Posts Tagged ‘camping’
We have finally returned from our Yellowstone trip. It was amazing! The kids had a blast! It is definitely a trip that we’ll do again. Even with driving around the park for four days, we still didn’t get to see everything. The park is huge and the sights seem endless. It is truly beautiful and spectacular in Yellowstone.
We took the RV, which was perfect for touring the park during the day and sleeping in at night. The campsites did not have any utility hookups, so in order to pull off the logistics of Julia’s care, the RV was perfect. Some nights I was cutting it pretty close with nebulizer sanitation. Generator use was between the hours of 8 AM and 8 PM, so there were some nights that I may have been running it at 8:05, just trying to get medical equipment steamed for the next day. We pulled it off with Julia not missing a single breathing treatment during the trip.
It was the perfect trip to end our summer break. Austin starts school on Monday and Olivia begins the Monday after that. Wow, Julia will start preschool in September…and I start my master’s program this month as well. Life continues to be busy for us as always.
We took over 400 pictures on our trip. Here are a few…enjoy!
This weekend we took the RV up the mountain to Rockport for a little fishing and some r&r. We left Friday evening and I ran around, frantically trying to get everything packed up. I did have to run by the pharmacy that day to fill some prescriptions for Julia. I picked up the dreaded TOBI, along with three others, and when I walked out the door, tears welled up in my eyes and I quickly pushed them back. I’m sure as time goes by I won’t have this reaction to coming in contact with TOBI, but filling it means Julia and I devote another hour of our day to fighting cystic fibrosis. It makes for very long treatments and very long days. I wore my FUCF tank-top for the occasion, because darn it, sometimes that’s just how I feel. What I would give to come home after a long day and just put my kids right to bed. What a treat that would be…
My new favorite tank-top
Are we done yet? No we still have another 30 minutes of TOBI!
OK, I done complaining now…on to our fantastic weekend. We got up to the lake late Friday evening and the kids tried some fishing and then rode their bikes. They liked riding around on the paved campground roads. On Saturday, the kids fished, swam in the lake, dug in the sand, and rode their bikes. Sunday was a highlight because we rented a boat and took it out on the lake for a couple of hours. It was a blast!
My parents were with us and so was my brother Dustin. Now the tricky part was getting Dustin to board the boat. You see, for those of you who don’t know Dustin, he has Down’s Syndrome and, in his day has watched way too many Jaws movies. So, he is deathly afraid of large bodies of water because he believes that there are sharks swimming around, ready to attack. My parents can tell you a hilarious story of Dustin on a cruise ship during the “drill.” You know, the one when you all have to put on your life jackets and go out on deck to your muster station. Yeah, that’s the one. Well, lets just say that all the people at my parent’s muster station got a good show of my dad pulling Dustin out on to the deck. Dustin is not a kid anymore, well, not physically anyway. He’s almost my age, so good entertainment for all.
Well, Dustin wasn’t about to get on the boat with us at Rockport, but my Dad was trying anyway. This nice man came up and offered to help. Joey told him that Dustin thought there were sharks out in the lake and the man explained to him that there weren’t any sharks and offered to walk with Dustin and help him aboard. Surprisingly, Dustin trusted this man and held his hand and walked out onto the deck and climbed aboard! He held on tight to the side of the boat the entire time and had a death grip on the tie off rope, but he did enjoy himself, especially when Joey opened it up and went really fast. You could see a look of enjoyment come over his face. My dad did try to get him to fish, but he refused, holding tight onto his rope and the side of the boat, not even considering letting go of either to hold a fishing pole.
See, he is enjoying himself...uh oh, is that a shark I see! Notice Dustin's hand...holding tightly onto the side!
We came home Sunday evening, totally exhausted. We got the RV all cleaned up and ready for next time. We are making some good memories with our kids in this RV. So the tradition continues. Next stop…Yellowstone!
Austin attempting to catch a fish...sadly, no luck again this time.
The captin at the helm...
Julia, enjoying her boating experience.
Olivia, as happy as can be!
My kids and my mom
The kids loved playing in the water and digging in the sand.
Olivia at the lake
Austin waiting for some fish to bite
Juila trying to keep warm
Jack, thrilled to be there
We took the RV out this weekend for our first camp-out of the season. Olivia was sooo excited…asking for days if it was the day we could go camping. The forecast was rain, rain, rain, but we went anyway…if we didn’t we would have devastated all of the kids. We spent most of the time in the RV, but the kids just love being in there, so it was way too fun for them. They found ways to amuse themselves and Joey and I found it interesting the things they came up with. The fishing was terrible. We had such good luck last year, but this time we got nothing. It maybe it was the time of year, or maybe the lake wasn’t stocked yet. It was disappointing for Austin.
We had a great campsite right on the lake. The only downside was no hook-ups. We got to see what the RV could do for Julia’s treatments and neb sanitation without electricity. We ran the generator like crazy, and put it on overload with running the Vest and watching TV. I don’t know how CFers camp!?! How could you do it without an RV? It’s the only way to go for our little CFer. We hope our future camp-out’s are filled with warmth and sunshine