Family Fishing Vacation

Every year we take a family fishing vacation with my hubby's immediate family. There were 9 adults, 8 kids, and two adjoining condos. This was actually a newer step- the two condos. Up until now, we usually cram all of us in ONE unit. I haven't blogged in a long time, because although we had our computer with, and the condo was supposed to have free wi fi, I could not figure out how to make it work, and being busy with fishing and sight seeing, I didn't really get to it. So, now I will give you a huge update on our vacation and what has been going on in our lives! It is a very interesting endeavor to take 4 families and put them together for a week. None of us have identical parenting ways, which can be annoying, I know it sounds so mean, but when you see something not working with a child, you want to say have you tried such and such? So, there was a fair amount of interesting things with kids. Most of the kids in our family are approximately 6 months after each other, so it was great because everyone has someone close to their age to play with. And there was a great mix of boys and girls so that worked out too. One of the favoite things we did for everyone, myself included was go tubing. I bet that I haven't done that in 12-15 years! My daughter went with me the first time, and I was laughing so hard and we were moving about so much I was practically squishing her. She kept telling me "mom, you have to get off me somehow!" This is pretty hard to do when you are in a round tube of rubber and there isn't anywhere else you can go except off and into the lake! My son went with his dad. At first he said he wanted to go all by himself. Um, no. Three year olds do not go tubing by themselves. I tried to explain this to him, but he looked at me and said "I am big, and I am not afraid." But then he saw some of the other kids go before him, and he quickly changed his mind. (Of course, we never would have allowed him to go by himself.) He did love going with his dad though, and told me tubing was his favorite thing on the trip. Which is amazing because every day he begged to go fishing, and the men ususally went out at 5 in the morning, so when he woke up and saw that his dad had gone without him, he would start crying! Us women had a day all to ourselves and were able to go into such places as antique stores, where we would not have to worry about breaking and then paying for that $300 really ugly vase in puke green. It was great! I am very blessed to have not only a mother in law that I really love, but 2 sister in laws as well. It is nice to know that I don't just love them because they are family, but because I genuinely enjoy them, and they are great people. With 17 people on a trip, we all take turns making meals so it isn't so overwhelming. We don't really tell each other what we are bringing and making, it just sort of always works out. Well this year, the theme (which really wasn't a theme, just that everyone apparently thought the same way!) was beans. Seriously. Three days in row, by three different families, beans played a significant role in the meal. Two out of three days involved a bean soup of some sort, and one day had refried beans in tacos. So, now we have 17 people and three days of heavy bean eating. If you put two and two together, I think you can get the idea of what happened! It is a good thing that we spent most of our time outdoors! One of the biggest bummers that happened while we were there, both of my kids got severe swimmers itch. It was 1 in the morning, and I kept hearing this funny noise, I got up to check on the kids who were on the floor in sleeping bags, and both of them were scratching at their legs. They were covered in bumps up and down both of their legs and feet. Ava even had them on her arms. Chris ran to walmart at 2:00 in the morning to get them some medicine. The idea of what swimmers itch is is disgusting- little parasites that burrowed into their skin, but since there life cycle can't continue in a human, they essentially irritate the skin until they die. Gross. And of course, it is almost impossible to keep kids from scratching, even with Benadryl, and so they scratch them open and then some become infected. No one else got the itch, although all of the kids were in the same water, even the same areas. Apparently we are the lucky ones who are susceptible. I think that one of my favorite things on the trip was the time to lay in a chair and read a book while the kids played. I picked Pride and Prejudice for the millionth time, but this time it is official, my book fell apart at the seams and now I will have to get a new one! (What a bummer!) If you haven't read that book, you absolutely must, but then you also need to watch the BBC miniseries starring Colin Firth. You will LOVE it. Seriously. My husband loves it and watches it with me! All in all, it was a great trip. Now of course that we just got home last night, I look into the living room at the massive pile of items that need to be unpacked. I hate unpacking from a trip. You have tons of laundry to do, and all that stuff to clean. And like most families, we need a vacation from our vacation because we were so busy and up late at night, and up early in the morning!

On the adoption front, nothing has really happened. We are still waiting for our referral, and the kids continue to pray for their brother and sister to come home. We have been only waiting a little less than two months, but the last couple of weeks have been hard knowing that we are so close to a referral and yet it hasn't come. We just keep reminding ourselves that God has the perfect children all figured out for our family, and for whatever reason, it isn't time yet for them to come to us. We will continue to wait as patiently as we can.