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I do not love camping.
However.
This morning I had a revelation, and it's this: Next summer, I am going to recruit Rachel, Teresa, and Deanne to take me camping with them...with our families, of course. These girls already go on regular camping trips each year, and I'm not trying to barge in on that...I'm just recruiting them to do ANOTHER camping trip, one with ME included. The reason I picked these girls is because I saw some of Rachel's pictures from their trip this year, and their camping trip included 1.) a beach 2.) Some sort of aquarium/sea lion viewing experience. 3.) Some sort of restaurant experience. 4.) Deanne's super cute children.*Y'all, none of these things were included on the multiple family camping trip Derek and I fearfully embarked on 3 years ago. The place we stayed was in the woods somewhere, near a lake, and you could rent a boat.
The thing I like even less than camping is boats. I know that all y'all adore boats, and are horrified by that statement, so you don't need to tell me in a comment. I've just never been a boat lover; I've always just been a boat endurer.
The trip we took also involved bringing your own breakfast. I was highly intimidated when I saw that the other families had thought to bring some sort gas grill, for cooking the eggs, bacon, and pancakes that they also had the foresight to bring. So I felt like a total doofus pulling out the box of Nutrigrain bars that I had thought to bring. DOH! So I learned that I need help if I'm ever going to become a lover of the camping experience, again...
Yes, I said again...because when I was a kid I loved camping. But that, darlings, is because as a kid, all I had to do was play in the dirt, eat smores and blueberry pancakes, and learn the songs my cousin knew from girl scouts, which were all fantastic, like the one about the man who went yodeling on a mountain so high, until a tree fell on him, "interrupting his cry."
As a grown-up, you have to pack everything you own, except the kitchen sink, and then unload it all. And then do stuff with it all, hard, manual labor. And if you have kids to bring along, heaven help you. And then you look around and see that the guy next to you actually DID bring the kitchen sink, and you feel like a doofus. DOH!
I also think we should try camping again next year because none of us will have any infants, like some of us (me) did 3 years ago, I want my kids to have the experience, and the best reason of all is that I have the perfect camping shirt. I forgot this shirt existed until I found it in my closet this morning and put it on.
What do you think, girls? Can you help a girl out? (Just remember to take me to the place near the ocean...not the one near the lake. Blech.)
*I already know and love Rachel and Teresa's kids, but Deanne moved far away before I could meet hers. From pictures and Rachel's stories, they are my type of kids, just adorable, and the oldest particularly seems to have a personality closely resembling that of my oldest.
