Monday, September 1, 2008

A weekend of Camping

Well...We have been gone for a few days so here is the recap of our holiday weekend camping in Lake Lure. We left on Friday around lunch time to head out to meet a huge group of our friends, most of which also have kids, at River Creek Campground. we arrived and got our tent up without any problems. yes it was a little warm for my taste to be outside living...but I did fine. all of our group filtered in and by nightfall most everyone was there and playing in the waters of the river. Thank goodness it was not very high so the kids could stand easily and it saved me from becoming full on neurotic. Greyson did really well during the day but by nightfall he was really worn out and did not last long. Therefore one of us always had to go lay down with him. Not to worry...I had no problem passing out early myself. The nights were at least cool and sleeping was not too bad. I do prefer some air and my own bathroom but what's a few days roughing it for the good... :) Momom hung out for while on Friday with the girls while Greyson and I watched a movie and then fell off to sleep. The next day, Saturday, a crowd of them took off to go tubing. I did not think that would be a good idea for Greyson since the trip is 2 hours long so we played in the water with him there at the campsite. That worked out great since over 4 hours later they returned form their outing. Seems the place was a bit further than they originally anticipated. Good call on our part to keep Greyson where he was. He may have really been literally done if we had driven that far and then had a 2 hour trip floating along. Not to mention that they did have some slight drama in the currents and had to help a few people. Someone siad they had no life jackets available for the kids either...not my idea of fun...sorry if you think I'm crazy but...I'm good with crazy. My kid is not traumatized and he had fun where he was...all of us the better for it. :) After our group of tubers returned it was time to eat the Boston butts "skippy" had prepared and cooked all day slowly. YummY! "Skippy" is grill master at our big camp out and we love her! You rock "skippy"! we all ate the wonderful meal together as one big happy extended family...I bet there were at least 30 to 40 people there! That's alot of women with kids and no men. The other campers must wonder how that all works huh? Gotta love it! Later Saturday night my man was again ready for bed early. Too much playing, swimming, swinging, etc. for one boy to handle. Poor guy was on overload. He had a few incidents with some of the other kids but nothing major. He can only handle so much stimulus before he starts to fall apart. At that point he normally comes to find one or both of us and wants to head to bed. Michele and I did get some time with our friends though and that was nice. I still find myself thinking and worrying that people think we are too lenient on him or that we are not handling certain situations properly and it is frustrating at times. I think it is mostly in my head though. Who knows...I just know how frustrating it is to have a sweet guy who seems, by most accounts, perfectly normal but in some situations can have such a hard time or be so challenged. I am his mommy so I guess I will always have those little mommy moments where I want it all to be easier for him. So shoot me....Sunday we got up and the girls were going in shifts to go horseback riding with the kids in tow. We did that last year and from Greyson's reaction i am not sure he would ever get on a horse again. he did it last year but not without protest. So....with that said, we again opted to stay at the campsite and we had a blast fishing, swimming, chilling out, and eating some. So let's go back to the fishing...Greyson had his Scooby Do fishing rod, very expensive and well made as you can just imagine, and we were hanging out on the rocks catching the "big ones". He left to go get himself a Gatorade and mommy Lynn decides to cast the line out while he is gone. May I remind you all...Greyson does not like change and is very attached to anything that has been labeled "his". Now...i press the button and flick the rod and the whole dang reel, the top, and the button fly off into the water and I am left holding the shell of what used to be his "Scooby Do" pro fishing rod. (the same one used by Bill Dance I am sure...Isn't he a pro fisherman?) whatever...So now I am in a full on panic, Michele walks back up while I am scrambling to retrieve the pieces of the dang reel, and I say....help me I broke this thing. She runs over and we get it all back together with the exception of the button which now, God rest its soul, is in the bottom of that river. (I suppose.) There is the Scooby Do rod with a gaping hole in the front where the "magic" casting button used to be. Needless to say...I was on the Poo list for a while. Michele did rush over to the camp office and saved me by buying a shinny new red rod and red reel...Red is his favorite color....Somehow we both managed our way through the Scooby Do rod drama. This time she bought the real thing...pardon the pun....not a Scooby Do Pro Series rod. So...we got through that, and manged to hang out the rest of the day having fun and riding the river. That night Greyson even tried a marshmallow since they were making s'mores by the camp fire. it didn't last long in there but he did try it so that is a plus. He just wanted all the chocolate and none of the other stuff. We did let him have 2 small bites of chocolate and that was the end of it. 9 ways to Sunday in a tent is not a good thing, therefore we did have the sense not to let him eat tons of chocolate that night. Unfortunately...a thunder storm cut the campfire short. Greyson was scared to death and whimpered and cried most of the night. When he wasn't crying in his sleep he was tossing and turning and very restless. All of the events of the past few days along with the thunder and lightening sent him and his sensory challenges through the roof. Poor guy....he cried big crocodile tears and said, "I need to go to my cats, they miss me." he was so pitiful so I just hugged him tight till he fell off to sleep. It was a hard night for him though. It at least stopped raining after about an hour or two but he still was fully ready to go back to his city as he calls it. When the skyline is in view and we are driving he yells,"Look mommy Lynn, its our city!" It is cute. Sorry I digress...we made it through the thunder storm and woke up Monday morn ready to come home. We packed up our gear, got everything ready to go and then went to take showers. In the shower room he was constantly, the whole weekend, looking to ensure no spiders were anywhere around. if he saw one, and he did, we had to move to another shower and/or bathroom stall.
Thank goodness he wasn't with me on one of the trips down the river when my girl Stephanie had some big black spider jump onto her shoulder. She shushed it off and it landed on her leg, I then panicked and threw water on her to knock it off. She was in a blow up boat and we thought it was gone until she moved and it crawled back up her leg. It was the size of a 50 cent piece or bigger legs and all. Ahhhhhhhh! We all nearly drowned trying to get away for that thing!

Well...that's the readers digest version believe it or not....you girls who know me well ask me about my 4am encounter in the bathhouse with the oriental lady...creepy I tell you. I was speed walkin' back to my tent.

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