the fact that I am covered, covered I tell you, in chigger bites right now.  And if you haven't had the pleasure; it's a well documented fact that chigger bites are some of the worst out there.  Miserable!

But let's start at the beginning.

As I rehashed earlier, we ended up with not one, but two babies for the weekend.
I really hadn't much hesitation in adding Miya to the trip... I knew she'd be pretty laid back and chill and go with the flow and probably a relatively easy camping baby. 
And aside from a 3am ugly diaper, she did absolutely fine.

It was the juggling of the two of them, plus the dog who was all new to this as well, that made it a lot of work.
And the fact that Remy had a few meltdowns.
He's just not the mellow, easy going kind of baby that we're used to around here.
Like you know how we took Miya with us on our big trip to Oregon?  Honestly, I wouldn't even think of bringing Remy along with us. First off, I'd be terrified of a plane trip with him.  Terr. If. Fied.
And toting him around to different houses, different beds, new people, etc... it'd do us all in, I'm afraid.

Don't get me wrong, he's gotten much, much better than where we were a month ago.  But it seems change and anything out of the routine really throws him for a loop (hope your stint in foster care is short and sweet buddy!) and once he's had enough... look out, because there's no going back!

Anyway.
The camping trip was fun.
If you minus the baby drama and being host to 117 chigger bites.
Which means if you take me out of the equation, the weekend was fabulous! ;)

We went for a hike Saturday morning, which was really nice.  And long.  And nice.
We sort of got "lost"... not realizing the path we took would be SO LONG and debating every quarter mile whether we should turn around or not.  We kept thinking it HAD to loop around just around the next bend.... but it just kept going and going and going...
And there's us with our two giant puppies, a baby in a backpack, another one in a front pack, and two overtired kids who were done about a mile in.  And we of course had no snacks because we thought we were going for like a 20-30 min walk and would be back in no time.
Four miles later...  ;)
It was an adventure, that's for sure!

Random hiking pics...

After the hike, after we discovered the million chiggers all over us (I'm probably not exaggerating) and when Rem had his third meltdown, is when I loaded up the babies and headed home to a shower and air conditioning.
So I missed out on the rest of Saturday which pretty much consisted of Ryan and the bigger kids taking little kayak trips down the river while K & J entertained our dogs at the riverbank.
Everyone said they had lots of fun wading and rowing and even though I'm bummed I missed out and that no one took any pictures(!!) I'm glad it was a fun day.
They of course did more s'mores that night and had a good nights sleep before packing it up and heading home Sunday morning.

I think if we can go sans baby (and contained in a bubble of DEET) we'll try again this fall.
I do so long for the ideal relaxing, no real agenda, kids playing in the river, watching the stars, hanging out by the fire camping trips I miss.
You know, the one they all got to experience after I left!!