Camping

About 4 months ago we got together with all our friends and decided to book a
group camping site for the July 4th weekend. since we booked so far out the
anticipation really built up, and we were all very excited! Finally the date had arrived and we spent a whole day packing, planning menus, and answering
our kids constant question "how much longer till we go camping?" So Friday
morning we get up bright and early, pack up the last of the food, fill our coolers with ice and head for the beach. We were so excited when we saw our camp site. It was a group site in the perfect location with the perfect fire pit, and an even more perfect view of the ocean. We set up our tents, grabbed our swim suits and got a few hours of sunning and swimming at the beach before dinner time. We grilled some burgers and dogs for dinner, followed by a campfire and numerous perfectly roasted smores!!! Give me smore! Give me smore! At this point the kids were so covered in marsh mellow that we could attach them to a tree and they would stick there. So we got them all cleaned up, gave them all glow sticks, and they preformed their own version of Star Wars. Since Corben had the green glow stick he was Yoda and all the kids came to him for his wisdom. Corben being two just stared at them blankly, wondering why all these kids were surrounding him. When all the kids burnt off their sugar high we cleaned them up and put them to bed. They were so excited to finally put to use the sleeping bags they had gotten for Christmas. That night we got a little rain but it was all gone by morning. The next day however we picked up some of the clothes that were left out in the rain on the picnic table and underneath were a few centipedes. Now these are the ugliest bugs on the face of the earth. The size of a small snake, they have a hard shell and many ugly legs. Not to mention the two pinchers at the end that carry a poisonous sting. The problem with these gross bugs is you cannot just step on them to kill them. You have to cut them with a hatchet or other sharp object. and even when cut in half they continue to wiggle away so you have to cut them into tiny pieces. So needless to say we were not happy to find these little critters in our camp site. We get through breakfast and are laid out at the beach by 9am. We proceed to spend the whole day out there with a small break for lunch. At lunch we encounter 4 more centipedes on this one table. We come to the conclusion that we must have stirred up a nest or something because they do not normally come out like this. So after cutting up a few more we head back to the beach for the rest of the afternoon. As I sit in my beach chair watching the kids I was thinking about how proud I was of Camryn. She is finally getting in the water all by herself and even boogie boarding with the big kids. No longer had I finished
that thought then I hear and ear retching scream coming from her direction.
She had been stung several times by a jelly fish. Actually they are called
Portuguese man-o-wars. I grabbed her out of the water and brought her to the
life guard shack where they sprayed some rubbing alcohol on it which
apparently takes out the sting. They said it would continue to sting and burn
for 30 minutes to a couple hours and may leave a welt but should not be
painful after that. I have to say she handled it like a champ, and only cried
for about 5 minutes. She even returned to the water for some more surf. I was
so glad that she did not become afraid of the water. After spending 7 hours at
the beach we got cleaned up and returned to camp for dinner. After dinner it
was time for smore smores! Then we sat around the camp fire playing camp fire
games. Corben got sleepy so I put him down and the other kids stayed up for a
few awhile longer because they were having so much fun. Let me rephrase that.
They were having so much fun until one of the kids got stung by a centipede.
That was followed by a call to the poison control to see what we should be
looking out for. So we rounded up the kids and had them sit around the fire
pit so they were not running around in the grass. As we were all sitting around the fire we felt like we were under attack. We were spotting centipedes left and right. I felt like I was in the movie tremors and they were out to get us. I decided I had better go check our tent that Corben was sound asleep in. Equipped with my lantern and hatchet I went up to my tent to find my biggest nightmare come true. There crawling around in my tent 2 feet from my sweet baby was an 8 inch centipede. After a few screams for assistance we killed yet another centipede, grabbed Corben , loaded myself and the kids in the car and drove home for a good night sleep in our own bed. There was no way I was stepping foot back in that tent. At this point it was midnight, and about 1:30 am before we got home, got the kids cleaned up and went to bed. We got up the next morning and went back to camp. For some reason I was allot braver in the daylight. We spent the next day at the beach again, where 7 more people proceeded to get stung by jelly fish. Oh and a little update. Camryn who had gotten stung the day before had developed a huge red itchy rash all over her arm and leg where she had been stung. We figured that she must have had an allergic reaction to the sting because no one else welted up like that. She was scratching it so much that she we peeling her skin. We pumped her up with benadryl which seemed to help a little. The second night we ran into some friends who had cabins there so we all divided up and crashed at their home for the night so would not have to return to the centipede infested camp ground. We took down camp the next morning, killing three more centipedes under our tent and left that retched camp site for good. No good camping weekend can end without a trip to the ER. Camryn's arm and leg were getting worse and worse, so we took her in to get it looked at. It turns out that it was not an allergic reaction, but just a very bad sting. They gave her an antihistamine which is helping immensely and she looks much better. All in all it was a good weekend, minus the centipedes and the jelly fish. We got home unloaded our gear and proceeded to the base beach for some activities, music, and an amazing firework display. After an exhausting long weekend we put the kids to bed and snuggled on the couch to watch a movie. About half way through we got distracted by something inching it's way across our living room floor. You guessed it, yet another centipede. I felt like I was in a bad horror movie where the bad guy learks across the screen because he was not really dead and there is going to be a part two.