Our Traveling Tribe

Well, the whole camp host thingy is going very well despite the steep learning curve. I’d like to think that we are doing OK – we’ve only had to babysit one drunk so far. That really was our own fault – we should have called the sheriff, but we were trying to be nice.

Friday night we had a truck camper pull into one of the day use spots to camp – they wanted it because it was close to the boat ramp. It was fine by us, as long as they paid the $10/night fee just as if they were in an official spot. And actually, I’m glad that they were by us and not in another loop where they would have been bothering the other campers without our knowledge. Friday night was hot and humid, rather unusual (at least the humid part), and everyone had their camper windows open hoping to catch any hint of a breeze – it was completely still. At about 10:30, their site (3 guys) starts getting a little boisterous around the campfire. They had been drinking just enough to talk good and loud thinking that everyone along the lake wanted to hear all the ultra cool things that they had to say – too bad that they only seemed to be able to recall four-letter words in their inebriated state. It went downhill as the night progressed. As it got later and later, the drunk got louder and louder while his friend is continually telling him to quiet down. One man had gone to be early, then about 1 the not-so-drunk one goes into their truck camper, and the drunk is left alone, muttering to himself about the gestapo camp host. LOL! Pretty soon, Vaughn (who is keeping an eye on him from inside the camper) sees him walk towards and past our toy hauler and over to the edge of the lake in front of our trailer. Since we couldn’t see him, Vaughn slipped outside to see what sort of mischief he was up to. Our inebriated gentleman stood over by the lake for a time, and then slipped back to the backside of our camper where the vehicles are parked, stopping behind Vaughn’s big white Dodge, and reached down muttering how he was going to get to get even with that #@!* camp host! Just as he stood up with a rock, Vaughn stepped out from the shadows and said how this wasn’t the way back to his camper. The drunk about jumped out of his skin, then kept mumbling how he was just trying to get back to his camper. Eventually he did make it back to his camper, and we stayed up long enough to ensure that he had passed out.

Vaughn had gone over and talked to them twice, which was once too many. Next time he will just call the sheriff after the first confrontation, but we were trying to be nice, and really didn’t want to have to call out the LEOs the first weekend we were here. The group was still around Sat. night, but the weather wasn’t so great, so they turned in early (along with everyone else), and we didn’t have any more problems.

Seeing this kind of behaviour (and other instances) is really great for my kids. I know that lots of people try to keep their kids away from stuff like that (and we do in some cases too), but it is a great first-hand look at the effects of alcohol and the consequences of it. So, while for us, not drinking is a spiritual/belief issue, it never hurts for the kids to be able to see what can happen when you allow yourself to be controlled by a substance.

So, while I have spent this entire post ranting about one man, let me assure you that despite our minor run-in with him, I am still thinking that this is my dream job!

This morning, I was half an hour late to get my laundry out of the KOA dryers because I HAD to stop and talk to some campers! It’s tough, let me tell you!

Camp hosting has some perks – like running water (in a dry camping campground)…Yes, Joel has his life jacket on backwards. First they were kayaking, then, when Daddy decided to wash the camper, he was squirting the boys with the hose. That’s Joel’s body armor…

I think that we are ALL enjoying our new location! It is a little bit more of a drive to work for Vaughn, but we are closer to the orthodontist, the cousins, and the lake! Greg loves to be outdoors and is finding lots to do around here. Hannah got put to work in the store first thing, and she is really enjoying the job – and the money she is earning since it’s hard to earn money when we are traveling. The campground caretaker put Eli to work right away, and he can pretty much work there as much as he wants (when he is not working for his dad). Beth has been given a job also, and the 3 littlest boys are setting up garbage cans to collect aluminum cans (recycling is pretty much non-existent in MT); we told them that they could split the $ that they receive when we turn the cans in (and I don’t have guilt about throwing away all the cans from the yummy flavored teas that I have been buying too many of at the KOA store)!We have planters in front of the patio, and we bought flowers for them Monday, which the girls planted, so we even have flower beds to take care of! All the comforts of home! LOL!

OH, and the best part, which we totally didn’t know about until we were snooping through the storage barns next to our site, is the full-size fridge/freezer in one of the barns – plugged in and ready to go! That called for a special trip to Costco, and it is now full of milk and ice cream bars!!! hehehe!While we still don’t like the mosquitoes, being near the water during hot days like today definitely makes up for them! And while we may have a run in or two with problem campers, we have already met hundreds of considerate, fun, kind people that more than make up for the troublemakers. We are loving our new ‘job’ that totally doesn’t feel like work!

