Making Lemonade

Nope, not the kind you drink, but what you do when life hands you lemons.
Our first full day at the campground started out great. John got off to work, the rest of us woke up joyfully, anticipating *something* fun ahead. We had eggs for breakfast, our first cooking breakfast in the bus. Saylor helped, because he can reach the stove really well and he's already announced he's making breakfast for us tomorrow!
I told the boys how much I love being close to them like this; how it's great that I can be right here in the kitchen and they're in the living/family room, and still right beside me!
We all went outside and discovered some interesting looking spiders. The boys got out their creature identification guide, and as we found a new bug, spider, etc, we would take a photo of it, then look for it in the guide. They even saw a big spider wrapping up lunch that had gotten caught in its web.
John needed some things for lunch, so we loaded everyone up in the car (this is where making lemonade starts to come in!) and after I'd let it run for a while, it was smoking. Uh-oh! I turned it off, only to have it refuse to start again.
Luckily, we have our bicycles!! Stone and Sage crawled into the Burley, Saylor on his bike, and we started the 1 mile trek towards the sleepy little town of Sloan. First stop, a local pizza joint where we ate some tasty home-made pizza, and the boys blew some (ok, lots) of their cash on the video machines there. Then we peddled the 3 blocks to the park; very nice park! A climbing wall and horses and airplanes for swings, as well as the usual big playground equipment. I pushed all the boys in the baby swings and Sage enjoyed the slides.
Next stop, grocery store, about 3 blocks back toward Main St. again, everything is really within a 3 block pedal, really! The boys got a few little $1 items from their dollar section, and a snack and then we headed back to the bus. As we were riding back home, I was thinking about what a good day it had been, and how there was a time in my life that I would have chosen a very different 'attitude'. I'm glad I chose joy today. It was a good day!
Notes from JohnÂ’s day:
(written by Karen w/ his permission)
He came home from work, I headed over to check out a campground 6 miles away, by a lake we hear? We decided to move over to the new campground, so he buttoned everything up, loaded up the bikes and the dog and the Saylor, and headed over. He was so focused on making sure everything was in traveling order around the outside of the bus, all doors shut, hoses, cords in, etc, but then overlooked the crockpot sitting on the kitchen counter, full of our chicken and brown rice dinner. When he got here, he told me it ended up on the floor! Ooops! He scooped it right back in with a spatula, though, and it was delicious even if it did spend some time on the floor! Our glass butter dish also fell out of a cabinet, hitting and ***gasp*** breaking, our espresso carafe; the caramel syrup we use for our daily breve's glug, glugged a bit down onto/into the stovetop.
I had to laugh when I got in here and saw the damage. I can just imagine the drive over here; food on the floor, stuff flying out of the cabinets, Max (our big dog) trailing dinner all over the floor with his paws! Funny if you think about it, really, but John wasn't laughing. I got it all cleaned up, no problem, and am chalking it up to the old 'sh--' happens thing!
We had a fleet of mosquitos that snuck their way into the bus somehow, so random slaps of the skin could be heard into the night as we all tried to drift off to sleep as they feasted on our blood. Johns words: "Tomorrow will be a better day". Yep, let's just hope the skeeters pick another family to torture tomorrow night!