The Great Camp Out

Let me make one thing very clear before I write anything else.  I love the outdoors.  Given the option of walking or driving, I would choose walking, within reason of course.  Eat inside or out, let's eat outside.  Go to the mall, or go to the park, go to the park every time.

Let me catch you up to speed...our good friends planned a camping trip and invited a large group of us to join them.  Sure, I said to Kev, it will be a fun experience for Libby, let's go.  As the weekend for the trip approached I could feel my apprehensions growing.  Libby had been fighting a nasty cough and cold, plus I wasn't feeling 100% myself, and all of our weekends in May were quickly disappearing, My reasons for not going were mounting, but I stuck it out.  Saturday morning we loaded the car with everything but the kitchen sink for our overnight trip and hit the road.

When we arrived, about an hour south of where we live, we were greeted by our friends, temperatures that sailed past 90 degrees, and little black bugs that covered our clothes like we were the first human flesh they had ever seen.
Don't  misunderstand me, the company of good friends in the great outdoors was lovely, but every time my eyes met Kev's I pleaded with him to take me home.  We visited, picked bugs off each other, wiped the runny noses of each others babies, and played corn hole.  We spent the evening hours enjoying a scrumptious outdoor cooked meal.  Then sent the few wise families home to their beds, while the rest hunkered down for the night.

This is where it got fun...I don't know the exact times so I'm going to make it up, to make the post more interesting...
9:45- Libby is screaming hysterically so I realize it's time to take her to the tent for bed
10:30- Kev and Gus come to bed (did I mention we had the dog with us too?  Cause it wasn't interesting enough with out him) Libby is still screaming hysterically  and sweating profusely so we strip her down to her diaper and she collapsed in a heated mess on my chest and fell asleep...I did not fall asleep...I just laid there I thought about my bed and wished I had caught a ride home with the Mason's...our smart friends that left after the food got put away.
12:00-  Still awake and I have to go to the bathroom.  Remembering the wolf spider the size of my face that lived in the ladies restroom,  I decide to go behind our car.  I made Kev and Gus come out with me, we crawled back in the tent put Libby's pj's back on her and put her in her pack n play.
1:30- The Little wakes up coughing and crying uncontrollably...it was great really, Gus howled, and she got back on the air mattress with us.
2:00- Large clap of thunder and a flash of light and it started to pour.  The temperature drops and Kev asked me where the extra blanket was...Turns out it was in the car, so I gave him Libby's little square blanket and a towel, and we try to get some sleep.
Let's say 3:00 am- Kev goes to the car to get the blanket, covers us all up, we snuggle down, and it starts to rain again...pour is more like it.
Sometime after this we finally fell asleep.  I woke up the next morning to find that Kev and I were sharing a small sliver of the air mattress and Libby was sound asleep in a star formation on the rest.   I also had the distinct feeling that  something was nibbling on the the back of my leg...Seriously, I'm not making this up.
I had had Kev check it out, only to find that it was a TICK!!!!  Ahhh, I talked about how scared I was of ticks the entire day before and there one was taking a bite out of my leg.

Let me wrap this very long story up, when I change my clothes I found another one my leg, and 5 more when we got home.  When I change Libby's diaper, I found one on her, in her diaper area!!!!!  Ahhhh!  Kev found one on his stomach and poor Gus had them all over his paws.
This my friends, is why I have decided I am a deluxe cabin kind of girl. The "I'll hike with you all day, but I want my own shower, not shared with a prehistoric size arachnid" kind of girl.  The "let's have a cook out in the woods, but I'm going up to the lodge to sleep in a real bed" kind of girl.  The kind of girl that would prefer to not find 7 ticks in her pants and one attached to her baby and husband or to have to spend the better part of any evening picking through the hair of an Old English Sheepdog with a pair a tweezers hoping that we finally got  the last one.

Happy camping friends, if you need me I'll be soaking in the jacuzzi at my delux cabin, that will be surround by a tick proof bubble.
Grace and peace