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Alaska – Boys perspective

Posted on January 10, 2018January 28, 2018 by Sherri

This year we took an actual family vacation to Alaska! Chip and I were so excited to show the boys the beauty. One requirement is that they write about their vacation. So, I’ve pasted their thoughts below, with punctuation and small edits, but wanted to preserve their 10-year-old and 7-year-old thoughts. Enjoy!

My Alaska Fall Vacation – By Gary McVey, age 10

Hello there! I’ve never written a blog post, so this is my first one! This essay is about my fall vacation to my first time in Alaska! Let’s get started!

DAY 1

The first plane left at about 8:30 PM. When we got on the plane, we saw the economic seats first, unlike seeing first class when you get on, mostly. The seats were cramped, and I got the aisle seat. Next to me sat my brother, Ryan. He said that I could have the window seat on the next plane. The plane flight lasted 1 hour. Then we landed in Seattle. The next plane we got on was much nicer. The seats were the same, though. But the top of the sides of the walls was glowing blue. Also, the plane had wi-fi and chargers. When we got to the airport, we got some snacks from McDonald’s. But we still got hungry, and thirsty. Dad couldn’t do anything about the hunger, but he gave us $3 to get a drink from a drinks store across our seats. After that, we rented a gray Dodge van and started toward our friend’s apartments.

DAY 2

When we got to the apartment, it was 1:30-ish. When we woke up the next day, we just had a refreshment day. Nothing special or anything, just going to the park and watching water planes. We also went to a breakfast restaurant called Gwennie. They had the biggest eggs and hot chocolate ever. The cups were almost 3 inches wide, filled to the brim, and whipped cream about another 2 inches up. We ate and had so many leftovers. Then we went home. But Celia said that we would do SO many THINGS, such as going to the wildlife reserve, going to the aquatic sea life center, and going to Talkeetna and much more. It sounded fun, but it was a lot, and it was hard to keep up on my youtube channel. But I did get a lot of pictures! [and yes, I did take all of these]

DAY 3

On day 3 we were up on our feet right away, with an hour drive to the Alaskan Wildlife Reserve. The first thing we did when we stepped out looked at the ptarmigans and magpies. Then we went in a barn-looking building and saw TWO HUGE DEER! Then we look behind us and see a red fox and a white fox! It was super cool! But that’s not all. There was also a buffalo hide! But not just any hide, it was from a buffalo that was near-extinction. After that, we went to check out the reindeer. The reindeer are like the deer, except their antlers, are taller and they are smaller. After that, we went to see THE BEARS!!!

There were three brown bears and two black bears. I asked the employee if any were grizzlies, but she said that you can’t really find grizzlies in Alaska. Then the lady said that she was going to feed the bears, and threw a whole fish into the bear enclosure. The bear sniffed at it, then carried it in his mouth. Then, we went to the gift shop. On the way, It was raining hard, so I saw a lilac with a raindrop on the leaf and grabbed the opportunity to grab a picture, and let me tell you, the angle was BEAUTIFUL. You probably wouldn’t believe me if I said I took it. Anyway, after we were done in the gift shop, we went to see the wolves and porcupines. We saw a black wolf, a white wolf, and a dark-gray wolf. When we went to see the porcupine, it stayed in its hut the whole time. Even if there was no fence, the porcupine would’ve stabbed me in the hand or shot me with its spikes if I tried to scare or grab it out. Then, last, we left.

DAY 4

On day four we went to the Alaskan sea life center. When we entered, there was a gift shop and coats and hats and stuff. Then there was a staircase. When I went up the staircase, I saw a lot of stuff. I even SAW NEMO! Just kidding, but I saw clownfish. The first thing I went to was the touch tank. I got to touch sea urchins, starfish, coral, and even shrimp! The next thing I went to was the salmon. They weren’t king, but they were pink salmon. They were kind of red, but a little lighter. After that, I went to the catfish. I’ve always been into watching catfish since I was 6 years old and I saw one at Cabelas. The catfish there were huge and gray. The second to last thing I went to was the window. I saw two otters! But they went to the bottom of the water, and, impatiently, I left. The last thing I went to was the seals. They were both leopard seals. They were gray with dark spots along their bodies. Also, in the basement, I saw octopus, the wolf eel, and the bottom of the seals diving pool. When you go to the basement, you can see the seals doing spins, turns, and dives! It was so amazing to be there! But then we had to go home.