One of the things that we thought might be fun to experience while we were on the road was workcamping.

Workcamping is (wait for it……..) working while you are camping!

Enlightening aren’t I? hehehe!

Many workcampers work for a campground that they are parked at exchanging labor for their campsite fees, or even for the site fees with a bit in wages too, depending on the position, difficulty and amount of work, cost of the site…

While we thought that it would be a great experience for the kids to be able to work for a campground(s) along the way, it really wasn’t an option for us as we:

1. had some difficulty finding campgrounds that would let our large family rent a site let alone put us to work also

2. we never stayed at one spot long enough to try to work out an arrangement with a campground.

Sounded like it would be a great experience, and while we would have like to try it, it just wasn’t feasible while we were traveling. Then by the time that we got back home, we were busy with other things (though the first campground that we stayed at did approach Vaughn about fixing their roof in exchange for the site) and we didn’t give it much more thought.

After we stayed at Canyon Ferry Lake, then we parked on the outskirts of town at the firework stand for about 2 weeks. One of those days, while we were manning the firework stand, we received a call from the manager of the CFL campground, asking if we had ever thought about camp hosting. We hadn’t seriously thought about it since it had never really been an option, but we agreed to talk it over and get back to her. After discussing it a bit, we decided to go for it – I mean, why not? We were in town for a few more months, we might not get another chance to try it out, and surely we could find the kids some manual labor while we were there because, hey, you CAN play too much!

So, here we find ourselves workcamping – working for our full-hookup site (the site we had reserved for this time is $525/mo.), a bit of grocery money, and a few great perks too! Especially since we were not even looking for a workcamping job, this particular position is a cushy one! (We are continually amazed how God opens up doors for us – opportunities that we would like to experience, but don’t think are possible. But, of course, all things are possible with our omnipotent God!)

So, we have been ‘on the job’ for a total of 6 days so far, and let me tell you, I think that this may be my dream job! LOL! ~well, except for the mosquitoes!!! If I seem to start sounding a bit, ummm, emotionally unstable in my posts, it will be because those annoying, sadistic pests (which are incredibly prolific here) are driving me insane!!! We all look like we have the chicken pox, and have already bought and gone through so many bottles/cans of insect repellent it may just cost us money to stay here! Have yet to find a brand that works – I was a ‘no-deet‘ person before coming here, now I don’t care what it is, slather it on as long as it keeps those crazy biting machines away! We are also getting to used to remembering to light those tiki torch thingys (which the kids think are so cool!), and always have citronella candles burning on the picnic tables.

And speaking of picnic tables (because I was, wasn’t I?) – they even set up TWO big picnic tables for us! It’s awfully nice to be able to spread out instead of squishing together at one table at regular sites.

I will fill you in better a little later. Until then, you can find us hanging out at the lake, swimming and kayaking, and shooting the breeze with oodles of sweet retired people (the weekends are another story). It’s a tough job (NOT), but I guess that someone REALLY DOES have to do it!Glad it’s us! LOL!

Lots of times, I forget that people who don’t know us personally often wonder how we do what we do! And when it comes to certain things, sometimes I wonder how we do what we do! Take grocery shopping for instance…

back home, we had 3 large chest freezers in the garage, and 2 full-size side-by-side fridge/freezers in the house (one in the kitchen and one in the back mud room). And I liked to keep them full. Once a week (minimum) I would go to my fav. store Costco, and stock up on staples, the most important being 7 boxes of milk (14 gallons). And, while we didn’t go through 20 pounds of real butter a week, that is what I considered my ‘on hand’ amount to have; 6 dzn. eggs (I do miss REAL eggs from our own chickens!), 10 packages of cream cheese, 4-5# blocks of Tillamook (boy, that was cool to go see it made since we eat so much of it!)…

We also bought a lot of things in bulk, like popcorn in 50 pound bags from the natural food store in town, or multiple 50# bags of flour from our local Wheat MT…

Being so prepared doesn’t go so well with living in an RV.

Now, living in the 5th wheel, we buy 1 box of milk at a time, and hope that we have room for those 2 measly gallons. We don’t buy 4-5# blocks of cheese, we buy 1-2# block (and hope we have room for it). And flour – what flour??? -we don’t bake much in the rv. Popcorn = one container of Orville at a time.

