Camping in Erie...

Well we're home, and I am ready for a vacation now! We went camping at a KOA campground in Erie, PA with my cousin Matt, his wife Cindy and their son, Ethan. My parents and my uncle and his family were there too. Though it was a nice trip it will filled with many....lets say.....memories! Started by us not being able to fit all of our stuff in the HUGE suburban we took. So we had to add a roof top carrier and even a extension platform to the hitch just to take all of our things. We decided to take the suburban and ride down with Matt/Cindy and Ethan figured it was big enough and we could split the gas costs. Finally after stuffing the truck like a can of sardines, we got on the road about 5:30p on Friday ~ only 1.5 hours behind schedule :) Made the journey in record time, of 5 hours and only 1 stop. Personally I think that is a huge feat considering we were traveling with 2 toddlers.

To make a long story short, Matt got an infected ingrown hair which swelled up his WHOLE left side of his face, Ethan fell out of bed and got a terrible bloody nose, both kids got only 4 hours of sleep and were crabby as heck...and this all happened by Saturday morning! The rest of the weekend went fairly well, with the exception of our children, who just never regained the lost sleep, and the deprivation only got worse as the days went on. In turn, we were blessed to spend the entire trip with two, sassy - whinny - stubborn and misbehaving 3 year olds.

When we left on Monday, Olena cried all the way home, until she fell asleep 30 minutes before the end of our journey. The trip home, took over 6 hours and included 4 stops because we couldn't handle the crying, and we were all on edge. Oh... and Jason got sick with the "flu" on Sunday night, and was sick all of Monday and today.

All I am thinking about now is that my next vacation is going to include a beach, no kids, ALONE with my lounge chair, a good book and good cocktail! paradise here I come.... :)