DAY 5

On day five we were going to go on the Alaska railroad train! On the train, it was like the plane, except you are allowed to go between cars. I like to stand on the parts that hold the cars together. I like feeling the wind on my face and the ground wobbling on my feet. The train took about 1 hour and 30 minutes. I got pictures of Denali peak and pioneer peak. Then, me and my other brother, Ben, started wandering the train. Then, when we got off, it was about seven o clock PM. Then we went home and played football and watched Chopped: Champions on TV. Then we went to bed.

DAY 6

On day six we just stayed home, just like day 2. Except we were at Celia’s estate and we played football with our cousin James, who is 20. Then, I played my favorite game, ROBLOX, on dad’s work mac that he brought for business purposes, but he was nice enough to let me play for an hour or so. Then, Carter got jealous and asked James to play him, but he said no, so he took the laptop from me and started being an ugly fat pig and hogged it for the rest of the night. I didn’t care though, because he can be jealous and piggy all he wants, as I can play ROBLOX on mobile on the devices we brought, too. So I took one to my room and played as the fat pig who took the laptop will get it shut off in about 30 minutes (;

DAY 7

Well, we’re coming near the end of our vacation, but then we had Christina’s roommate, Rose, come over and she showed us a contraption similar to a unicycle except electrically powered and no handles. Kind of a mix between a hoverboard and a unicycle. You balance your feet on the two footpads on each side of the wheel. Then, you lean forward to go and go normally to stop. DO NOT LEAN BACK or you will slip and break your neck. Just Kidding, but you will hurt your back. Maybe your head, too. I don’t know. But one thing for sure, don’t lean back, or you will get hurt.

DAY 8

Once again, we didn’t do anything today, either. We just started packing our stuff together and getting ready to go. This is also when rose left and we stayed up late watching snow dogs. We fell asleep around 11:30 PM.

DAY 9

Well, this is our last day in Alaska, and my last entry. When we woke up, we got breakfast, and then Christina woke up. When we were about to leave, we gathered up all the devices and stuff, said goodbye to Christina, Celia, and James. We watched one last episode of Chopped, then loaded the bags into our rented van. Then, we went to the airport. When we were waiting, we went to the charging station to charge our devices. Then dad and mom were moving their arms telling us to move up. Then, we got on the same plane we got on to get to here and flew to Seattle. After we got to Seattle, it was about 1:30 and it was dark, man. When we got on the plane to Portland, it took 2 hours, so it was 3:30 am. Then when we got on the 3-hour flight from Portland to Nevada, it was light, and we called up our friend Joe to come pick us up. By then it was 8:47 am. So we didn’t go to sleep, we just lived back to normal in Nevada. Then, I slept really late for the next morning. I slept until 10:30 AM.

This is the end of my report, so I hope you enjoyed this post on my Alaskan vacation! Thanks for all the people there for really bending it up and shifting it. It really gave me an opportunity to try new things and loosen up. Written by Gary McVey, Age 10

Alaska report – Benjamin

Day 1

The first thing we did was pack our bags with clothes, and extra socks. We packed our backpacks with snacks, a device, a charger, and a notebook (me), and then, once we were done, we hit the road.

Day 2

We were stuck in the airport when the first day turned into the second. Just then, our plane was ready for passengers to board. Then Gary, Ryan, carter and I went on our first plane flight. Gary was taking cool pictures while sitting by the window. He probably took pictures of the city and the lights. What wasn’t fun was that the plane popped my throat and my ears were dead. Luckily, I had earbuds to stop the ear problem. Then we landed to Seattle.

Day 3

Now the test began. We were on our feet as soon as our feet touched Seattle ground.

