That is absolutely not a shot from our recent camping excursion, but I thought I would get you all in the mood for sharing stories around the fire with a quality picture before breaking down the trip that was.
Now that everyone is all warm and toasty, settled in nice and close, here's a recap of our first family foray into the wilderness.
We Need to Plan Better
You always forget things when you're going camping. It's inevitable. Forgetting as many things as we did is a little embarrassing.
Toothpaste would have been nice, but as unhygienic as it sounds, you can go 24 hours without brushing your teeth and survive. Additionally, pillows make sleeping far more pleasurable, but my balled up hoodies worked out just fine.
The cap for the air mattress was kind of essential, seeing as the air can't remain in the mattress sans cap. Bringing our flashlights would have helped too.
Thankfully, Crappy Tire was just 10 minutes away and $100 later, we were far more equipped.
Luke Is Not An Outdoor Dog
He's also apparently not a dog who adjusts to change very well. To put it another way, this little mongrel is a spoiled brat and I love him for it.
The dude likes to nap, a lot, and that just didn't happen on this trip. Every noise is amplified when you don't have the usual din of the outside world playing as a backing track, so homeboy went bananas at just about everything.
Couple that with a lack of an afternoon spent out cold on the couch, despite Sarah and I relaxing with a couple books in the tent for a good two hours and we had one sleepy dog upon our return.
Just Because You Have a Guitar, Doesn't Mean You're a Singer-Songwriter
The family in the space just down the road from us arrived as we were sitting around our fire eating dinner, and I immediately noticed a guitar case. Instantly, I got nervous.
My worries were realized at around 10:00 pm when Sarah and I rolled into the tent to a pitchy chorus of some homemade song by what I imagine was a 14-year-old girl whose parents tell her she can be the next Avril Lavigne.
Thankfully, the pain stopped shortly thereafter and no, it's not because I went down there, broke her guitar and threw it in the fire.
That was only going to happen if she kept playing after "Quiet Hours" started.
E. Spencer Kyte - Firemaker
For a guy who spent exactly zero days of his childhood camping and being shown how to do anything camp-related, I can make me a mean fire.
I had us a flaming pile of wood in no time flat, complete with quality embers for cooking dogs and making smores right out of the gate. Self-praise aside, my prodigious firemaking talent wasn't the highlight of the campfire.
Watching my moron of a dog jump and try to catch ashes floating off the wood is damn-near priceless. He also does it with smoke from mosquito coils... nothing like free entertainment!
Family Hobby #1 - Check!
Sarah loves camping and has been doing it her entire life. She literally camped all around Europe with her brother Tim at the outset of that fateful summer when we met.
And considering how relaxed I have felt for the last 36 hours or so, and how much I enjoy burning things, I would have to say that camping certainly agrees with me. Combine those two elements with the vast amounts of money we've spent on camping gear leading into this trip, and you have the makings of something that will certainly become a family staple moving forward.
Maybe we'll even have to retrace Tim and Sarah's trek around Europe before a crop of kidlings come along?
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Camping Revelations
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Extreme Makeover: Our House Edition
Thankfully, reorganizing our London living space didn't involve the delicately coiffed Ty Pennington and his band of overly enthusiastic, sentimental carpenters, designers and trades people.
I don't know if there is a group of people on television who annoy me more than the folks riding that big, stupid bus.
It did take about three weeks from start to finish. More correctly, it took three weeks from start to "organized and sorted out enough that no one is going to go postal in the next couple weeks while we finish tinkering with designs and alignments."
You see, Sarah and I are both pretty anal retentive about some things.
Number one for me is cooking - as in, if I'm cooking, why exactly are you in the kitchen, touching my food and taking up my space?
As much as my mother would try to refute this, number two is organization. Everything has a place where it belongs, so why not put it there? Dirty dishes and garbage are my biggest pet peeves, especially when you leave the dishes on top of the dishwasher and the garbage next to the trash can...
Sarah can get screaming mad - literally - when things aren't clean and organized and out of her way. It's a frightening occurrence that I could do without...
So Sunday night, Sarah and I got talking about our plans for yesterday; what we wanted to get done, what to have for dinner, etc.
Finishing the Guest Room / Office was Priority #1 on my list, especially with Garry heading to BC for another two weeks this AM.
Since I spend a ton of time in here, having it organized and inviting is important to me. I couldn't finish it on my own, however, because we needed the shelving unit from downstairs and the new guy to the house doesn't go moving all of his future father-in-law's junk, no matter how many weeks it's been since he first mentioned he was going to do so.
Sarah, however, is a different story. She's Daddy's Little Girl (I might get smacked for that one) and so when she mentions moving the shelving unit, within 30 minutes it has been cleaned off and relocated to the Guest Room.
She also managed to get the basement cleaned up as well. Not only is all the clutter and junk that has just been sitting around since Christ was a cowboy been discarded (or at least moved somewhere else), but the alignment of the basement is way better now.
The final steps in the process will happen later today - cleaning out the fridge, freezer and cupboards and doing a massive reorganization.
Then we're done and we managed to do it without any sappy stories, dreamy carpenters or collection of neighbours yelling, "Move that bus!"
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