How to have an un-relaxing weekend

Rent a motor home. A big one. Then take two small children, Kai and Teia to be specific, to a campsite. If that doesn't feel un-relaxing enough, flood the motor home overnight. That is exactly what we did this weekend.

Kai has been really into "houses on wheels" ever since our friends the Hatfields visited with their trailer. Kai has never forgotten them or their extremely cool "home." Greg, being just the awesomest of awesome Daddies, has been working really hard to make this a reality. Not too many RV companies are willing to rent out an RV for one night and we just weren't about to make this a multi-night affair. Not to mention, these babies ain't cheap. But we discovered there is a VRBO type deal for RVs! Who'da thunk? Greg did.

So Greg concealed his prior RV driving record (that was in Europe so it doesn't count) and convinced a family to rent us their RV. Now this wasn't just an RV. This thing was GINORMOUS. If you don't believe me, check it out....

If Greg loses his job, he is now qualified to drive tour buses. He did great, though. Returned this thing with nary a nick. The kids were pretty psyched. Kai could not wait to get to sleep. He was quite impatient to get through the rest of the day's activities so he could try out sleeping in this thing. Reminded me of a kid on xmas eve. 

Is this a 2 year old thing? Saying cheese and squinting whenever anyone points a camera at you? Maybe its a girl thing.....

Teia spent most of the weekend being places she shouldn't be: the very large dash, the stair well, the driver's seat playing with the controls. And if we let her out of the RV she just ran away to check out all the other RVs. These things should come with a disclaimer that they should not be used by parents if their children are under 3. Life with Teia in the RV was....challenging. And then of course, Kai had to go everywhere that his little sis went so we had double trouble. Thankfully for us, Kai tends to exercise a little more caution, so we had maybe a second more to respond to potential disasters. Remember too, Mama is still wearing the robo-boot. 

Here is our lovely campsite. It was a mixture of surf sounds and ocean views together with trains and highway noise. But inside that beast of an RV, we couldn't hear anything anyway. 

The other highlight for Kai was the campfire. He really loved that part, particularly when Daddy unexpectedly lit a marshmallow on fire. Couldn't get enough of that. Speaking of roasting marshmallows, Greg revealed his true lack of camping experience when he told me he had bought some marshmallow sticks:

Funny how the kids wanted to sit in our chairs rather than their own. Didn't really matter though, b/c b/tw playing defense, making food, cleaning up or averting disaster, we didn't sit down anyway. Post-campfire we finally got down to the weekend highlight, sleeping in the house on wheels. Everyone huddled close to Daddy for books and milk before bed. Greg steeled me for what was ahead "Remember, we don't expect to actually sleep tonight, right?"

Right. Actually, Greg and Kai slept very well. But see that pack and play in the photo? Miss Teia wanted nothing to do with it. So Mama didn't sleep so well sharing a tiny little bed with Teia, lying horizontally across it as she snoozed. And she was up at 5:45 am. Thank you Apple for making an iPad to entertain our daughter til 7 am so we didn't have two overtired and grumpy children. At 7 I finally decided it was okay for her to get up, and swung my legs over the side of the bed. Squish. What was that? My first thought: wow, it really did get cold last night. Hang on....morning dew doesn't appear on carpets inside RVs after a cold night. Uh oh. I followed the watery trail all the way to the shower, which was slowly overflowing and had been all night long. Ummmm..... Greg???? Are you awake???? Seems I hadn't quite turned it off after rinsing the kids off post-beach. Oops. 

A mad scramble of problem solving, soaking up, cleaning up and drying up and we finished out the camping trip with a trip to a petting zoo where the kids were equal parts enthralled and terrified by being inside the pens with guinea pigs, bunnies, goats and sheep. But they did get to ride the train....

So, there you have it. That is exactly how to have an un-relaxing weekend. Unless you are 2 and 4.