We were trying to see what time the next plane came. We had a couple hours to get stuff done, so first thing I did was go to the charging station and charge my tablet I got for my tenth birthday. Then I told dad I was hungry and mom and dad said that we should go to McDonald’s. We got big macks. Then, we only had like an hour until our next flight. So we had to use the bathroom quickly, and get to the plane gate. We had enough time to get to the bathroom and to the gate. We still had to wait though. Apparently, we got to the gate earlier than we thought. We had to go through security and that’s when…it… happened

We went through the metal detector, we put our bags on the conveyor… and then something dangerous got detected inside Ryan’s backpack.

It turns out that Ryan had strangely had an army knife. Mom told the people to confiscate the knife that was in Ryan’s backpack. And then mom got a little bit mad at Ryan. That was the knife incident.

Then we boarded the plane. It was a really long. It was like 2 or 6 hours of flying. Ryan slept a lot of the way. Gary watched “King Kong Skull Island”.

Carter was asleep too and I was playing my tablet and munching on cookies and drinking coke. It was some good times. I was playing “Earn to Die 2” while most were sleeping on Alaska seeking ship. Then we landed. We finally set foot on Alaska ground! After that, we rented a van and drove over to Nina’s condo/apartment and hung around for a while. I played my tablet and we all relaxed after hours of flying from Nevada to Alaska. We watched a movie and relaxed and ate some real dinner of pizza and pink lemonade. Best day of my life. I liked the movie even though most of it was cartoon stuff instead of real graphics.

The movie was called Balto. It was about a dog named Balto who wanted to be in the Iditarod. There was this other dog that was the antagonist of the story. He didn’t want Balto to be in the Iditarod, so he made Balto seem like a wolf even though he was past being a wolf and is a normal dog. But eventually, Balto gets the medicine to the town who started the whole Iditarod. The town needed it because their children were sick and the cures didn’t work. So they needed their dogs to get the medicine. Then we went to sleep in Nina’s apartment. The next morning we started Alaska bingo where this leads to day 4

Day 4

The first thing we did on day 4 looked around for stuff on our bingo sheet. We found a squirrel, and I marked a squirrel off. Then, we went to an ice cream place and I got bubble gum ice cream. It was really good! It had bubble gum inside of it. Gary got moose tracks (which was obvious) I’m pretty sure it was good too. I was surprised to hear that the highest Alaska has ever got to (in temperature) was 102 degrees. To think Alaska is cold!

Alaska Trip – Ryan

Hello there! I have never written a blog before so I hope you enjoy, this blog is about what we did in Alaska over my fall break.

First, we left at around 8 to go the airport, the first plane was 2 seats. I sat next to Gary we had McDonald’s before we left, then we got to Seattle. For October, the air was cool, I always like Seattle fresh air. After that, we got on another plane to fly to Anchorage, that plane was 3 seater, ben, Gary, and Carter had to sit by each other, but I got all the seats to myself. While we were on the plane, I slept through the 2-hour flight until we got to Anchorage, then we rented a Dodge van, then went to our friend’s apartment. On the next day, we went to Miller’s ice cream to start the day off. What is weird is we had ice cream before breakfast. Millers had the biggest ice cream I have ever eaten. Shortly after that, we went to Gwennie’s. They had the best omelets I have ever had. They had, cheese, bacon potatoes, and much more. Before we ate, we had the biggest hot chocolate I have ever drunk. After that we went to a house, condo type of house that we rented for around 2 days.

The next day goes by, it was a rainy day, we went to see animals, they were awesome!

We saw elk, foxes, moose, bear, and a lot more animals! Then on the 2nd to last day, we went to see water animals I saw a jellyfish, 2 white seals, normal seals, an octopus. I also saw a lot more things but I got to touch a sea urchin, a starfish, and much more! On the last day, we didn’t really do anything, we just hung out playing board games watched movies and lots more. Then came when we had to leave it was around 1:30 am when we left. I don’t remember when the plane left but we were stuck at Portland for a while, shortly we got home around 11:30.

Alaska Trip – Carter

Our family decided to take a fun trip to Alaska on fall break.

