Ok, picture it. After a beautiful evening amongst the trees, the sun has set, and I’m getting ready for bed. The kids are already asleep in the tent, and Erin is off getting ready for bed. I had my glasses and shoes off, and I decided to move my keys from one part of the tent to another. I accidentally bumped the panic button on the key fob, and the van starts flashing it’s lights and honking it’s horn. I hit the button again. No change. I hit it again. Still no change. The kids are still asleep, but not for long if I can’t get the van to shut up. I start hitting buttons at random on the fob. Still won’t shut off the alarm. I decide that getting in and turning the key has to solve the problem, so I went tearing out of the tent in a blind panic. Ten feet from the door to the tent, a stump lay in wait. Tripping over it, I thought I must have broken a toe or something. I held down the alarm button in a last ditch attempt to quell the bleating of the van. Success!.

Almost.

The kids were awake and screaming at this point, and never really settled for the rest of the night. Sure, they slept in fits and starts (as did Erin and I) but they would not stay asleep. At one point I sarcastically said to Erin “Let’s do this again real soon.”

Fortunately, the kids slept really well after that night, and the only other car alarms that were set off during the night were far enough away to not bother them. :)

Simpson’s quote of the day: “My God! The Mad Magazine Special Edition. They only put out seventeen of these a year.” - Bart

It might take me some time to get back into the swing of things, but I’m back from vacation.

Cypress Hills was great. The area is really quite unique, and it was a treat to get to spend some time there. The best part about it? No mosquitos. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Ok, so I saw one in four days. We must have brought it with us or something.

The first day of the camping trip, William and I were driving from one area of the campgrounds to another, and we saw a fawn just off the side of the road - like 3 feet from the van, staring right at us. Pretty cool. A couple of days later, we saw a moose about 100 feet from our campsite. I turned around and spotted it, and thought to myself “What is a horse doing in the middle of the campgrounds?” followed by “That’s no horse…”

I’ve got a sore toe that resulted from a bit of excitement on the first night, but that story will have to wait until tomorrow. Let’s just leave it with “Greg + Camping = Freak Injury”

I think the kids had a good time, but I think none of us would have enjoyed the trip if we hadn’t had Erin’s dad along to help out with everything. Thanks John.

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Hey, I got nothing. How about you Frinky?” - Chief Wiggum