The Great Outdoors

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything but the last month has held a lot of new things for me. The most amusing would be the fact that I went "camping". When I was growing up, my mother always told me that if you want to go camping, stay at a Motel 6, they don't give you a hair dryer! :-) My sister and our friends decided that it would be a great experience for all of our little one's to experience the great outdoors. While in theory that sounded like a fabulous idea, the implementation part of the plan was another story.

Let me say first that I was actually pretty excited about the idea of sitting around a campfire and making smore's with my niece and nephew. Then I realized that while sitting outdoors it gets incredibly cold and my bones were aching so bad that I thought I'd end up back in the hospital. While it was pretty hard for me to be hurting like that, I also didn't want to be the one to take away from everyone else having a good time, so I kept a smile on my face, grabbed another blanket to wrap around myself and really tried to be a good sport. After a few nights of this, I started to give in a bit more and go to bed a little earlier each night, but the most important thing to me was that everyone else have a good time.

Isn't it the worst feeling to have such a desire for things to be good for your friends and family while having to sacrifice your own pain level in the process? In most cases, I'm not that generous and by no means do I mean to be a martyr, but things have been pretty rough for me over the past few months and these people were the ones who were there for me when it really mattered and I wanted them to have a great trip and not have to worry about me so much.

I can now say I have been camping and most likely will have no desire to do it again, but I really did have a good time with my family and we got some great stories out of this trip that I wouldn't trade for anything. Family are the people who sit there with you when you need them the most and I would do anything to keep them in my life and happy, including sleeping in the woods in California. They are amazing people and I'm so grateful that we all had that time together.

I won't become a girl scout or an outdoorsy kind of gal anytime soon, but it's always good to try anything once, especially when you get a great story or memory out of it! I highly recommend trying new things whenever your body let's you. You never know what you might find that you enjoy!!!

"Camping: nature's way of promoting the motel industry."
~Dave Barry