When I was on the plane it was a fun ride and it was my first time flying. I sat there and played games a little. It was a long flight to Seattle. Then we went to the Seattle airport to get on our way to the Alaska plane. It was really awesome. The plane was blinking red and green it was cool. Then after that, the people on the plane brought us snacks. They were really good!

When I was in Alaska I got to the apartment we unpacked our stuff we got organized. We took our food out and we ate a little bit then we got our Air mattresses up I got in bed.

Then when we woke up we went out to go get Gwenies I got strawberries with whipped cream and a big hot chocolate with a bunch of marshmallows and whipped cream. And then we went back home and then we just went to a lake and we saw big water planes with skis on the bottom.

And then we went to go get lunch at a fish place I got a big salmon burger it was good. And then we went up to Talkeetna and the cat was a mayor can you believe that?

Then we went to a restaurant at that time I got fish and chips.It was good. After that we went to the beach I went and collected rocks then we went to get on the train and off we went on the train and then we went to our friend’s house. She has a big house her name is sillya. She is funny we stayed at her house for a couple hours and then at night we had fish for dinner. Halibut cheeks, salmon and a really good dip. We had a big dinner and then we stayed up for a long time and then we went to sleep. After that, we went out to go eat again and then we went to our Nina’s house and we went to the park. Her friend named Rose brought her electric unicycle. She let us ride it a lot and then we went on the swings. And then we talked for a little then we went back home to play some board games they were fun then we rode the train to Seattle and then we went to the airport flew out of Seattle then to the Reno airport then we went home.

Vacation Part X – Oregon to Nevada

Posted on July 20, 2014January 25, 2018 by Sherri

We made our way through McDermott, hotter than hell and then we get the amazing welcome of the sign on the door that read “bathrooms for customers only”. WHATEVER. not happening. We have 5 kids and they all need to pee. I do too. So not in the mood for anymore. No one stopped us or said anything. There was also another small problem I was having on top of all the rest…I had these weird bites on my legs that were very itchy and painful. I felt terrible overall. I just could not shake these weird bites of whatever they were. I was beyond miserable. Add to that that when we got to Winnemucca, my mom’s gate was locked. She had gone fishing. OMG…could this get worse? Still 106 degrees outside and oh man…it was rough. And I still had to get our 1/2 beef. And I was exhausted. And I was in pain. Perfect storm. Chip threw the stuff we needed over the fence and we climbed the fence. Luckily I had a key to the house. We overnighted at moms. Next morning, hubs loaded up all the stuff and kiddos and headed home in a jam-packed minivan. I stayed behind to get the meat in the big ole diesel pusher Dodge. The final leg of the McVey Vaca. This was fun, but not without its own bunch of crazy, and a lot of driving.

I’m still having trouble with my legs/feet. Finally, I was able to pick up our beef. Jim’s wife commented on my legs/feet when I picked up the boxes of beef. I felt like a lepper. It was all I could do to get that loaded and get going. I high tailed it out of there because I too was worried about my legs/feet and wanted to (hopefully) get to an urgent care. I had reached my max. The itching. The heat. The kids. The lack of air conditioning. I made my way out of the Mucc, headed for Reno and over to St. Mary’s Quick Care at Walmart about 15 minutes before they closed. Because it was so hot, Chip came and grabbed the truck and I would take the minivan home. I walk in and they say it’s too late and I can’t be seen. At that moment, it was so overwhelming. The tears came. I was so DONE. There was no more to give. I begged them. Luckily they saw me. It was flea bites. From somewhere. Really? Great. Just great. Then I had to trek over to CVS for antibiotics. Wow. Amazing.

Regardless of all of that, a big, huge THANK YOU to all of those who housed, fed, partied, laughed, and put up with invasions of the McVey family. It’s quite a big undertaking to take on 7. Hopefully, we didn’t leave too much devastation as we left each place. We’re grateful to all that we were able to share special times with so many. Friends and family that we didn’t get to see, we are sorry we couldn’t make it happen. We hope to get up to WA/OR again soon. Now a week from now I must start to work hard to remove some of the vacation food and drink indulgence weight gain. Gillian was a trooper too. Hard to be tied to a bunch of rambunctious little boys for days on end when you’re right smack in the middle of being a teenager. Chip, Gill and I had some great conversation about all of it on our last night. Wish I had one more day to breathe, but it is what it is and we’ve had a fun time with our travels. Thank you hubs for packing, unpacking, packing and unpacking with all the kiddos in tow.

