Boredom Busters

The 4th of July arrives, and once again, I'm unprepared for the festivities and fireworks. Friday night found me racing home to get to the fireworks at the local high school, and looking for a parking place in the crowded lot. Ha, luck was on our side, with two spaces marked "reserved" close to the field. Really, why had the spots not been taken? Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, at least not right now. That didn't start until we were stuck sitting in the parking lot because of traffic.

It seems that Franklin County is facing the same budget crunch as everyone else. All of the usual kids activities were there, and the food, yes lots of food. My favorite kind of food - fair food. Funnels cakes, kettle corn, snow cones...Mmm...I'm salivating just thinking of all the fatty goodness. So there was food, family and friends, and the kids played until the show started. We even managed to escape without spending a small fortune on the junk toys. Anyway, I was especially disappointed because the announcement prior to the start of the fireworks promised the biggest display ever. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seemed closer to the ground, with less spectacular explosions and a slightly anti-climatic ending.

Saturday meant a little work in the morning for me, and a cook out at Jeff and Sandy's that night. More delicious food, yummy hamburgers and kielbasa, sides and of course, dessert. Come to think of it, the 4th is becoming more and more like Thanksgiving, we spend the entire weekend eating our way from house to house. I'm sure I gained a couple of pounds that I didn't need. We did attempt to work off some of the calories with a game of badminton and West Virginia horseshoes, but it was a weak attempt at best.

There were more fireworks, this time provided by our hosts, and Chad and Alison. Several years ago, I was hit on the ankle by a mortar that tipped over at the New Year's party. This year I escaped injury and was relieved to enjoy the show without limping. On the other hand, Jeff narrowly missed injury when a mortar exploded in the tube. It was neat to see our firework display, while another show was underway at the lake. The effect was a multi-layered light show, that certainly outdid the display at the high school. And we didn't have to sit in traffic! Alison made a video of the finale, and I'll link to it if she makes a post.

It started to drizzle Saturday night, and continued through Sunday morning, so it left us looking for something to do. Thanks to the inspiration from Charlie, we decided to make butter from the the whipping cream I had leftover from the cake I made for the cookout at Jeff and Sandy's. I'm 34 years old, and I've never made butter, so I thought the kids would think it was fun. Hmmm...wrong, so so wrong. After a couple of shakes of the mason jar, they both decided that the reward wasn't worth the effort. I ran upstairs to get my hubby out of the shower so he could see what I was doing too. He also lacked the enthusiasm I was looking to see. Maybe I was just a little too excited about making butter, or maybe it was just too early in the morning for the rest of the crew. I did take pictures of the whole process, and A- would have been proud, had iPhoto not locked up while importing the pictures. Maybe it's fitting that the one picture that remained was of me, happily shaking the jar, while Court took the role of photographer. The butter was delicious and I will do it again, because I had fun, regardless of how the rest of my family felt about the experience. Lucky for them, I'm not like the Little Red Hen, and I was happy to share my creation.

After a trip to Shannon's grandparent's for lunch, we came home and again found ourselves needing something to do. This time it was my hubby who came to the rescue when he spotted a groundhog in the backyard. I don't have a garden this year, so I really don't care about those pesky critters, but when I had my garden, those little guys could do major damage. The groundhog family viewed my garden as a 24 hour buffet, and they weren't shy about making repeat visits to the salad bar. My hubby was placed on garden patrol, and has never retired the position, mainly because he likes to shoot them. You have to understand just how much he loves to shoot them. If one is spotted from the bathroom window, he will stop what he's doing, go get his gun and, well, you know the rest. I wasn't surprised to see him speed walking towards the back door with the rifle this afternoon, but imagine my surprise when he came inside and asked me if I wanted to shoot it. Huh? Really? Yes, really. Like I said, I was bored and tired of working, so the poor groundhog met his match. I think I had an advantage.

A-, yes I took this picture just for you.

So the 4th of July festivities have ended, and we're heading into another work week. The week is sure to lack the excitement of the weekend, and next weekend looks to hold no more promise since I'm planning a yard sale. I have kid's clothes and toys covering the pool table and filling an entire room. Wonder if the kids will help peddle their goods?

Camping and a Father's Love

To my Dad, whom I love dearly, and thank with my whole heart for loving me for just being me. You are the GREATEST - and Happy Father's Day!

25 or so years ago, Dad and I would take camping trips of various types. My favorite trips would start out with Mom dropping us off, with the canoe, on the Blackwater River. When I say we went camping, it was none of this air mattress, bathrooms, showers, and other conveniences kind of camping trip. When we went canoeing and camping, we only took the bare essentials: 2 black trash bags packed with sleeping bags, and another bag with hot dogs, buns, some bacon, and coffee. How many times did we eat hot dogs with soggy buns and bacon that was burned to a crisp? And just how many times did the canoe flip over? Dad, even though you don't go canoeing anymore, you may get a dry bag for Father's day.

Dad, this is how you cook bacon on a campfire. Notice, it isn't black. :-)

For those of you who haven't been on the parts of the Blackwater River that resemble a creek, let me assure you, there are plenty of places that you actually have to drag the canoe because the water is so shallow. I'm sure my dad didn't find this a pleasurable experience, and I can remember one trip in particular where the bottom fell off of one of his shoes, so he tore a piece off one of the sacred trash bag "dry bags" to hold it together. I was thinking, "Why doesn't he just get another pair of shoes?" Who knows why, but I do know that he still has a pair of classic 1984 Nike swoosh jogging shoes that are worn so smooth on the bottom I call them his "racing slicks". Regardless of his shoes falling to pieces, we always managed to have a great time.

