Making Memories

We have been making memories this "Winter Break"! We headed out Wednesday after school to a new camping spot. We went to Petersburg... right near the dam. It was a very "woodsy" area, but we had so much fun. This was the first time I had camped and didn't have access to my house! Usually, I run home every day and wash a load of clothes, grab some groceries for the day, and water flowers/feed animals... this time...there was none of that the first two days! It was great waking up to animals of all kinds chirping, honking, and tweeting! My children had constant companionship... and I did too! I never lost my cool the entire four days~ a lot to be said by that statement!
Ben learned a lesson this week. He constantly had his IPod Touch with him while riding bikes and playing on the playground. He loves to have his music going. Saturday afternoon he put it on the picnic tables while he "jumped" his bike. Of course... he left it there...and when he went back...it was gone. His heart was broken and he cried for two hours. I thought that he might have put it down somewhere and it would show up...but after searching all the campers/ campsites...it was gone.
Mark, Ben, and I had to leave for KB's dance competition late that afternoon, so we were unable to continue looking for it. On the way to competition we picked up Mama in the Publix parking lot. Her first words were... "I will go buy you another one right now. If your daddy will pull over, I will run in this store and get you one. And don't you cry because it is your mama and daddy's fault. You are too young to have something that expensive anyway... but quit crying because I am going to buy you another one.".... Does anyone else see the issue with all this...especially considering that she is the one who bought him the first one! Oh well... one day he will see that his grandmother always has his back no matter what...and we are terrible parents! I think he might know that already.
As we headed to the competition...I got a phone call telling me that I owed two of my friends BIG time. They noticed a middle-school aged boy and his mama over at the picnic tables...they had been there earlier too. They went up to question them... to make a long story short... the mama lied and said they hadn't seen the Ipod...the little boy handed it over. Thank goodness he gave it back. Thank goodness it has a passcode on it... and thank goodness Mark installed find my ipod this morning so this can't happen again. I thought Mark might strangle the little boy, but he didn't... he did however go right over to the boy's campsite and tell the daddy that he needed to talk to the little boy... He did... of course the little boy said he had all intentions of turning it in... everyone who believes that stand on your head!
We came home yesterday from camping! I would complain about the rain yesterday morning... and everything of ours being messy and wet, but I'm not. It stormed every night...the first night I texted everyone and told them that there was a bad storm coming and to get their things in... This was at 3 AM... I wanted them to know... needless to say... I woke up several of the campers and they haven't let me live it down yet. See if the "Weather Babe" informs them again of potential thunderstorms!
I didn't get to go to church yesterday because it was day 2 of competition, but I feel sure God was with us last night. After our usual Sunday night hot dog supper at Mama's, we all headed out to Hunka Jim's Farm and fished. Minus Cole, my entire family was there and it was beautiful... to see Mark and Ben in a flat bottomed boat putting fish in as fast as they would throw out a line...made me know that Bobby was in that boat too... He was helping those boys! We all had fishing poles...Daddy taught me how to throw a line out... He helped KB get her line in too...Guille baited our hook... never even got a bite! Mama sat in the back of the car with the window down at one point because the bugs were biting so bad... But my favorite memory of the night... was the little paddle boat...with Jim tipping the scales at 250s/260s...and James at 50lbs.... The boat was about to tip over... and James's little legs were peddling as fast they could as Jim sat there and grinned and smiled and laughed... Yes, we had our own church service watching the sun set... watching the fish jump... and watching a 47 year old man be lead around in a paddle boat by a 7 year old! It did my heart good! I'll let ya'll know if the fish Ben caught taste good...that is our dinner tonight!