Vacation Part V – Oregon Tigard

Posted on July 14, 2014January 20, 2018 by Sherri

So we get up early to leave, Chip packed the car super fast as I gathered, herded and managed to get myself ready. Neither Chip nor I had a chance to get anything to eat. We were hyper-focused on leaving to avoid Seattle traffic. This would definitely come back to haunt us.

Off to Oregon way we went! We managed to leave Dawn and Rusty’s around 10:30 or so, give or take 30 minutes. We knew it would be bad, but not how horrific this day would be. 5 mph on I-5. Seriously. I was trying so hard to be calm. After a while, it was just infuriating. Especially considering the hunger factor. I tend to go from zero to bitch in about a millisecond when I’m frustrated and hungry. It was all I could do to not hurt our children in the car with me as I was spouting off at Chip how horrible it was as the hours wore on. I wanted it to be his fault. It so wasn’t. It really wasn’t. As the day wore on, if traffic allowed for 20 mph it made me super happy.

Of course it IS July. It IS hot out. No, we don’t have snacks. Arrrrrrggggghhhhh. This went on for a few more hours. Finally at about 3:30p we got off the God awful freeway and made our way to a Jimmy John’s Deli. We had never been there before, so ordering was interesting. I desperately wanted a drink…if only drinking and driving were legal. And…I was still itching. A lot.

Adding insult to injury, the speed limit in Oregon is 55 mph. Finally at about 6:30 or so, we managed to reach Danny and Jamie’s. Thank god we had cold wine! It was so fabulous to visit with Bunny, Bill, Danny and Jamie. It was way too quick at less than 24 hours, but we crammed in all of the wine and conversation that we could. The kids enjoyed the cat, but Ryan had a little reaction. No, we didn’t punch him.

After wayyyyyy too much wine, I went to bed. Chip, Bunny and Bill stayed up and enjoyed more wine and conversation. As soon as the alcohol had worn off, I was awake. Off to Fred Meyer I went. Early in the morning, the store was quiet. As I roamed the beautiful store, it made me nostalgic for my Alaska home. I remembered how much I enjoyed shopping at Fred Meyer out on Dimond. Amidst my thoughts of home, I gathered up sausage and biscuits because I was set to make the best hangover food ever! Biscuits and gravy. I found all of my ingredients but made no hurry of leaving the store. I was reliving my past in Anchorage. God how I miss that place. Living there. And the people.

Anyway, back to Horton’s I went and whipped up some breakfast while everyone, with cobwebs in their head and all made their way through the morning. Chip and I quickly packed up because we had to get to Winnemucca within the next 24 hours or so to pick up our half beef. Always something. Always a deadline. Made it feel like it was not a vacation. Oh yeah, I was still itching. Bad. Really bad.

Vacation part IV…Washington

Posted on July 11, 2014January 20, 2018 by Sherri

So we got on the road from Othello and headed over to Washington. It was, theoretically, a 4 1/2 hour drive. So we took off about 9 or so.

It seemed to take forever to get over into Western Washington, but boy when we did, we knew it. Seattle was horrible to navigate through. It wasn’t even rush hour, it was right around noon time. Oh.my.god! The amount of traffic we encountered was atrocious! That slowed us down by an hour probably.

Once out of the mess of Seattle, we headed out to Dawns in Sedro-Woolley. Before we got there, somewhere around Bellingham, we stopped at a Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch. It was later in the afternoon and we were so hungry. I could have eaten my arm. So we walk in and we stand. Restaurant has a few people eating. I mean it’s late afternoon. Around 2 or so. There were a few different choices for eating in the complex we were in, so we opted for something we knew would be okay. Buffalo Wild Wings has never been a favorite. When we think of them, we think mediocre or less.

