New blog! Visit me on Wordpress?

It's remarkably like the old blog, but easier for me to play with:  https://needopedia.wordpress.com/

Hopefully last post on Blogger. See you on Wordpress?? (Fingers crossed.)

I'm about to embark on a new blogging platform
that gives me more control of the basics--
font size being primary.
This platform is driving me mad. 
Let's see if we come out of this on the other side intact, shall we?

(These are the 5 font sizes I get: smallest, small, normal, large, largest.)  I need "normal" to be more, well, normal.

Father's Day 2020

The best thing I've ever done for my kids is to have this man (allegedly) father them.  

We had to pack up from our Oregon campsite, but we only headed to Chehalis (sort of the midpoint) and doing one more night at our first Thousand Trails park, making use of the "free" membership with the purchase of an RV.  

Like KOA, the Thousand Trails have some non-camping features that kids love: mini-golf, pools, country stores.  However, this summer, none of those are open.  Wes found a golf ball in the bushes, and Piper found a stick, and together they played all 18 (18!! Overkill, anyone?) holes in a hilarious gift to Papa: Play happily together for an hour.

Kyla loved the castle with fierce dragons!

Speaking of facilities that aren't open...

This guy guards the pool.

Sigh. So empty.

The tablets were still at home, and both girls found themselves engrossed in reading, while Wes found himself engrossed in snuggling with on Kyla after a family bike ride.  Typical.  🙄

Our site was close to a view of the valley.  We made our taco dinner and ate dinner on the benches up here.

Dwayne and I felt even more justified with the No Tablet rule when Wes could barely be entreated to eat his favorite dinner because he was too busy bringing gravel to the rooftop of the play structure. He had such a great afternoon of solitary play.

Piper was pleased for the warm gravel for another reason. 

Happy Father's Day, Babe!  It's a pleasure parenting with you. 

Glamping, Episode II: Oregon Family Reunion

Subtext: COUSINS!!

For Fathers Day weekend, we were able to plan a family camping trip. My parents have a camper, Keith's family has a motorhome (which our covetous of partially our own purchase), and Brian's family have a 2-year-old.  The 2-year-old is the antithesis of a camping weekend, so we camped just across the Oregon border at Hudson-Parcher, and Brian and Sandi and girls spent all Saturday with us.  It was such a good weekend!

Dwayne had the brilliant idea of making the tablets stay home.  Kyla and Wes were cheerful enough about it, but....

... Piper pouted the entire 4 hour drive. And I caught her in the back using her blasted FLIP PHONE to watch youtube videos.  Trust me, Dwayne and I were shocked her phone was capable of that, going south on I-5, to boot.

Piper cheered up significantly when her youngest cousins showed up.

\

Jarrod did some heavy lifting this weekend, pushing the kids on the merry-go-round and hours underdogging the hammocks.

The hammocks were a big hit, but I'm too embarrassed about the damage done to the trees to show evidence.  We will use hammocks for contemplative reading in the future, not war games.

 I don't know what these two discussed, but I'm guessing Brian ended up compromising to this cutie.

Here is the elusive Parker, who rarely slows down enough when he and Wes are together that we can get a picture of him.  The power of s'mores!

  

So good to see my family, after so many months! 

Maiden Voyage! (Spoiler: we almost drowned....)

This is the first time the kids (and Dwayne, it turns out!) got to travel in the Unnamed Beast.  It is exactly what they love about motorhomes, sitting in a moving living room.  Being a newb, I let them go into the convenience store themselves when we stopped for gas, and I let them bring their tablets.  So they basically ate candy (I found out how much later when we arrived at our destination) and played video games in their moving living room.  

We liked the location of our Leavenworth park--it was less than a mile from town, and Dwayne and I discovered some new neighborhoods to walk around before we fortuitously stumbled across the Icicle Irrigation Creek trail.

We spent the rest of the weekend camping and adventuring--and working on the broken motorhome, exactly as we'd be cautioned by....everyone.

Downtown Leavenworth was even more enjoyable than usual, with slightly fewer crowds and the main streets blocked off to cars.  Restaurants were doing take out, and the Gingerbread Factory was still selling cookies, so we survived.

(Yep, Baby Sam Doll is riding the goat.  He goes where Piper and BFF go.)

I always think I love downtown Leavenworth best, but really, I try to spend most of my time on the trails along the river.  

 We walked in both Saturday and Sunday, returning to a "secret" place with a rope swing over the water. 






Those familiar with the maternal genes will not be surprised how quickly Kyla fell in and got drenched.

The kids discovered a puddle of sand, so a cat and a creeper (just nod, like you play Minecraft every moment of your allowed screen time) were sculpted.
I read that Starbursts are THE new s'mores.  My review? There really is no need to look beyond the regular s'mores...particularly with dark chocolate or Thin Mints. 

And the RV repair?  Either we brought it home this way, or the connection was so tenuous that regular road bumps shook it loose, but when we showered Friday night, the drainpipe was not connected to the shower drain.  Fortunately (?), we were unlevel enough that the water ran out toward the front door, so we quickly discovered we had a major water leak somewhere.  Dwayne wormed his hand back through the spaces, and discovered the gap:

We were unable to reattach it ourselves, but we have an appointment to have it fixed (under warranty) before our next outing.  I was able to easily reattach the pantry door that fell off, and minimalize the water damage, so we'll get the hang of it eventually.
Overall: I love it.  Even the first trip, when I had just hours to go from bare shelves to outfitting it with everything we might ever need (from tools and power converters to TP and dish soap) while still packing all the usual camping gear...well, it may have been a bit too much to do single-handedly.  But the kids loved it, I slept well, we ate well, and mostly, it was an easy camping experience.  
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