Actually, hypothermia, smelly campsite bathrooms, and one randy billy goat aside, we had a great time. They just camp differently here...
Eric was awakened on 28 July (our anniversary by the way) to the sound of "Daddy" in his ear. This would have been fine if it were Ava's little voice. Alas, our little man has discovered how to break free, and without hurting himself. *sigh* Time for a big boy bed.
We arrived at our camp site at Great Yarmouth in the late afternoon. We had really built it up to Ava about a camp fire and S'mores. We quickly learned that camp fires are "dangerous" and not something we do here, so go on down the hill and pitch your tent anywhere you see. Everyone just sort of pitches their tent on top of each other, and when I say tent, I mean circus tent. Our tent was the "hovel" of camp. I watched 7 people people erect one tent- and all 7 half drunk of them were necessary. Maybe they needed that much space for an oven or space heater since "fires are dangerous". While Eric (all by himself) pitched the tent I took Ava to the bathroom. In her loud little girl voice she announced that it smelled like a big toot. Keen eye for the obvious, that one. Since we weren't allowed to burn anything , we hit the boardwalk...
Great Yarmouth is kind of a cross between Atlantic City and the Wisconsin Dunes, only a lot, lot colder. Bless his heart, the carousel worker man took about 7 pictures and this is the best.
Ava actually took this picture- Not bad, ehh?We actually did fit quite comfortably in the tiny tent and weathered a rain storm pretty well. It actually started raining when we went to bed and stopped when we got up- not bad! The next morning we headed to a children's zoo/amusement park...
The kids loved the slide (swide) and Eli actually preferred to ride with Ava- awww!And then we met the goats. Like everyone else, we bought our little bags of goat food. We walked through the first gate into the middle pen. In here we could feed the goats through holes in the fence. The sign said you could walk into the middle pen, but the goats may be aggressive. Ignoring good sense, I walked into the middle pen with Eli on my hip holding my little bag of food. Instantly two goats reared up and began fighting each other (possibly over who would attack us first), another goat took a big bite of my shirt, and a fourth went for Eli and his bag of food. As I tried (in vain) to escape back through the gate, a fifth goat slipped into the middle pen. I tried to escape too, but the goat still had my shirt in his mouth. I finally got out with Eli, but now we had the problem of the rogue goat who is wondering around the middle pen where he was not supposed to be. We tried coaxing him with food, chasing him, yelling, pleading, and pushing. The people watching from the nearby picnic area where all laughing at this point. Eric finally worked his magic on the goat and got him back into the pen.
Eric, the "Goat Whisperer"
Eli feeds the goat one piece at a time, Ava had here bag "stolen" by another bad goat.
Only this fool would jump in the water at 60 degrees (yes that was the AIR temp- and it was windy!)
Eli captures the castle
So we build a new one!
Last night it was so cold that I had the kids in all of their PJ's and sweatshirts for bed. Eric and I had all of our warm clothes on while we shivered and tried to play a game of gin rummy. By the third game, our fingers where stiff, our lips where blue, and the icing on the cake was that some poor misguided mosquito had the nerve to bite me when it was 47 degrees outside. Any other self respecting mosquito would have been off in the woods dying a slow death from hypothermia. Ah well- for all my sarcasm, we had a fun time and good bonding. Nothing brings a family together like the biological need to stay warm! But, we decided to bond at home tonight, where it is warm, and the bathroom doesn't smell like a toot!