So we walk in and we wait. People walk by and then we wait some more. Finally a third person takes us to our table. Then we wait some more. By now I’m about ready to lose it because I just couldn’t take it anymore. So we get an appetizer. No plates. No extra napkins. Takes a while for that to arrive. Then we wait some more. No one says much, they just go about their business. No sense of urgency. Food comes out and we eat. Not impressed, not impressed at all. In fact it was disappointing. I should have taken to Yelp right there, but I didn’t not worth my time.

So then we arrived at my sisters. YAY! Cousins finally got to meet. It was fabulous! The kids took to the video games right away. Aurora showed them the dance game via connect and they tried to show her Call of Duty. Um yeah…no. It was funny because the boys seemed surprised that she hadn’t seen it before. Between the five of them they settled on a Spongebob game.

Ben went right into the kitchen with Auntie. It was SO cute!

Boys playing video games at Dawns

We only had a few days with Dawn, so we made the most of it. Dawn whipped up a great breakfast the next morning and we headed out to the lake cabin. Oh.my.gosh! We had no idea how much fun we would have! The place is so beautiful. Truly.

Of course, we had to spend a lot of time packing vehicles and all of that, so we had a bit of a slow start. Worth every bit of effort.

All of the kiddos and adults suited up for a fabulous day on the lake. The cabin is about 30 minutes from Dawn and Rusty’s. Once we drove in, we saw a beautiful lake. We got everyone into their life jackets and swim gear. It didn’t take anyone long to be in the water and to head out to the party barge. Dawn had a great BBQ planned along with sparklers for the kids…the boys had never done those before.

Then we got out the s’mores equipment and the fishing poles. Dawn and I, being the tough Alaska chicks that we are, we did all of the hooking and weighting for all 6 poles. Yes, 6 poles. She secretly told me that she didn’t think there was any fish in the lake, but we kept that between ourselves. Everyone had a great time trying though!

The next day…only one more day in Washington…we treated all of us to a 3D movie! We all donned the glasses and saw “How To Train Your Dragon 2”. Really, really good! Definitely worth seeing in 3D. The kids had so much fun! Mostly because of the massive amount of popcorn and soda they were permitted to ingest. Hahahahaha.

Dawn headed back with the kiddos and Chip and I headed to the Walmart to replace the crappy tent that bit it at the beginning of the trip. So, like smart peeps, we bought 2 smaller tents to replace the 10 man. Then the boys have theirs, we have ours and Gillian could have her own.

That evening we snapped some family pics and did s’mores and of course enjoyed wine. It was such a quick visit, but so happy we could make it happen. So lucky that Dawn has a big house that we could invade for a few days.

I think all of us enjoyed this special time. I know it won’t be another 7 years before we see each other again. Thank you my seester. We had a blast!

So the next morning we packed it up. Chip did an amazing job of getting both vehicles loaded. Buh-bye Washington! Hello Oregon. Oh yeah…I was STILL itching. Only worse.

Vacation…part II

Posted on July 6, 2014December 31, 2014 by Sherri

Up we rose the next day, cleaning up the trailer, getting ready, packing up the truck and van. Being so type A, it was good for me to let go and let C. head up the project…for the most part. I will be finding out more about this later on in our trip.

We finally take off, headed to Ontario, OR. It’s gonna be a long day of driving. There isn’t a lot of things to see, outside of desert scrub, along the way. Honestly, it’s one of the most boring drive every, with the high points being a bar in Orvada, NV and then another in McDermott, NV, that claims to not be friendly, because no one is welcome to use the bathroom unless you’re gambling. Whatever. Seriously.

We make our way into OR and then into ID to make our way back to Ontario, OR. We hit a bit of a snag in ID when a truck had caught on fire and we are stopped at the fire. Screaming halt to progress. I mean serious halt. Traffic backed up for quite a few cars, indicating that it will be quite some time. We think it’s a forest fire initially. Nope. Well, that’s kinda good, so at least the earth isn’t on fire. However, a vehicle is and and we must wait…and wait…and wait. To the tune of at least an hour or more. Again, almost 100 degrees like in Winnemucca.

