I’m currently sitting down on the esplanade at Caloundra, having a smoothie while Carmie is at her D&D group. It is gorgeous down here. I’m happy for the break, as I have had a very busy day.
I have quite a story to tell this week. We had our camping (mis)adventure this week. We have been getting ready for this little holiday for so long, buying second hand and new camping equipment. I had camping check lists, and we had to organise the food, which, for our family, is a nightmare going anywhere, let alone camping. We left on Friday after lunch, after loading up both cars with all of our equipment (which took a couple of hours). We arrived at the campsite at around 3pm. We had a great location (or so we thought), right on the lakefront at a large camp ground. It was beautiful there. It was also incredibly hot. And humid. It took us three hours (!!) to unpack the cars and completely set up camp. By the time we were done it was almost dark and we just did not have it in us to cook a camp dinner. We had snacks for dinner, and we started a fire (despite the heat) so the kids could roast marshmallows (we did not win the parenting award for nutrition that night). I barely got to sit down at all, because any time anyone needed anything, I had to get it, because I was the only one who knew where everything was. I was exhausted. We started noticing how loud the campground was. Right next to us there was a group of about 20, half of whom were kids. They had about 5 girls with them, around age 9, who decided to sing at the top of their lungs, every song they could think of with the word ‘fire’ in it. We were ready to bomb their campsite. Carmie and Arley enjoyed their marshmallows, and Jeff and I left them alone at the campfire. One of the nicest parts of the trip was seeing them roast marshmallows together and having a real conversation, without bickering! Anyway, it didn’t take long for Arley to get too hot and take himself off to bed to watch his iPad. Pretty soon Carmie followed. By 9pm, we were all in our tent, in a row, lying on our camping stretchers. I woke up after midnight with the noise of some people having a little party down near the water. I had to pee, so I took myself on a walk to get to the bathrooms, and on the way back I had the bejeezus scared out of me by a very large kangaroo bounding right by. Then I went down and asked the inconsiderate revellers to be quiet. They were swimming and drinking and playing MnM down by the lake. Got back to sleep, but at exactly 6am we were woken by about a thousand young kids screaming and splashing and playing in the lake. It was SO noisy. Not the ideal campsite after all! We lay around for a little, had cereal for breakfast, then tried to brush our teeth and wash up but the bathrooms were closed for cleaning. We made our way back to the campsite and got changed into swimmers (meanwhile Arley and Carmie - and Jeff - were all in a massive fight). I had to take Arley back to the bathrooms because he was yet to pee at all. There were little holes in all the toilet doors where the old locks had been removed, and those holes were enough to give Arley stage fright. He was refusing to use the bathrooms. I coerced him, and then I had to stand on the outside of his toilet door with my hand over the little hole, while he yelled at me that his pee wasn’t coming out. LOL. It took him 15 minutes. There were plenty of people around too. Haha. We finally got back to camp and went to pick up our kayaks that I had rented for the morning. We got two junior kayaks and two adult kayaks. They didn’t have junior paddles, so the kids were given adult paddles. Not a good start, as Arley isn’t very big and neither kid is very strong. We paddled out through all the people on the lake, and within ten minutes, Arley was done. He had gotten the hang of paddling and was quite good at it, he was just beat. And complaining. I then saw Carmie curled up on her side in the foetal position, on her kayak, floating on the lake. So I paddled over to her to discover that she was sick. So I took her into shore, back to camp. Arley thought this was terribly unfair, so he went back to camp too. I set them up on their iPads, and Arley asked to keep my phone so he could hotspot internet. Jeff and I paddled away again, got around the bend, when my mum called. I told her the trip wasn’t going so well, and while I was complaining, I realised that I was actually talking on my phone which I was supposed to leave with Arley. So I paddled back to camp again, all the while imagining the fallout from Arley not having internet (turned out he was fine!). Then Jeff and I got back into our kayaks and we just paddled into the middle of the lake until we couldn’t hear the screaming kids anymore. We actually had a moment of relaxation, but that’s when I broke the news to Jeff that I had looked at the weather forecast, and it was supposed to start raining at 11pm that night, and then rain all the next day. As I saw it, we had three choices. We could have a lovely night, spend tomorrow in the tent and then leave on Monday as planned. We could have a lovely night, then pack up tomorrow in the rain. Or we could leave that afternoon. We chose leave that afternoon. I had had enough of being hot and sweaty, and sticky and feeling dirty. The lake was only knee deep, and it was a clay bottom so the water was brown and not appealing at all. I couldn’t imagine staying there any longer in the heat, with all the screaming children. Anyway, we went back to camp and told the kids we were leaving. Arley had spent the whole time with his back to the campsite, facing a tree, while tuning out the world with his iPad and headphones. He was ready to go! We returned the kayaks and that’s when we noticed the dark grey purplish clounds on the horizon. We got started on packing up and getting the cars loaded. An hour in to packing up, the weather turned and we were suddenly in the middle of a mini hurricane. Fun times when you’re unpegging a tent! It was awful! Haha. And what made it worse is the kids were on their iPads, completely unaware, and kept asking us for things! At one point Jeff was holding down the back of the tent, and I was hanging on to the guy ropes at the front, both of us getting lashed at, and Carmie popped over to tell us that Arley wouldn’t get out of the front seat. I thought Jeff was going to kill her with his laser eyes alone! Haha. In the end, we litterally stuffed everything into the cars - the tent was a giant billowing ball and we just rammed it into Jeff’s car. We were wet, hot, sticky, muddy and hungry. We drove out of there, made it home, spent two more hours unpacking, and vowed never to go camping as a family again! OMG. Our three day camping trip ended up being less than 24 hours, and it was hell! The amount of times we all said, “Thank God we are home” is not even funny. It has taken us all week to recover, and I think I have PTSD!
Arley has pretty much refused all activities this week, and Carmie hasn’t been well. I can’t wait until she is better again. She is constantly nauseous and light-headed. Poor thing. She is booked in for her endoscopy on March 11. I hope we get some answers.
I can’t wait to relax this weekend. We are not going anywhere; staying home by the pool is all I want to do!
Arley’s final hours at the campsite. Ha ha
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