Grocery shopping is one of the areas where we have had to really change how we do things! And lately, it seems like that is all I do! Because we are so limited on space, we find ourselves having to shop much more frequently.

Before, I would buy what was on my list, and also what I felt like; woe to the checkbook if momma went to Costco hungry! But, at least I always had room for however much I bought.

Now, I try to always remember to check the fridge/freezer to see how much free space I have in there before I go to the store, and then buy only what can fit. Yet my optimistic spirit (hehehe!) is always sure that I have more room than I actually do, and I am forever buying too many cold items! The kids never seem to mind it when I overbuy though because it is always the ice cream that has to go; one time in N.M, it meant they got to eat 4 boxes of ice cream bars – at once – before they melted (I’m pretty sure it’s a sin to throw away good food)!?!?!

While I still enjoy shopping sales, and also matching coupons, I have to do it on a much smaller scale. I will admit that I do have a small amount of overflow in our storage unit, but I try to keep it minimal or else we will have too many of certain items when it comes time to pull out this fall.

Anyway – I decided that I would be like those savings/coupon blogs and show you all the groceries that I snagged today…

(cuz I just know that you all are super excited to read about our groceries!) LOL!

though the savings-blog-ladies would be so disappointed in my purchases – I didn’t use a single coupon, I didn’t shop the sales (which I do periodically – usually after reading one of their blogs!), and my errands took awhile so by the time I got to buying groceries, I was hungry (which accounts for items like the orange parfait – I Never buy those things!). As for the pizzas – we do NOT have room for cardboard pizzas in our little fridge/freezer – they sat on the counter until it was time to cook them for dinner. We have a tradition in our house (mobile or not), pizza and popcorn every Friday night, in front of a movie.

The boys unloaded all the groceries for me and, believe it or not, we made it all fit in the kitchen (I should have taken a before picture!)…

check out our pack job…
(though you are sure to notice that one box of fudgesicles didn’t make it into the freezer)…going from 50+ sq. ft. of fridge/freezer space in the house (not counting chest freezers) to 9 square feet has been a little bit of a challenge! It means that every time I run into town, I will pick up a gallon or 2 of milk if nothing else. It means that we don’t always have everything on hand to make whatever strikes us on a whim. It means that I spend way too much money at Costco because I am Always stopping there! And above all else, it means that everyone in the family has learned to open the fridge/freezer door with caution!!!

Living in an RV has taught us (among many other things), that we are incredibly blessed, and tend to believe that we NEED so much more than we can actual live with (we could actually LIVE without a fridge at all!). I am thankful that I have 9 square feet of fridge!

So, the next time that you are tempted to complain about having to clean out that big fridge in your kitchen, think of the 13 of us, and be thankful for your square footage! LOL!

If you are ever interested in doing a study on differing personalities and human nature, by all means, run a firework stand. Every year I am just in awe of the spectrum of people that I am able to meet. From the grandpas and grammas that bring in their grandchildren, to the (apparently homeless) neighborhood kids that practically live at the stand, to some of my fav families that track us down whether they have moved or we have, to the growing numbers of teen boys that come to ‘just look’ now that our 18 y.o. daughter is working the stand most of the time (grrrr!). We meet all kinds (kind of like traveling).

But of all the people that we have met over the 5 years that we have been doing stands, the ‘gentleman’ that we were temporary neighbors to, by far is the most memorable. I highly doubt that we will ever forget this ummm, experience.

For the past 4 seasons, we have been at a 30′ long stand out in the valley. We have grown a great clientele; we are known for being very family friendly and stocking ‘excessive’ amounts of novelty fireworks (is there such a thing?LOL!) for the kids. It has been our niche.

This year, however, we passed that stand on to Greg… Some dear friends of ours generously loaned him their camper, and he bached it for the 12 days that it takes to run a stand. He ate way too many peanut butter and honey sandwiches (his fav), and drank gallons and gallons of Powerade, but he survived. I think that it was a great chance for this mom to see that her big, little boy can do just fine on his own. I actually didn’t worry about him nearly as much as I thought that I would!!! And he did great job on his own, with his own stand!

Initially he was to take the new-to-us stand, but it ended up being about 40′ long and would be more difficult to man himself. Thus, we moved a few miles away to a new spot. A new, not-so-family-friendly spot. At least not OUR family family-friendly.