We finally get the go ahead to head down the road. We do and try to get to Ontario and the state park with a vengeance. We roll up with both the truck and the van, different than we had reserved, which was our trailer and our van. Person at the little hut says no problem. Great. We’re really happy.

We roll into our little space, between a cabin and other tent camp spaces. This was meant to be for a trailer but whatever. C. and I begin to grab tents and get ready to go because we know we’re working against daylight. Boys have a innate ability to understand that we are busy and may be under pressure. This is license to jack. Jack as in “jack around”. As in be difficult and understand that we are busy and play on it. As in try to screw with each other knowing we can’t possibly police it all.

On the flip side, the 4 man tent went up great. The 10 man, well, that was a whole different story. We try and we struggle. All of the pieces, some connected, so not. Some higher than the other and some not. We have to figure out what is what. Once we do…at least 1.5 hrs. later…a huge windstorm kicks up. This is not a breeze. This.is.a.windstorm. The big tent, which took incredible effort to get to stand up, becomes like a sail. No trees to protect it. Nothing but the river behind and a RV pad around. Definitely not a recipe for success. Wind continues to blow. Big tent collapses. Big tent pipes to hold it up bend and break. No 10 person tent for 7 people. OMG. What the heck do we do? Never mind we had planned to roast hot dogs over a fire for dinner. That ain’t gonna happen. If we light a fire, there’s a good chance that the whole park could catch on fire. It’s now getting later. Approximatley 8p to 9p. Still no dinner for the kiddos and only one tent. Not looking awesome. Not at all. I’ve had a couple of glasses of wine, so I’m somewhat calm. Everyone else, not so much. All the kids are crying. Tired, hungry and have a group that has absolutely zero passion for tent camping are a recipe for a complete cluster…and it was. C. wants to go to a hotel, G. is crying, boys are crying. I somehow find a voice.

“We will be fine.” “There is no need for a motel and we will get through this.” “It’s called camping” is what I say. This is easier for me because I’ve had two glasses of wine and I can deal with everyone freaking. By now it’s like 10p or so. Nothing good is coming from it. We know the 10 man tent is so toast that we will have to get really creative about sleeping arrangements.

While contemplating the sleeping arrangements with only 1 four man tent and the van and truck, it’s gonna be interesting. G. right away asks to sleep in the van. Um OK…she’s taken care of.

What about those 4 boys and the 2 ‘rents? Gotta make it work. So the kiddos pile into the 4 man tent and we see that we will have to do this. So, that leaves C and I to either sleep in the truck or somehow squeeze into the tent. We opt for the tent since we have a good air bed that we just bought from Costco. Good in theory. Once we provided batteries to blow it up (rechargeable), it promptly became really hot and then just plain stopped working. So, we had some inflation, but not too much. Insult to injury? Well that would be that the airbed would not fit in the “vestibule”, aka “the bug tent outside the door”. We were forced to camp there. On the ground, no inflatable. SO not awesome. We thought we were fairly prepared for the trip. Oh wait! We can’t prepare for wind. But still, a “Weather Master 10” model of tent that collapses and bends? Yeah, not so sure that tent was the best choice. Well, obviously not , since it collapsed.

We have to eat first. This is gonna be interesting since there’s nothing near. We are in a National Park near nothing but a river, fire pit or what we’ve packed in our food tote. No fire for hot dogs, so our other option is freeze dried food. I have a love/hate relationship with freeze dried food. On one hand, essential to have. On the other hand, it’s full of salt and crap, designed to help people survive. I get it. Um yeah.

So, knowing that we had to be prepared (we happened to be prepared, but we really weren’t), we did bring freeze dried food. So we picked 3 since there were 7 of us, to see if we could actually make it happen. Kiddos were still crying, didn’t want to be there, didn’t like the weather. C told the boys that he “asked God to turn the wind machine off”. They believed it, but it was super funny, much needed comic relief during this, very frankly, sh^tty time while everyone cried except for C. and I. I told them that we can do it. That it would all be OK. Let’s just get through dinner. C. shelters the flame of our 1 burner, meanwhile I’m watching the percolator to see when our hot water (aka path to Nirvana) will be done. It’s getting darker and things quieter.

