Happy Anniversary Baby!

We marked our 12th anniversary during our east coast vacation. Here we leaving after a cozy night stay at the Wyndam in Philly.



And we brought 5 ingrates along for the grand occasion to make it extra cozy.






Brent snaps a picture of the wife he has had for a dozen years now. She is sweaty, dirty and definitely excited about curling up with him. . . and marcus, caroline, camille, savannah, and kennon in a couple hours in the sticky summer weather. We are camping in Washington DC !

Now that's three in a row that we have (in my way of thinking) skipped. 2006 we forgot because we were knee deep in 50 Roswell Rubble. 2007 we had a kid in our armpit the entire day as we celebrated hardcore in the Buick Motel, with many serenades of Little River Band's "Happy Anniversary Baby, Got you on my mind . . . yeah!" We arrived in Washington that evening only to find out we were a day early and it was only the 17th.

I was glad for a second chance to celebrate, but all in vain. It turned out to be nuttin' but another day of Little River Band as we mutually decided we didn't need to go out and we should hang out with family. But after all the serenading I was happy to call it quits on the whole anniversary thing for another year.

Well, at least we remembered the date this year, even though we found it quite impossible once again to celebrate in the good old fashioned way - a date. How can I complain though? I'm on vacation. We camped 6 nights out of 10. It felt a little like roughin' it at times but in a fun, memorable type of way, of course.

How did the kids feel about camping? Kennon "Man, you guys are cheapos!" (direct quote we heard several times) She especially didn't like it when she saw her panties hanging up to dry. She was terrified of the ticks and daddy long legs. "I'll tell you one thing, I am sleeping in the van, not in the tent." Much of her camping time was spent in the van "making calls" on her cell phone. On the last day at camp she was in the bathroom when she saw a teenager girl come in and plug in her cell phone to charge while she showered. Kennon came right back to camp grabbed her towel, soap, and cellphone and headed off to do likewise. When I went to check on her she told me a big story about having to get out in her towel in the middle of her shower to plug it in because there were too many people at the sink when she first got in.

She also made it her primary objective to obtain all of her parents sleeping comforts. After finally giving up on getting her Dad's air mattress she finally convinced me and I gave up one of my sheets and my cushiony sleeping bag. Savannah relished in sticky smores, the sticks and sand, and skipping showers. Her excuse was the lizard who lived in the cracks of the bathroom wall. Camille loved the great outdoors and the perfect child seriously never complains. As long as she could take her nightly shower and spend a half hour in fixing her hair afterwards. Caroline takes after her sis Savannah. She thoroughly enjoys her smores. Marcus is happy as long as he can reach his toes. Brent did all the cooking and working around camp because most of the time I was sitting in the van, nursing, trying in vain to get Marcus to go to sleep . We all missed his pitch black closet he sleeps in at home. Brent took care of him for a half hour in the tent one night just before dark, while I was showering. He was screaming, completely exhausted, not having slept pretty much all day. It was 9:30 but still not dark enough for him. When I finally got back, Brent told me that "we" aren't raising him right.