Through the Back Loop

Adventures in knitting, fiber arts, and family.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Having the Kids Away at Camp

After a week at camp, today is the day that both girls come home to the nest. Is it normal to feel happy and sad at the same time?

It has been an incredible week – John and I spent half of our time in his apartment up north smelling the pine trees and slowly moving from room to room sipping coffee to slowly greet each day. We would then go to the library to check e-mail and after that we drove around and investigated canoeing sites.

It is beautiful up there, and canoeing is everywhere. We had planned to bring our canoe along, atop my new-to-me car and paddle around for the afternoon, but we couldn’t get it rigged atop my car without this dreadful buzzing sound of the straps vibrating against the car every time we hit 50 mph. We had to go home and dump the canoe. This left us sitting along the banks of the Sylvania Wilderness watching two large groups pack and pull out while we sniffled into our hankies and waved them off.

The second day up there we bought cross bars for my car so that this will never happen again.

After coming “home home” as we call our primary house now, we continued with the slow greeting to each day. It has been a beautiful week. Which leads me to thinking: what would be the best things about having the kids gone?

Top Ten Reasons You Should Send Your Children to Camp the Same Week

10. Waking up to birds chirping at any time of the morning instead of waking up at 6:30am to the sounds of your daughters’ fighting over where the clean socks are.

9. Being able to blast the radio on a station that I like without hearing, “Can I change the radio station? Why are we listening to THIS?” every five minutes.

8. Having a complete, uninterrupted thought.

7. The phone doesn’t ring. Ever!

6. We had thought that our TV only tuned to the Disney and Nickelodeon channels, but alas, we do have OTHER channels. And we watched them!

5. I can go to the bathroom without having to beg my 13 year-old to stop putting on make-up or hair straightening first.

4. No one has asked to have a friend sleep over; not even the cats. There has been no whining about this, in fact the only whine we have had went well with some cheese as we drank to our happy week!

3. I started a soda, and it will still be there later in the day when I want more. We haven’t had to plan secret invasion times to get food or drink before the kids inhale it.

2. At the grocery store, we could poke around and learn about new foods (morel mushrooms really stink!). At the check-out, the contents of our cart made us look like health food freaks – no Frosted Flakes, no pop-tarts, no Gogurt. We had REAL food!

1. To satisfy your dirty minds – YES! We have DONE IT in every room in the house – clean that is! And the house has STAYED clean!

We have missed our little cherubs immensely, but do you think that the camps would keep them for one more week? Neither did I.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Back to Normal

Welcome back?

Is this what I’m supposed to say after such a long break?

Life finally seems to be settling into a summer groove here, now that we are all living under the same roof and summer school is over. John and I both taught summer school at our local district, and the last Friday was our last day. Can you say, “Let’s camp?”
That’s pretty much what we were saying, but John is on jury duty this month so he has to wait for the “all clear”. We worked outside to make the house look like someone cares about it again, and promptly went to camp near his winter home of Minocqua, WI. John wanted to attend the 4th of July parade, a pow-wow and the fireworks in the town where he teaches, Lac du Flambeau, WI. We ate so much fry bread and Indian tacos that I’m still a bit groggy from it all.

With the second camping trip under our belt (we went to Hudson, WI for our daughter’s soccer tournament a couple of weeks ago), we are busy planning our first canoe camping trip of the year. See what I mean by things are getting back to normal around here? John and I have had to learn again how to move around the house and do things together after spending the entire school year as single people. It was strange and very pleasant to wake up to coffee already going... and I have to admit that I’ve been WAY spoiled by him cooking supper almost every night.

Next week will bring a first for us. The first time we will be kidless in our 15 year marriage. Well... we were kidless for the first 18 months, but I can’t even remember that time. Both of our girls are going away to summer camp next week. Get this... they are going to different camps, but we managed to luck out and have them be the exact same week! At 1:00 Sunday we are free to fly the coop. What should we do?

Do you have any suggestions?