Good Times (warning--very long post)

Last week we had the pleasure of being the first family to camp in Grandpa Ward's brand new, custom built 5th wheel camper. What an adventure! First off, the camper is beautiful and so huge! It has two bathrooms, a full stand up shower, and two bedrooms--one master bedroom and one with extra large bunkbeds. It also sleeps up to 5 more people in the kitchen/living room area. The kitchen includes a stovetop, oven, microwave and double sink. There's a built in sound system as well as a flat screen TV. It's like an apartment on wheels.

Our destination was Storybook Land at Wylie Park in Aberdeen, SD. If you've never been, we highly recommend it. The actual Storybook Land/Land of Oz park is beautfully manicured with many bright, inviting sculptures of nursery rhymes and fairy tales. Wylie Park includes bike and hiking paths, a small zoo, at least 3 beautiful playgrounds, and an amusement park area with mini golf, bumber boats, and go-karts. So it should have been an idyllic 3 days, right? Uh huh. Read on...

After we got there and Kris set up the camper, I went to the bathroom. I pushed the flush button on the back of the toilet and it broke off. Oops. "Kris, can you come in here and put this button back on? I can't get it." "What button??" "The flush button..." "That's NOT a flush button!!! You flush with the foot pedal, Erin...you BROKE IT! THE PIPE'S BROKEN!" This was followed by several choice words I can't repeat here. I felt awful. I hustled the kids together and we went for a walk to one of the playgrounds. I was dragging with guilt and hoped it could be fixed. We'd only been there 20 minutes at this point. Thankfully, it wasn't truly broken; it was just unattached and Kris was able to fix it. WHEW. Huge relief.

At 3:30 in the morning that first night Grant came across the living room area to wake me up. "Mom, Hope's crying." "Okay. Thanks, Grant." I groggily got of out bed and walked down the two steps from the master bedroom to the main level. But I misstepped and caught myself with my right hand. Thud. "OWWWW!" Kris leaped out of bed, scurried by me to calm Hope and Ross, who by now were both crying. I moved gingerly to the sofa and sat, gripping my shoulder. Grant sat by me and asked, "Are you okay, Mom?" Kris came over. "Erin, is it all right?" Nope, sorry folks. I dislocated my shoulder again: FOR THE THIRD TIME IN TWO YEARS. So Kris got all the kids to pee, gathered up the nintendo DSes, put shoes on, helped me into a pair of sweats, and loaded us all into the truck at 4 o'clock in the morning to drive into Aberdeen to find the emergency room. Good times, right?

Thankfully, it only took 10 minutes to get there and I was their only patient at that time. You should have seen the kids' faces when they put an IV in my arm. Eys as big as saucers! Ross walked over to me and gently touched my arm. The nurses were wonderful, the doctor was very caring, and when it was all said and done it only took 2 hours for them to xray, administer pain drugs, pop my shoulder back in, and take another xray (thank God for versed--this drug takes away all memory of a procedure, so they tell me I was conscious but I have no memory of the popping back in). We made it back to the camper about 6:30 in the morning. Kris was so awesome through it all--taking charge, calming the kids, maintaining patience through major fatigue, and then buying the kids doughnuts before tucking us all back in to sleep for a while.

Don't get me wrong; we still had a great time: did all the things there were to do, and we even went to the local waterpark that afternoon. But Kris really wanted to drive back that night so he could concentrate while the kids slept. So we did cut our trip short by a day. :( But I've got to hand it to the kids--none of them complained at all about coming back a day early. We all had a great time and made many memories. Yes, good times.

The shoulder? I'll likely be having surgery on it in the near future to tighten the muscle/tissues around the socket so this doesn't happen again.