June 2010 Natl Lampoons Preuss Vacation

It took us forever to set up our camp in the rain with the wind and a very helpful 3 year old. I was so frustrated but determined to make the best of it... we definitely had our good moments and I most definitely had my bad. My poor guys. SORRY!

I'm not sure how John got that fire going since most of the wood he had was wet but he did and we roasted marshmallows to make smores but had left the chocolate in our too hot apartments refrigerator so we had chocolate-less smores James didn't care and neither did we.
That first night as we went to bed it started to rain John ran for the tent and ducked in and I zipped us in well the zipper kept on zipping even after it ran out of zipper...it came right off in my hand. We figured we'd be fine since we'd all been out to potty BUT as luck would have it come 2 am James had to go potty, we pulled the door open a few inches but by the time the guys got back it was open the whole doorway along the bottom. We snuggled and cuddled until 7. Then got up for breakfast, our two little pavillions had both fallen over multiple times. John worked on the zipper for a good 20 minutes and gave up we thought we'd have to buy a new tent. I gave it a whirl and got it back on track after another 15 minutes. By the time I got that fixed it had started raining AGAIN!! We headed to the house to make sausage and eggs. We then headed back to our camp when the rain let up to get ready for company and hang out a bit.
James and I blew giant bubbles while John made an excellant lunch of Reubens and hot ham and cheeses. YUM!!!!

Don't those yellow boots make you jealous?

mmmm our yummy camp Reubens!

James enjoyed his hot ham n cheese too.

Even though our weather was crummy we still had visitors! My cousin Ashley came out for a bit for some bubble blowing/eating and juice boxes with her two cuties Nathan and Hannah!
Then Simon came out with his Daddy and he brought his guitar because no trip to Pig Hill is complete without someone bringing out a guitar! Great playing Simon!

Uncle Adam, cousin Darrin and Bomba and Boppa came down for dinner too and then they left but Bomba and Boppa came back for a game of Memory that James was really good at!

We camped a second night but when I got up my hips hurt so bad from sleeping in one position all night I could hardly walk. It was about 6 am. Both the guys were still asleep so I drove to the house for a shower and some computer time. I headed back around 7:30/8 and they were just waking up. We had cereal and it looked like the day might be nice we decided to head in to Bemidji and go to the park and check out Paul and Babe... well as soon as the guys had showered and we were all ready it started to rain again. (ARG!!!) We went to "B-town" anyway. James had a blast at the McDs playland for over an hour then to the mall and Target. We decided if it didn't quit raining we were going to give up on the water camping. It didn't so we stayed at the house. I'm SOOO glad we didn't rent a campsite at Itasca or BSP!

Friday was by far my best day of our vacation!

We had to make sure to get a picture of the Uncle in charge...

James really gave this rainsuit a workout, maybe he could get a job in the testing facility?

Uncle Adam sat on his tailgate and watched James play and pratically swim in the puddles

We had such a good time making these birdfeeders last year with our playgroup we decided to do it on our vacation too. I brought the peanut butter and seeds with us and figured it would be no problem to find pinecones since thats where we had found the giant ones last summer....HAHAHA! Uncle Adam took James all the way down to the river to find these!

Hanging up the finished product.

Its a lot of work for an uncle and a boy to play all day

John swears up and down that that puny lifevest would keep me afloat...I'm really glad I didn't have to test it out! I think I look ridiculous but it was my favorite part of our vacation! I hope James grows up loving to fish and we get to take him a lot. (I got the girliest pole I could find its white with pink and has flowery swirls on it...it even came with some kind of lure that has hearts painted on it! I LOVE IT!)

Ready to go out Boppa, Daddy and James in the boat and Bomba and Mommy in the canoe - it was great to be in the canoe for picture taking purposes.

James got a couple nibbles and those darn fish stole his minnows but he did catch a couple nice "weed bass" as John called them.

"Watch this" as he tosses out his line and reals in this Northern. Bomba was so excited to net the Northern she almost tipped our canoe over!
But I'm quite certain anyone within a mile could hear me squealing as I felt that tug on the line and started to reel in my whopper! :)

I haven't been fishing in forever but caught this nice Crappie and 3 little Perch (two we had to toss back)

Our catch for the evening 4 Perch 4 Crappies and 1 Northern. So we posed that perch in the mouth of the Northern well as Jeff was cleaning and we were all visiting the Northern was still breathing and actually sucked it all the way into his mouth...we couldn't get it out. But it was a great laugh!

Yesterday when we got back to Fargo the sun was shining as it is today and should be tomorrow....oh well all in all it was a good vacation and I keep thinking about the folks whose campsites were washed away down south. I guess our few mishaps are nothing to complain about. My heart goes out to the families who lost their loved ones.