Our river float usually left us camping in the Devil's Den, sans tent. The name conjures up all sorts of scary thoughts in a kid's mind. Like I said, it's been 25 years since I've been there, but the cave on the side of the river seemed huge to me at 10 years old. No, not just huge - huge and scary! I mean, the name alone makes you think that the devil will be there waiting for you when you arrive. Fortunately for me, the devil was never made an appearance, but I sure watched the campfire dancing on the stone walls until I couldn't hold my eyes open any longer. I'm sure Dad always wondered why I insisted on a big fire, I guess I figured that if a fire could keep wild animals away, surely it would work for the Devil too. Now that I'm older, I suppose a fire to the devil would have been like the brier patch is to Brer Rabbit, and I would have been in real trouble had he ever made an appearance. Dad camped there when he was a little boy, and it makes me sad to think that my kids will never experience going to sleep wondering if they'll wake up looking the old devil in the eye.

Even though they may not get to have the same experiences I did, they will still get to go camping, but it will be Shannon's style of camping. This Father's Day weekend marks our first family camping trip. Shannon is an outdoors guy, but he's a man who prefers to have some comforts of home. The first time I went camping with him was on a river trip where I discovered that he packed an air mattress so he could sleep better. I couldn't believe it, an air mattress! Wasn't that some type of camping faux pas? That was also the first river trip I had been on where I didn't eat soggy hot dogs, but manicotti for dinner and a delicious casserole for breakfast (thanks to Chad and Alison, who are the true gourmet campers). Once you make the transition to his type of camping, you start to get soft, and the next thing you know, you're looking for a place to charge your laptop so you can blog.

That's right, we're camping, and I'm blogging. And I can imagine my dad is rolling his eyes right about now, but my main concern is which direction I need to move in order to pick up on the open "Z LAKE HOUSE" signal that is near the camp spot. If we had Wi-Fi here, I would want to come camping every weekend!

So our camping trip started out with a flurry of throwing things together, a quick trip to the local Wally World, and a trip to the brother-in-law's house to borrow his big tent. Camping when I was little was preceded by miles of hiking up Grassy Hill, or by several hours of floating the river, not by driving 20 minutes to a flat campsite that is already cleared. As if that wasn't easy enough, there's a fire pit already built and plenty of easy access wood for fuel. That sounds nice and easy, except for the fact that it wasn't quite easy enough for Shannon. I didn't question it when he asked me if I had any "fire starter" when we left the house, I just said "no", thinking that we would gather leaves and twigs like normal people would. Not my husband, not in a million years, not when you have mineral spirits at your disposal. Yes, mineral spirits. I questioned how combustible it was - "is this a gasoline, or kerosene type of starter"? Needless to say, I wasn't comforted by his answer that he didn't know. For those Redneck Engineers out there, mineral spirits will start a fire without an explosion or the loss of body hair.

The Redneck Engineer

Okay, so that may be no big deal to some of you. How about when I see my husband's eyes light up because he "has an idea" that would be fun for the kids? Fun for the kids? I'm thinking they're going to pick up sticks for the fire, or maybe play in the lake. Nope, not my husband. Now I see that he's carrying a log that he places on a stump. I'm still stuck in safe creative play mode, thinking the kids may pretend that they're going to ride a horse or something else silly. Good grief, I must have lost my mind, this is my husband we're talking about. While announcing he was the former blue ribbon knife and tomahawk thrower, he proceeds to start teaching our 4 year old son how to throw a camping axe at his target. All I could think about was how I was going to explain my little man showing up in the emergency room needing stitches. Lucky for me, it was a quick game, and there was no time for any blood to be shed. It may have had something to do with my chanting, "be careful, that's just not safe, you shouldn't be letting him play with that" over and over.

The future blue ribbon winner?

After two potential disasters, we let the kids play in the lake (little danger there), we cooked hot dogs (okay, so a couple rolled in the fire and were rinsed with fresh water, then reheated), and then we went to my favorite part of camping - the making of S'MORES. Dad never introduced me to this delicious treat on our camping trips, but I can guarantee they're a big part of everyone I take the kids on. You may not be aware of it, but there's a special technique to make the perfect s'mores. I prefer my chocolate slightly melted, and on a hot day, that's easy since you're really struggling to keep the chocolate from doing just that. In the fall though, I place a piece of chocolate on the bottom graham cracker beside the fire to get it on its way to gooey goodness. And while we're on the subject of chocolate, not just any chocolate will do for me, it has to be dark rich chocolate to bring out the flavor of the marshmallow and graham cracker. However, the preparation of the marshmallow is the real key to the perfect s'more, it has to be perfectly melted and hot enough to continue the melting of the chocolate. There are those of you who may prefer to create mini-torches, and that was how I roasted marshmallows until I had one of my flaming masterpieces land on my wrist, leaving a scar that is still visible today (another one of those camping trips with my dad, and he insisted that it wasn't blood on my wrist - good thing it was dark). Now I prefer a slow, long toasting that leaves the outside golden brown, and the middle completely gooey. When you place that on the piece of slightly melted dark chocolate, and sandwich it with the last piece of graham cracker, you may as well say it's close to heaven on earth. That's yummy goodness.

The ingredients

My perfected toasting technique.

Court prefers a little char.

Perfection.

A happy little boy, messy, but very happy.

So here I sit while the kids are fishing, bathing in the smoke from the campfire with a full belly, and watching the sun set behind the trees while listening to the water lap up on the shore. Could camping get any better than this? Hmmm...if I could just just figure out where "Z LAKE HOUSE" is located, I would think I had reached camping heaven.

***UPDATE*** I just had a camper walk by me and ask if I'm doing homework! I have to admit, I smiled and said "yes". That just feels good!

Click here to see the photos from our trip.