It all began when we pulled into the parking lot behind the new stand, 10 days before the 4th. To comply with fire code, we must be parked at least 50 feet away from the stand, which put us about 50 feet away from a mobile home with a 20 something tenant that was none to happy to see us. He immediately came flying out of his trailer yelling at us that we couldn’t park there – it is private property, and we need to move NOW! Totally blows off any reply of ours until I am following his sagging britches to his house asking where the ‘firework people’ usually park. Then, with a few dark looks, and some unfriendly muttering sounds, he relents, and then proceeds to warn us (hoping we will leave) that there will be a lot of traffic in and out of his house due to his business. Lucky us, we get to park by a:

MEDICAL MARIJUANA DEALER!!!

I am so not kidding, and was so not happy either!

Lately, there is actually quite a stir here in MT over the whole legal pot dealer thing. Some law was passed that allowed it (which they are quickly trying to alter), and now (obviously) just anyone CAN sell it. And by the ‘patients’ going in and out, just anyone can get a prescription. The people going in and out were quite an eye opening for us! Don’t believe it when they feed you rhetoric about all those poor upstanding clean-cut citizens who just need a fix to get them over their pain! These ‘patients’ were scary! Not people that I really want my children parked next to, especially when I can’t even SEE my children all the time!

Anyway, throughout the week and a half that we were parked there, things slowly escalated from bad to worse, though we are not sure how they did, or why, or what we did… We tried to be kind and give him space, which was really hard when our camper is facing his yard! We made sure to keep our blinds closed on his side, and set the picnic table up on the other side of the camper even though there was no shade there…made sure the kids played on ‘our’ side, tried to be quiet, parked way out of the way… yet still, we ended up having another confrontation with him where he claimed that we were spying on him (hello!, I don’t even have time to snuggle Molly for these 11 days, let alone check out what he’s up to!) among other things. It was crazy! It was also a great chance for the kids to see that it takes 2 to fight, that a soft answer turneth away wrath, that it is possible to care for your enemies.

It was also sad. I couldn’t help but feel bad for him – he must be really hurting to be so bitter and angry inside. We tried to reason with him, and talk to him, and finally just had to tell him to take it up with the landlord – we couldn’t do anything to please him (and we weren’t leaving.). All we could do was to continue to take it to God, and prayed for safety, and that we would somehow be a vessel for His glory.

I asked the kids to pray for our temporary neighbor, and we just determined to be nice to him no matter what (tho that doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t defend ourselves). We didn’t know if he was just a hateful person, was going through a stressful time, or was being convicted about the lifestyle he was living (and raising his precious 2 year old in). We just tried to give him the benefit of the doubt as we would want others to give to us.

One day, just a couple of days before the 4th, Vaughn was walking over to the storage unit where we keep our extra stock of fireworks, and the guy approached Vaughn and apologized for his behaviour. It was a complete bout-face! It was really incredible to see ‘heaping coals’ at work! He and Vaughn talked a few times, and he even asked Vaughn if it would bother the kids if he set off some fireworks! Kinda weird, and very incredible !!! Then, on the 4th, Vaughn saw that he was lighting some artillery shells, so Vaughn took him a box from us, and then the guy came over with his little girl, and bought her some fountains. It was like he was a whole different person, and I was so bummed that it was the 4th! Now, I actually can’t wait until next year – I hope that he is still there; we will start on much better terms (I hope!!!), and maybe we can get to know him better.

One thing that we came face to face with on our trip, going to so many different places instead of staying in our comfort zone, was that there are so many hurting people out there. Sometimes they need physical help, but many times they just need encouragement, a listening ear, to know that someone cares about them…

And while I will still not be thrilled to be parked next to a Medical Marijuana Caregivers office(?), I will be happy to get to know the person better!

This year, Hannah could sell since she is 18, so she took the stand a lot for me – I could run errands, help out in the camper (even though Bethy did an awesome job holding down the fort!), and even sleep in

Emma about drove us nuts in the stand – it IS possible to be TOO helpful!!! She would come visit us when it wasn’t busy, and if we did have a customer, she would bag their fireworks. Most of the customers got a kick out of her enthusiasm and would ask her whether she liked to work in the stand, which of course she did, and that would, unfailingly, lead to them asking her which firework was her favorite. Her never changing answer was ‘the pink ones’. Then, they would (nearly always!) ask her to pick one out for them! She would take them straight to the pink birthday candles (like she had on her cake) – and most bought them (at $5 ea.) while I am trying to ensure them that her feelings would not be hurt if they didn’t really need a pink birthday candle!

