Trip Around the Sun

We woke up Saturday morning at Plaskett Creek bright and early. Thankfully Joseph stayed snuggled under the covers for an extra half hour, so it wasn't too painful. Chad wished me a happy birthday and I started to reconcile myself with the fact that I am well and truly in my 30's. Crazy. I think I'm going to remember Jimmy Buffet this year and enjoy my trip around the sun.

After a hearty breakfast - really is there any other type when you're camping - the Loucks gave me my birthday present. Danielle, a faithful reader of this blog, had taken it upon herself to buy everything I need to make my zesting, pitting and measuring efforts a success. The only thing missing was a lemon so I could get zesting.

I took the Lane and Joseph into our tent to hang out while I changed. I couldn't resist snapping a couple shots as they played on the air mattress. It's amazing to realize that a short time ago, Joseph was the same size as Lane while we were at Plaskett Creek camping. I took way too many pictures to post here so I put together a small slide show of our "photo shoot".

Side note: I'm having technical difficulties with my slide show. Suffice to say, it's at the end of this post. Trying to place it in the middle was a futile exercise consisting of me slamming my fingers on the delete key and cursing my poor little computer.

The photo shoot was followed by a great game of "Joseph in a Tree". Chad thrilled to the challenge of giving me a heart attack by placing Joseph in every nearby tree. Little did he know that I'm a tree-climber from way back and felt safer with my baby in a good, solid cypress than I would on a jungle gym.

As the sun broke through the clouds, we loaded up the boys and headed down to the beach for a couple hours of fun, sun and sand. Of course, with the temperatures barely hitting 70, it was cool fun, sun and sand. Joseph built a sandcastle while Adam and Lane napped. I lay down on the warm sand and soaked up the sunshine. Chad wandered around the water, looking at the jelly fish and tossing rocks. Danielle and I talked, our bits of conversation ebbing like waves gently coming to shore.

When Joseph tired of the sand, we ate a picnic lunch and went to the water to jump waves. He was a little timid at first, gradually gaining confidence shrieking in glee as the cold water lapped our toes.

First Adam, then Lane woke up. We decided to head back to camp for naps and Scrabble.

Side note: You may have noticed that Scrabble plays a prominent part of our camping trips. There's nothing like lazing away a quiet afternoon trying to figure out what word could possible occur with the letters "q", "r", "e", "e", "t", "o" and "o".

Chad and Danielle napped with their respective sons while I explained to Adam the joy and challenge of following Scrabble rule and he tried to convince me of the exhilaration of breaking said rules.

After naps, we played around the campsite and waited for Chad to get back from a last-minute trip to Gourda.

Here's the back story on that: Chad has a very bad habit of waiting until the last possible moment to purchase gifts. If the stores weren't closed on Christmas, I have no doubt he'd be in the check out line an hour before gift time. I warned him that we were going to be a long ways from any sort of store and to be sure he brought my birthday present with him. He didn't, so he made a trip to the Gourda General Store to pick up my present. Expecting a sweatshirt or a clam shell pet, I was happy to receive a Nordic hat worthy of a ski bunny in Wisconsin.

We ate our dinner of burgers and veggie packets, put the boys to bed and spent the evening huddled around the table, playing In a Pickle. Hilarity ensued, interrupted by us playing the nosy, adult neighbors to the young (maybe 21) birthday party down the way. We went to bed early, knowing it was going to a busy morning.

We woke up first thing Sunday, broke camp and went to breakfast. Overall, it was an awesome birthday made even better by the messages left by family and friends.

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