Alice woke up a bunch again last night. It made me want to read that book on sleep training I keep putting off. It rained in the night. Not an east coast type of wash but big individual drops were heard on the camper. Also, George, Frankie, and Samantha talk in their sleep. I can't recall what was said as I was half asleep, but I heard their voices.
I woke first and began getting a fire going. Also breakfast. I cooked a pack of breakfast sausage links and eggs. It was done raining but the chairs were wet so the kids put towels on their chairs and sat around the campfire. The second pack of links went on roasting sticks and over the flame. I heard these were tasty. We packed up breakfast and went on the silver falls hiking loop.
This hike was pretty awesome despite it being too long for john. The first part of the hike was all about frozen powers. Frankie and john pretended to be like elsa and use their hands with sweeping motions to make the moss grow on the trees and mushrooms sprout in the stumps. John called it his "green power". MJ found a tiny frog and named it "naked boy" after john;-). Samantha and I made descriptive sentences to magically capture the environment around us. It spun into a game to make the most fabulous fictional words.
The sheddering pine trees were bebiggered by the mushrooms hoiling in the deep shadows below. Dormlollar-(verb) is when a baby is asleep on it's mothers back and their head is lolling about unsupported.
Arachnaleve-(verb) is when an item is suspended by a single string of spider web.
Belump-(verb)could be used to describe the action fluffy clouds make as they move across a blue sky.
It was a fun game. It made up for the discouraging fact that my phone was dead. It was 12%- Then bam- dead. I did manage to get a few pictures and a bit of a video in the early part of the hike.
But no pictures of the mossy wall nor the large wall of rock we hiked next to. No picture of the frog MJ caught.
But most of all no picture of the falls. The beautiful falls. We had a snack of dried pears and toasted coconut chips on the bridge above the ravine that cut into the land just downstream of the falls. We shared the job of carrying both the youngest kids on the return leg of the loop. The total mileage was about 2.4. 1.3 to the falls bridge and 1.1 from. It started raining sporadically towards the end of the hike. Everyone was definitely ready for lunch and shelter when we returned. We had simple meat and cheese sandwiches prepared and eaten in the camper. And I found out that mojito flavored kombucha is pretty good. Then the baby carriers and the babies laid down for naps while the others played forbidden island and uno and my phone charged.
It started raining more heavily during nap, effectively drowning out the game players voices so the nappers could further their naps.
While Alice finished her nap I began chopping veggies for jambalaya. Celery, onion, and green pepper. Sautée that. Add canned tomatoes. Add shredded rotisserie chicken. Add bay leaves and cover it all with chicken broth. Add a handful of rice. Salt and pepper. When Alice woke up we left Henry in charge of the dinner pot and went for a walk. MJ fell asleep in the upper bed in a pile of bedding. We crossed the bridge to the closed camping loops. The river was so beautiful we went down to the edge for a closer look. It was then we decided that ohanapecosh would be an ideal summer camping spot. Bring floats and coast down the gentle and probably frigid clear water.
We headed back to a warm feast for dinner and prepared for another round of s'mores alternative.
I couldn't find my phone and realized I had lost it sometime after nap. I didn't take it on the hike to the river so I knew it had to be in the camper still. Samantha or Henry announced a little while later that it was 8:43 and I shouted "three minutes!!!!"
Everyone looked at me.
I explained that in 3 minutes my rosary alarm would go off and i could find my phone.
For the rosary alarm I picked Beth neilson chapman's "adoramus te". I figure the kids will learn it merely by being exposed so often and then I can switch it out for another song.
Sure enough the phone erupted and I began singing along. The kids started crooning and warbeling along in wavering church lady voices. Soon the whole camper was filled with high vibrating Latin, and sometimes latin-ish, vocals. Cabin fever? Maybe.
During the rosary I thought back over the trip. What a great trip it was. Sure we had a few moments of stress but that is a small price to pay for such togetherness. I looked around the camper at all the cuddling praying children and felt such warmth in my heart. And I realized that that moment was the best moment of the day- indeed, the week, to fulfill my "be amazed" comission.
No comments:
Post a Comment