She is quite a little salesman.

And made a killing in tips!

We really enjoy selling fireworks every year. Usually, by the end of the 11 days, we are very ready to be done… not so sick of it that we don’t want to do it next year, but not wanting to do it anymore this year either!

It can be exhausting…

And we were ALL tuckered out by the 4th!!!
Too many late nights, cup o’ noodles for lunch, and hours upon hours of movie watching (since playing outside wasn’t such a great idea here!)…
I love to run a firework stand every year – maybe it’s that it is so very different from my ‘everyday life’, maybe it’s the busyness, or the kids’ excitement over the fireworks. Maybe though, it’s the people we get to meet. Even the temporary, unique neighbors that we get to live next to. This neighbor is one that I hope and pray that I get to run into at the store (or where-ever) before our time here is up for the summer. I would like to extend that hand of friendship again, because life isn’t about the stuff we accumulate, or the job that we go to day after day, or even the experiences that we get to experience. Life is about the people that we meet, the people that we can encourage, that we can minister to. And that is what I enjoy the most about the OTR life that I lead – the incredible, varied, individual people that we get to meet!

just us…
right here… right now…

Working! (more on that later!) gee, the life of a gypsy family is hard!

Little girls grow up way too fast!!!

and it was spent in the RV, at the fireworks stand, just like every one of her birthdays have been…We had these wild firework/birthday candle flowers in the stand, and Emma decided that she would LOVE to have one on her cake – a pink one of course. We had never done one before, so I stuck it on her birthday-donut-cake and lit it while it was sitting on the counter. Under the cabinets.

We may have to light another just so I can get a picture of what it did! It wouldn’t be on the cake though – I guess that I could put it on the half that is left, but it wouldn’t be a very pretty picture…Peanut came in the camper later, and she scooped every bit of pink frosting off and ate it!!! I fully trust that her brothers will keep her safe when they are watching her, but they apparently don’t take notice of her interaction with harmless little things like pink frosting.

Life in a camper means that we buy gifts a little differently. They must be small.

I didn’t really do so great on the small aspect this time.

And the gift that I thought would be her fav, ended up being her least – though she is one of those kids that is tickled by anything that we give her…

She gets a movie every year – it’s small and it keeps the little girls entranced for at least a couple of hours (firework stands are REALLY boring!)

I thought that the girls would love the Strawberry Shortcake pool that we gave Emma, but eh, not so much… it lasted about 5 minutes – I think that the boys played with it more trying to figure out how the little shower on it worked.

I bought her tea set because I liked it, and it ended up being the greatest (she has good taste). She and Peanut have played with it for hours and hours; and gone through gallons and gallons of water – which you tend to notice more when you are limited to 110 gallons!

She even got her brothers in on it…

Jake heard the camera click, looked at me deathly serious, and said “Mom, don’t put that on the blog!” hehehe! -he’ll forgive me some day!

Joel, well, Joel doesn’t care a hoot what his friends think – he’d play with his sister on her birthday All Day if that’s what she wanted. Course, so would Jake if the camera is not around!

Can’t believe that our baby girl is 5! She is becoming such a little lady – when she’s not ‘football tackling’ her daddy!

Happy Birthday to our sweet Emmaline Mae! We love you oodles!

Week before last, (wow! time flies!!!) the kids and I spent the week at my sister’s cabin in the mountains. I scrapbooked the entire time (kinda), and the kids sat in front of the wii the entire time. It was rainy all week, so the airsoft guns that they had brought along sat unused on the porch.

I had decided not to scrap in the rv since I really like to spread out – I’m thinking it would be worse than the sewing marathon! LOL!

I got 4 albums done. Not quite as many as I had hoped to get done, but I’m happy to be into Feb. I am doing them very simply – I can always go back and redo them someday if I want to.

