Whatta Weekend

This past weekend we had our annual Fun Fest trip. For the past 10-15 years (it’s been so long, I’ve forgotten how many now), we’ve gotten together with friends to camp and boat down at Buggs Island Lake (officially known as John Kerr Resevoir). We tent camp at North Bend Park, and boat and swim and wakeboard to our hearts delight.

This year was a little different, for a couple of reasons:

1) We scaled back the guest list dramatically. Typically, we go with 12-18 of our bestest buds and have a great time. Friends from my college days, friends from church, friends from B & Ms circle of friends, etc. This year, having 3 kids under the age of 5, I just didn’t feel up to hosting a big crowd. Hopefully next year we can invite more friends again, but this year, simpler was better. It was just us and Bear & Mel & Owen and one new guest …. Grandad!

2) Grandad not only decided to join us on our camping adventure, he decided to kick it up a notch by bringing his swanky RV along. This definitely redefined our notion of “roughing it” and it turned out to be most fortunate because …

3) I came down with mastitis the day before we were supposed to leave. If you’ve never had it, be glad. It felt like a bad case of the flu and left me in bed with a high fever and alternating between chills and hot flashes. This meant Mike had to care for the kids and pack everything. I was useless until my antibiotics kicked in.

Mike did a great job getting everything ready, with two tiny exceptions: a pack ‘n play for the baby and an air mattress for me. When I realized this Friday evening, I quickly played the “sick momma/baby needs to sleep” card and hightailed it for the RV, leaving hubby to fend for himself with two wild jackals children in the tent.

So, I enjoyed a climate controlled night of sleep on the Select Comfort Sleep Number bed. Now, the baby did wake just about every 3 hours to nurse, which was quite painful, but I knew better than to complain.

When I woke Saturday morning, I felt much better and enjoyed our weekend. The weather was absolutely perfect all weekend … right up until Sunday morning when we were getting ready to leave. What was going to be a leisurely boat ride quickly turned into a scramble to get the boat on the trailer before the downpour got worse.

Of course, the minute everything was hooked up and cinched down, the sun broke loose and shined upon us.

We wrapped up our weekend with a interminable brief stop at Cracker Barrel before heading back home.

As we approached the perimeter of Northern Va., traffic came to it’s typical slowdown. We decided to take a detour in Fredericksburg and introduce the kids to our good friend, Carl. It had been a while, but Carl still knows how to make the best soft serve around!

Due to my sluggish nature, I didn’t get to many pictures of the weekend, but hopefully Uncle B will fill in the blanks. Here’s the few that I did capture:

Chillin at the campsite

Enjoying some lake swimmin

Wendy was a fish all weekend – she loved swimming!

Hanging with Grandad on the floatie

Cousin Owen’s books were a big hit

Trying to escape the rain by hiding under the dash

Adam had to rely on a towel

Waiting for a table at Cracker Barrel

Checkers – preschool style (very loose rules)

On the road .. in a caravan. Boat in front …

RV in back (don’t mind the dirty windshield)

The best ice cream around!

The sign of a successful weekend