Where Did I Leave Off

Oh yeah. We get to our camp site and it is darker than dark.


We opened up the doors and before WE could even get out, the dogs are climbing over each other and the seats to get the hell out of the car. Hubbs wanted to let the kids out to run around while we set up but I wanted to leave them in their car seats, out of harms way.


Unfortunately, Hubbs won the argument. And guess who got to chase after them? Bingo! Me. But it turned out to be in my favor. Hubbs had to set up the tent and I convinced the boys to help me unload all the boxes and bags from the HHR.


I would love to have been someone watching us set up camp. It must have been a hell of a show. The dogs were chasing each other, the kids were chasing the dogs, I was chasing the kids and trying to find kicked off shoes at the same time as I was trying to make camp comfortable and keep Duke from peeing on everybody and everything that wasn't nature.


Oh, and Hubbs got lucky enough to be the one to set up the tent. Alone. In the dark. With only the HHR's headlights to help him see. Ha! Next time he will let me leave the kids buckled in their car seats so I can help.


So everything gets unloaded and set up without too much drama. The boys decide they want marshmallows RIGHT THIS MINUTE! Hubbs took Monk Man to gather fire wood and Bobblehead stayed with me to find those damn marshmallows. The marshmallows are found and we have a pretty good sized stack of wood. Hubbs loads the fire pit full off wood and cardboard. He couldn't get anything to stay lit. I bet he went through 10 matches before he finally asked for some help. I sent him off to get some more wood and I get to work finding all the newspapers I had bought that morning and stashed under the seat so the coupons wouldn't get stomped on before I got them home. I am embarrassed to admit how many newspapers I found. It was like 10.


I grabbed the papers over to the fire pit where Bobblehead was sitting with his thumb in his mouth. Apparently he found a little plant that we used to call Boy Scout Toilet Paper, tore off a leaf and really liked the texture of it. Ok, so he is occupied. I yell for Monk Man to get his ass over to me so I could teach him and his daddy how to light a fire.


Hubbs walks up with an attitude like, how are YOU going to start a fire when I couldn't. Silly men. I got them started ripping up the paper and scrunching them into balls about the size of a grapefruit. I started making a tepee out of the sticks. When the paper was balled up and the tepee was up, I made them stuff the paper inside the tepee while I held it steady. When it was full of paper, I lit the paper on the bottom.


It worked like a charm. Minutes later we had a fire bright enough to be able to turn off the headlights. The boys got their marshmallows and I got to gloat a little.


Speaking of marshmallows....I found the greatest cooking sticks! 2 different kinds, single prongs and double prongs. The double ones extend and are great for cooking hot dogs on and the single ones are great for marshmallows.


After the boys are full of sugar, we turn them loose to run around. They had 1 stipulation, to stay within the light. If the campfire didn't reach it, they didn't get to go to it until the morning. They actually obeyed! While they were running around, Hubbs and I sat on an ice chest and snuggled. Snuggling is a very rare thing. Always has been. I have issues with being touched (long story) and he has issues with PDA.

The kids finally get tired and actually start begging to go to bed. They are SO excited to get to sleep somewhere new. They have a case of the giggles for about half an hour but eventually pass out. Hubbs and I stayed up way too long poking the fire, talking and stuffing ourselves silly with junk food that we had hid from the boys.

Sometime in the middle of the night, the dogs woke me up. They were growling at a forest creature and I could hear that forest creature munching away at the bag of dog food I must have forgotten to put away. I have no idea what that forest creature was because I was too scared to look out of the tent.

When the boys woke me up at the ass crack of dawn, we went on a little walk I wanted to see if I could find tracks or something and the boys just wanted to run around. Well, while we were walking around I found a trail of Reese's peanut butter cups leading away from our camp. Hubbs must have left his candy bag out and the forest creature found it after it found the dog food. I took one of the candies back to camp to show Hubbs because it had an enormous tooth print in it. He said he thought it had to have been a raccoon. I was convinced that it was a Yeti. LoL Yes, a Yeti in Arizona. I always have had an overactive imagination.

Well, whatever it was, it scared the shit out of me. And I learned my lesson about making sure EVERYTHING was put away. The last thing I need is to lay awake at night worrying that something is going to eat the dogs. The kids, not so worried about. They would just annoy the hell out of the forest creature until it brought them back.

This is turning in to a painfully long post so I will pick up where I left off sometime tomorrow.