I am a Creative Memories fan. Not that I never use anything else, but seldom. I used to do the albums where you create the entire page, but that is hardly practical in an rv. I decided that instead of giving it up all together while we are on the road, that I would make something work even though it may not be what I consider ideal for me. So, I have started using the PicFolio albums, which are slide in albums. C.M. makes these cute, coordinating kits with pre-cut mats and journaling boxes – all I have to do is tape on pics and write out the happenings. Once I got back to town, I resigned as a consultant just to get a discount on my orders for this summer – I figure 12 albums a year (not doing the kids’ right now), so it adds up fast!

I really didn’t print many pictures while we were on the road, but I did do an album while we were traveling (didn’t even scrap through Oregon!). Takes up very little space to haul along an album, trimmer, pen, tape runner, and the pics that I have printed on the road. I still plan on taking an album or 2 (not 4 like I took last year) on the road in case I get the scrapping bug, but don’t plan on trying to stay caught up – I rather like that week at the cabin! ~Thanks Gayle!!!
Since it had been nasty out the whole week, it was really nice to have a place to spread out. But, when we got home, the weather was still rather yucky…mud and RVs don’t really go together so well!

and there was a lot of mud!
Now though, it has finally gotten a little nicer here.

Then, Wednesday, we moved into town to do our yearly firework stand. This will be our 5th year, but this year we are in a different stand, and Greg took over our old location. I’ll let you know how it’s going in a few days!

Every year, my boys (big & small), go to the Montana Youth Trapping Camp. Yes, we hunt, fish, and trap, so if you don’t agree that God gave us dominion over the animals, and they are for our use, it would be a good idea if you left now LOL!

Anyway, when they go, all 7 usually go, and us girls are home alone (yee haw!) – it is usually our yearly weekend of chick-flicks and chocolate, jammies and sleeping in. This last weekend however, we had invited another family to camp with us, so we were hanging out with them (at the lake). Plus, my sister’s 3 kiddos came out to play…Jake had decided that he didn’t want to go to trapping camp, so he was hanging out with us girls for the weekend. He did however, have our friends’ 3 boys, and then his cousin came over to keep him company also. It took some work, but I talked my sis into letting the cousins stay the night Friday (the girls were dying to sleep in the loft), and we had a grand time…
we stayed up way too late, ate way too many hot dogs, and didn’t sleep in nearly late enough! It was a lot of fun – the cousins stayed through Sat. evening, and we really enjoyed our time camping together.

Sunday, it finally got warm enough for the kids to play some in the lake…

They waded, swam, conquered floating logs, and just generally had a good time.

Even Molly, who did not go swimming, but liked to play in the rocks. She adores being outside!

We have been at the lake for 2 weeks as of yesterday, and normally we would have to move, but there is a 4 day extension going on right now that has something to do with a walleye (fishing) tournament that is coming up. So, we don’t have to move quite yet.

We love being at the lake, but we would love it even more if we would have a few more nice days that the kids could play in the water!

It is good to be with friends again, but the nice weather that the south is enjoying is sure tempting us…

So, Jake missed trapping camp this year, but I had a baby holder for the weekend…

~sounds handy, but it is rather a bummer to have to share her when she is sleeping!

The boys that went to trapping camp came home Sunday evening and talked non-stop for the next hour filling me in on the happenings.

Daddy goes as a chaperon, Greg has been an instructor for the past 2 years, Eli is a junior instructor (helps an instructor with hands-on), (Jake and) Thomas is 3rd year; highest level, has been a 3rd year for 2 years, and will be until they move him to helping out! Daniel and Joel were 2nd year this time.

The guys had to sleep in a TENT – they really roughed it this year! Before, they would take our travel trailer, but Vaughn said that there was no way we would get this new rv in there.

The camp teaches a lot on the how-tos of trapping covering everything from trapping etiquette, to how to sharpen a knife, to how to set properly for the target animal. When trapping is done properly, the animal is dispatched quickly, and the trapper should not be catching non-target animals.

The 3rd year guys go out and trap problem beaver each year. Thomas harvested the only beaver in his group. Greg’s group harvested 6! The kids get to keep the animals that they catch, and so this came home to our Home Sweet Toy Hauler…

we didn’t have any ‘trapping clothes’ handy, so they improvised with a garbage bag. Thomas is ‘fleshing’ the hide; fleshing gets off any meat that is left on the hide after the beaver is skinned, so that the hide does not rot.