We all eat freeze dried food, which was pretty well received since it was this or that as the choices. Well, the last choice was starve, so whatever works for them. I mean really, hot water from a percolator is all that we had. Well they could have eaten 10 granola bars I suppose, but that sounds less appealing than freeze dried food if you ask me.e.

So after an incredibly late dinner, we head to bed. Gillian to the van, boys to our space in the 4 man and us to the screened in porch. SO not amazing. Let me tell ya. So we roll around in there…not fun…cramped in so many ways.

C is up first, Ben, as usual is up first for the kiddos. Daddy and Ben have a chance to spend some time together. Way to freakin’ early for me, but doesn’t matter. Life works like that.

I make my first attempt at percolator coffee. It was mostly successful. Doable enough. However, I also think that it takes talent. My parents made it look so easy. After doing it, not so sure, but whatever. Oh yeah…note to self…bring paper cups so we don’t have to drink coffee out of Cars the movie party cups. Just sayin’.

Getting our vaca on, part 1

Posted on July 4, 2014October 18, 2015 by Sherri

So here we are…a long time later. It’s been awhile since I’ve posted for sure. I’m still juggling along. Doing so many things. Work, home, school, boys. Daily stuff. I guess what that really means is that I haven’t been a very good Queen of the Juggle! Finally, we are going on VACATION! Yay! After almost a year under our belt with the Jazz trailer, we figure we’ve got this stuff figured out. We thought we’d go see my sister in Central WA, friends in Eastern WA, and then back down to home. A long, long way on roads that we’ve never driven on before. The day before we were going to leave, Chip has an epiphany and looks at the numbers and says “hey, it’s gonna cost a lot for gas and how often do we want to hitch and unhitch”? I though “um, we just do”? Well, yeah, no. Then Chip brought up a fabulous idea of staying at tent camp locations and really roughing it. Because he has great ideas and yep, I’ve tent camped before, I totally bought in. Well, I didn’t really remember how easy my parents made it for me and how they made it look super easy.

Well, yeah, no. Not when you have 5 kids with you and a husband that has never done it. Not that I’m an expert, but having been the only one with camping experience, it was a little bit crazy to take on this idea. Gillian and I had camped when she was much younger as a brownie/girl scout. Somehow she didn’t remember much, which I thought was odd, because we had a really fun time. Well, we are preparing for our summer vaca, day one. As usual, the day job takes a lot out of me. Hubs for sure. He was crazy nuts about getting ready.

He’s so awesome, loaded up all of everything that we needed. Loaded it all into our minivan. Man, that had to be quite the job! Especially since this change of plan was sudden. Thinking we are taking the trailer our big truckand the Jazz trailer were already out at my mom’s in Winnemucca. That meant that we had to take all of the gear and 7 of us in our minivan. Whoa! That was an incredible juggle in itself. My husband, the best in the world, did all of the packing, toting and loading.

Then he began to prodding me… I was juggling as much as I could the day we left. My plan was to leave early, but that wasn’t to be. Since work is crazy to the last minute and has been for quite some time, which is beyond brutal for me. Juggling vacation prep and planning along with a full time job is ROUGH! Especially when you’re dealing with unhappy customers, who, I guess, don’t think you have feelings or that you are a human being just like they are. Since we have one person out on maternity leave, one leaving, an open position and me going on vacation, my team is stretched pretty thin. It’s really hard to look forward to vacation when the stress is so high and I know it is going to be a) ugly for those that are backing me up and b) ugly for me when I get back. Just thinking about it causes me angst and stress. Which is another reason I desperately need this vacation. I need distraction. My world of juggling is in a bad, bad, place. 10 hour days for months on end are not healthy. Chip finally forced me out of my chair and clutches of the work laptop to head out Winnemucca way. We arrived about 3 hours later than planned and then of course I had to do some more work. I managed to do some and then just finally quit.

We slept in the trailer and as I fell asleep I wondered if this tent camp, house surf vaca would work. We will see! Well, if nothing else it would be an adventure!