Counts Family Vacation - Day 2

A most full day indeed.  First off, I did not sleep well at all.  I spent many hours awake, for no apparent reason (perhaps a need to go to the bathroom, which I finally did at 4am, then went immediately back to sleep).  So when Zachary woke up at 6:15 AM (despite going to bed 2.5 hours later than his bedtime), I was not pleased.  I made him lie there until about 6:45 when he finally said he needed to go to the bathroom, which woke Wyatt up.  We were all pretty grumpy and tired.  Not the best start to the day.  Plus, the jumping pillow was not to open until 10am, nor the pool.  The playground however was available at 7am, wet with dew.  So at the playground we started, Art and I both dragging big time.  We finally get around to starting breakfast - pancakes & bacon.  Unfortunately, about 7 matches, and a lot of frustration later, the camp stove was not working properly.  User error for sure.  I was getting all irritated at Art for insisting that we cook on our camp stove instead of going up to the Kamping Kitchen and using the stove burners there.  After our stove went out after only 2 pancakes got cooked, I finally went and cooked the rest of the meal - pancakes and bacon - on the stove burners.  We of course apologized for our irritability.  Rescue came next in the form of a French Vanilla cappuccino for me and a black coffee for Art - thanks to the open Kamp store.  We enjoyed our liquid good mood (which made us realized we'd better buy a camp coffee percolator - we can't deal w/ the instant stuff - for our camping equip!!), while watching Zach test out the jumping pillow.

Boys showing off the arm bands they got this morning.  An orange one for Zach to show he's allowed to go on the jumping pillow ($5/day), and a white one w/ green feet on it for both Zachary and Wyatt, to show that they are allowed to go into the pool w/ parents present.  They were both pretty excited about the whole arm band thing, though this picture does not accurate portray it.

Zachary in middle, mid-air jump

Zach on the bottom, sitting. He liked to sit down and let the big kids bounce him down to the bottom

Zachary by himself on the jumping pillow when it first opened 

Wyatt was not a fan of the jumping pillow.  He went on it once or twice, but only with Mommy or DaU. 

Zachary jumping on the jumping pillow - first one of the day

After Zachary was tired of the jumping pillow, he was begging for the pool.  Art and I were reluctant, because it was overcast and we expected the water to be cold.  We tried to postpone the pool a bit by hitting the playground.

A great playground!

Wyatt was so happy - a "big swing" that he could get into himself!

But alas, it was time to go to the pool.  Which was WAY colder than I imagined.  Along the lines of Lake Michigan I think. Numbing to be in.

Wy getting a hand from DaU to get into the chilly pool

Zach climbing out of the deep end - doing a great job swimming and jumping, etc.  Loving the pool.

Zach -amazingly- going down the slide at the pool

Zachary had talked up going on this slide for days. I had shown him pictures of the pool & slide online at Lena's KOA site. He was plenty excited about it. Art and I never thought he would go through with it - too scary, and the possibility he'd go under water (a hated thing!). He was swimming around with us, walked out of the pool, and walked over to the slide. I quickly swam over to the end of the pool to make sure he'd be ok at the bottom - never thinking he'd go through with it. What a surprise! After that he did it many many times.

Much to the boy's chagrin, we had to go back to the campsite for lunch.  Even worse, we all took a shower first - oh the horror!  We got lunch (pb&j, granola bar, fruit gummies, apples, goldfish, etc) into the boys, went back to the jumping pillow for just a bit.  Then into the tent!  They were plenty tired, so it was not a major struggle for them to go to sleep.  The grandparents at the site next to us, once they saw our boys were going to bed, tried to convince their grandson that a nap was a good idea - he (age 5) did not buy it.  I too, was plenty tired.  I played (creamed) Art in 3 games of Gin Rummy before retiring to bed too.  We had gotten the boys settled onto their sleeping bags at the far edges of the tent.  This is what I saw when I climbed into the tent

I was left to try and fit in between them for my nap - not wanting to disturb them by moving them (and risk them waking up!)

I retired for a fitful (wy awoke a few times, trying to get comfy though he was sweating) hour before waking to the feel of two feet in my back and two feet in my stomach.  Lovely.  I gave up and went back outside to chat with Art (who was talking LOUDLY on the phone).  As I was leaving the tent, I snapped a picture of what I was leaving

Neither boy on their own sleeping bags!

After a seriously good nap, likely only ruined b/c it was a bit sweaty in there, it was time for - you guessed it - more jumping pillow and playground.  We stayed in the pool, debating how to organize our dinner around  wagon ride & ice cream social, both starting at 7.  We bought some firewood earlier ($5) and wanted to cook hotdogs over the fire for dinner.  It was 5pm and we were still in the pool.  What to do, what to do.  We finally decided to just boil the boys' hotdogs, and Art and I would eat ours, over the campfire, after the wagon ride.  Out of the pool and back into the showers.  I played with the boys at the playground while Art took the dirty dishes to the Kamping Kitchen sinks to wash them (so convenient!).  Then we fed the boys their dinner of hotdogs, veggie chips, tomatoes, cucumber...pushing them to eat faster and faster to get to the wagon ride.  Wyatt refused to eat, so Art dealt with him while I took the speedy eater Zach up to the jumping pillow to wait for festivities to start.  Turns out we were in the wrong place and missed the start of it all, but no loss.  While the boys and I waited in line for the next wagon ride, Art got his ice cream w/ caramel topping.

Tractor and wagon - we had to wait for the 3rd load

Boys waiting patiently in line for their turn - an attempt to pose nicely for the picture

Art & Wy on the wagon; Zach's head & the KOA song leader at the front of the wagon

The only picture I have of our campsite (taken on the wagon ride) - big dummy for not taking pictures!

After the wagon ride, which the boys loved, time for ice cream ($1/ea).  Zach was READY for ice cream, but Wyatt found a big box of basketballs and kept saying he did not want ice cream.  He had to test out every one of the basketballs first.

Zachary enjoying his ice cream

Zach's choice: vanilla ice cream, chocolate sprinkles, rainbow sprinkles, nuts

Wyatt finally deciding he wanted ice cream - with minutes to spare

After ice cream, it was getting late and dusky.  We needed to head back to the campsite and get our raging campfire started.  Unfortunately that did not occur.  We had some major errors getting it started.  Art even resorted to using camp fuel (which singed all the hair on his leg), but that didn't give a sustained fire.  A nightmare.  The boys were asking about s'mores, which we didn't bring of course, and being generally annoying (since we were frustrated) until the grandparents next to us finally brought over s'more ingredients and roasting sticks.  After a pitiful attempt at roasting the marshmallows, Zach ate his whole smore, loved it, and Wyatt put the s'more together and then gave me the graham cracker and marshmallow and ate the chocolate, then another piece.  By that time it was pretty late, after 9, and Wyatt was crashing.  I took the boys up to the bathroom for Zach to use it, and me to brush their teeth.  The fire was a bit better when we got back, but nothing like we'd hoped.  sigh.  We were total campfire failures this weekend.  Makes me sad.  Got the kids into jammies and into their sleeping bags.  Art and I finally roasted our hotdogs and ate dinner by about 9:30.  Disaster.  We were disappointed in ourselves for our bad attitudes and getting so frustrated, as well as sad about the fire.  We stayed up and chatted for 45 minutes or so, then went to bed too.  My camp pad (pool float) broke the night before, so I slept right on the sand, which wasn't too bad actually.  Over all a great day, with a few kinks in it.  One thing, we forgot about the kids craft time because we were in the pool at 11am.  Zach asked about it later, and I felt badly that we'd missed it.  We also missed the wine and cheese tasting...too busy with having fun elsewhere.