The attendees always receive a trap at camp, compliments of one of the fur companies that helps out with the camp. Daniel is showing Emma how he sets his trap…

Every year at camp, there are drawings – there are 4 prizes – a set of 6 traps for the older kids, and another set for the younger kids, and 2 guns – one for the older kids, one for the younger set. Last year, Thomas won the rifle for the younger set while Joel won the jr. traps. This year, the guys got some ribbing about the drawing being rigged as Jake was initially called to win the traps for the older kids (too bad he didn’t go!), and Eli won the rifle! Eli was pretty stoked!

Last year, Thomas sent a thank-you note to Terry, the man that donates the rifles every year, and his wife sent us back the nicest letter, and then they even sent us a Christmas card (which we didn’t receive until Feb. since we were traveling – LOL!). I’m pretty excited to throw my own little thank you in with Eli’s – I’m beginning to feel as if we know them!)

Had we been out on the road, Greg would have flown home to go to trapping camp! This is his element – in fact, it is costing us a member of our traveling troupe next year! Greg is leaning towards staying home (he IS 20…) because he misses hunting and trapping, and just getting out in MONTANA-his stomping grounds.

Greg gave Thomas some pointers on fleshing his beaver, and then cleaned it up a little for him (he’ll get a better price for it)…

(Vaughn got pictures at trapping camp, but I can’t download them.)

Greg helps Thomas stretch the hide for drying…

I must admit that seeing my boys back in their spheres of outdoor recreation makes me want to buy some remote parcel of land and build a cabin with our bare hands (why not?). All while letting my boys run wild. hehehe! I do love that they are back in the sticks. It is so different than ‘camping’ on our travels. It can be rather difficult to ‘get away from it all’ when you are traveling – when you are not familiar with the area, it is hard to find where the remote ‘nature’ is (besides, can we even do ‘remote nature’ in this 40′ trailer???).

Thomas with his stretched hide…

(which went in his dad’s job trailer, NOT my ‘house’! hehehe!)

While the boys were at camp, they sold their furs from the year before last, and brought home nice sums for their bank accounts. Eli also sent his bobcat off to auction hoping to get more than the $25o he was offered. Vaughn told me later that Thomas had been given more money than he was supposed to get when he sold his furs, and that the fur-buyer was pretty tickled when he spoke right up and returned the over-payment.

My boys love to go to trapping camp every year; they really enjoy trapping. So much so that they go and testify at the state legislature every session when anti-trapping bills come up (which they do every session compliments of Cali. transplants!). We are debating how to handle our love of working with the legislature and how it conflicts with our travel.

The boys are bummed that camp is over for the year, but are loving that we are perpetually camping!

We will be enjoying this lake-side site for another few days; I love that my backyard…
and my front-yard…
change every so often.

Sorry that I haven’t posted in so long, and am now so far behind – I just got back from 6 days hidden away at my sister’s cabin for a scrapbooking marathon. I’ll have to catch up more later

Last Thursday we picked up stakes and moved.

This is our new view…
The kids are loving being near the water, even if it STILL isn’t summer here! The weather has been rather dismal (seems like it’s been rainy ever since we got back to town 5 weeks ago!)…

The little kids are enjoying the oodles of skipping rocks. Molly would love the oodles of ‘slobbering’ rocks if only big sis would let her eat them!

Poor thing! hehehe!

The boys rescued me from this vicious mom-eating snake – yuck! And for the record, Molly is faster than her brother…(and the snake needed to be rescued from Molly!)… The guys had bought fishing licenses so that we could fish in the little creek at the last rv park, so they were down at the lake throwing a line in right away. All they have been catching though is carp (bottom-feeders – yuck!)…

Family friend Scott (and his son Sam), came over on Sun. afternoon and went fishing. He is one of Peanuts ‘chosen few’, and she had a great time finding pretty rocks to give him – hundreds of them, all afternoon – the man is a saint!

We are loving being camping again – but that also means fewer and FAST showers, running the generator to vacuum or watch a Friday night movie, and I am going through withdrawls from the crockpot! It also means that our extra little fridge back in the garage doesn’t work (we are not plugged in to electric, and it doesn’t run on propane), so we are trying to get used to having only the 8s.f. fridge in the kitchen again.

We really like our site here, even if there are a ton of bugs; they look like mosquitoes, but don’t bite. The kids have been riding their bikes, and have a fire going just about all the time…

There is a lot of room to run here, and the sunsets are gorgeous…

We go back and forth between

Ahhh! It’s so good to be home!

-to-

Ugh! Work and rain! Let’s get out of here!!!