What I Did On My Summer Vacation...

We love to camp. I grew up camping and backpacking with my family, and we want our kids to have some good torture, uh, I mean, camping memories, too. However, we were surprised with the news of a 3rd edition back in January - on my 30th birthday about 5 minutes before the surprise party started, I might add. (Yes - it was a surprise! We had quit trying after this last miscarriage for oh so many reasons, one of which included me adamantly NOT wanting to have an end of summer baby. Been there, done that, swore I'd never do it again.... Enter surprise.) After realizing that camping would probably not be happening this summer in a tent, on an air mattress, with a hugely pregnant wife (also been there and done that when I was pregnant with Jackson in Alaska ... Funny story, we were camping in Denali, in a tent, and I was about 24 weeks pregnant. During tent set up Tim realized we'd (aka HE'D) forgotten the pump to blow up the air mattress. Most of the night I "slept" on the ground. Around 4-5 in the morning I just couldn't take it any more. Tim got up and blew up the air mattress by mouth. And then proceeded to pass out for 3 days.  I guess he loved me that much back then.) ANYWAYS... Tim, realizing that maybe he didn't want a repeat of the Denali 2005 Great Air Mattress Fiasco, decided to get a camper. (Don't worry, we didn't really go all out. Kindda like our boat that's duct taped together? Ya - this camper is a little 'older' model.) He wiped it out with some Clorox, got a new mattress, and viola! He could now take his very pregnant wife camping. After trying the camper out one night in a nearby campground at the south end of Utah lake, we decided, "What the heck! Let's drive 7 hours to Yellowstone and camp with 3 million other people for 5 days!" Yes.  Yes, we did.  Welcome to our summer vacation.

Tiara's make camping so much more awesome.

 I don't even know how many marshmellows these children consumed, but they really mastered the art of marshmellow roasting.

 For some reason unbeknownst to us, or him, Jackson really latched onto this little hot spring called the "Opal Pool."  It looked very much like the 10,000 other hot springs we saw, but he insisted on a picture in front of it, AND he cried when we left.

 Camping hair.  I didn't even dare take a picture of my camping hair.  It's much cuter when you're 5.

 Of course we had to see Old Faithful.

 I grossly underestimated my children's ability to attract dirt.  Hence another adventure we had - showering in public showers.  Yes, we survived.  Will we have any lasting effects, like a flesh eating disease later on? Quite possibly.

 More marshmellow consuming.  I think marshmellows were their staple food for the trip since they didn't like any of the other food we brought.  Trust me, trying to plan gluten free camping dinners for 5 days was no easy feat.

 Yellowstone Lake.  We camped here our 2nd and 3rd nights.

 My favorite - family bike ride around Yellowstone Lake.  Not only did I do 3rd trimester camping, I did some pretty sweet 3rd trimester road biking.  I'm sure it was quite the site, since we very apparantly weren't in Utah anymore where every 3rd woman out here is pregnant (I think I saw 1 other pregnant lady), but after figuring out my balance, it wasn't too terribly tricky.

 Hiking.  Yes, I also survived 3rd trimester hiking with lots of Braxton Hicks there towards the end.  Don't worry, I made sure that there was adequate transportation (aka Life Flight) available to the nearest medical facility (in Idaho Falls) - just in case.

We had lots of "late" night (like until 10PM people!) crazy games of Go Fish, Old Maid, and UNO.  We are in the camper this night because we had just braved and survived the public showers, and I refused to let my chidren back into the dirt until at least the next morning.  Not to mention we were seriously mosquito bitten.  Notice Jackson's right arm?  Calamine lotion was our best friend.

And today? I am seriously so worn out, that it's 8PM and I am still in my pajamas.  Probably because all my maternity shirts that fit (all 3 of them) are still somewhere in the 9 loads of laundry that we've been working on all day.  That and the 7 hour trip home that extended into a 9 hour trip home due to a wrong turn somewhere in remote Wyoming.  All in all I think it was a success.  I hope my kids are sufficiently traumatized, er, I mean, I hope we made some really great Yellowstone memories that they will have forever.