Family Camping Fun

This weekend I was invited by my Uncle Bill to go camping as a celebration for my cousin Patrick's 16th Birthday. First of all, let me say, that wasn't really camping. Yes, there was a campfire and S'mores and all that fun stuff, but the "cottages" that the boys were staying in had air conditioning, a refrigerator, bathroom and flat screen TV. (I like how there is a picture of the air conditioning unit in that link.) The girl's cabin was down the road a little bit and also had air conditioning, but no bathroom (Gasp!) The bathhouse was about 100 yards away, so it wasn't bad at all.

When I said I would go, I didn't really know who all would be there. I was a little surprised. Are you ready for the attendance list? Have a pen and paper ready? My Uncle Bill, his 4 kids, Bill's soon to be third wife Jane and her two kids, my cousin Brian and his wife Heidi and their 3 kids and 3 of my cousin Michelle's kids (the ones that aren't in jail.) Then for the icing on the cake of the weekend, Patrick's mom, Lisa (my uncle's first wife) and her husband Michael. That was just a little bizarre since up till about two year's ago, we were pretty much told to ignore that Lisa had ever existed. Imagine my face when the car pulled up with Jane driving and Lisa in the passenger's seat. One big happy family outing.

It was pretty fun. We went swimming in a pool with a water slide which was ok and mostly involved kids climbing on my back and asking me to pull them around/throw them/dunk them. It was a little tiring. We had hot dogs and hamburgers for supper. Then some adult time to drink wine coolers and discuss how messed up the rest of our family is/what is up with Jane's kids, etc while the kids were mini golfing and at a dance party at the pool. During this serious discussion, at one point my cousin Heidi was standing on a picnic table singing Push It. For those of you that know Heidi, its probably not that surprising. That was only after one wine cooler too. The kids got a ride back to camp in the back of Michael's pick up truck and were pulled over by a security guard in a golf cart who said "I should arrest you...and I can."

That night we celebrated Patrick's birthday. He opened presents, we had a cake that Heidi had brought...she's the cake queen. We made S'mores and then it was time to head to bed where in the girl's cabin we played a riveting game of "Do you want to buy a duck?" ("A what?" "A duck"). And I learned interesting facts from the pre-teen girls like all sea cucumbers do is move and poop and heard stories about the girl that "had her intestines sucked out of her butt by the swimming pool filter" which to my shock turned out to be true.

A very fun weekend of family bonding.