Hashtag Contented.

What I am about to say will shock you.

CAMPING IS FUN.

I KNOW.

I can't believe it either.  We had a great time cooking meat on the fire and fishing and lazing around.  The kids are not what you might call hikers, but that's OK.  It was cold at night and gorgeous in the morning and just FUN.  I want to do it again.  In a tent, even.

I KNOW. Totally unexpected but a lovely surprise.  Like aNew Year's Eve babysitter with her own car but more realistic.

We came into town from the fourth of July on Tuesday and left just a couple of days later, so I ordered groceries for delivery and did a TERRIBLE job.  Don't grocery shop while doing fifty other things.  You'll get orange juice with extra pulp and no coffee.  I was out of all of our usual stuff, so I had to improvise for breakfast, and the kids LOVED toad in a hole and next time I will up my game and make cute shapes.

 I did such a bad job grocery shopping that I even got the mustard to ketchup ratio wrong:

 I didn't now he was wearing this mask until I caught sight of him at a traffic light.  CREEP CITY.

 As you can tell from the hair shot above, summer means, I relax to the point of abandoning my beauty and grooming standards.  SO DREAMY.  This shit is bleach stained, and I wore it with black running shorts.  All day.  IN PUBLIC.

 I just realized my high school reunion is in 6 weeks and I am 8 pounds above my very fattest weight.  SO.  I am back on the horse not lying to My Fitness Pal and not really eating anything but lean protein and lots of veggies and wine.  So of course, I had one more glorious nacho binge on diet eve.

 This is the doll Dorothy brought camping. She is suddenly really into her American Girls, and I could not be happier.

 Car packed to go camping!  Cooper was crying because he didn't like sitting all alone in the way back.  We had so much stuff that we had to fold down a back seat and put Harry in the jump seat in the middle row.

 Harry and Jack were excited!  Dorothy didn't care and fell asleep right after we pulled out of the driveway.

 As soon as we got to our site, the kids had some muffins and colored some pictures while Ben and I made camp.

 We had the foresight to bring along a small play tent for the kids so they could keep dirt and bugs out of the tents we would actually be sleeping in.  Dorothy set up a dolly picnic right away.

 We took a little break after getting everything set up and I moved on to my second cocktail (camping secret:  always be pretty drunk).

 Jack made me a love note for the text I thought I would be sharing with Ben.

 Harry whittled a shank.

 Ben cooked bacon-wrapped scallops, fat steaks, and corn for dinner, and we had a champagne toast to camping.

 Then we just kind of hung around until it got dark.  The kids walked to the camp store to buy junk.  We made a few trips to the disgusting bathrooms.  We just sort of explored the woods.  The kids discovered a cute little path right next to our site and played some game about being tour guides for a couple of hours.  I read a book.  It was so relaxing.

 After s'mores (make them with Reese's PB cups-- life-changer), it got really dark and we all went to bed.  Dorothy would not settle in the kid tent, so I brought her with me, but that didn't work, so finally Ben slept with the kids and Harry came in my tent.

 We read for awhile

 And woke up to a beautiful, chilly morning.

 Even Dorothy was a happy camper.

 We spent the day fishing, walking around, eating, and lazing again.

 Eventually when we were sure of the kids' marshmallow roasting skillz, we gave them unfettered access to the s'mores stuff, and they ate themselves silly.

 Dorothy added a hat to make fishing even cuter.

Breaking camp was tedious and the kids were all jerkfaces, but it was lovely to think about going home and sleeping in a BED and taking a BATH.

 Then we went straight to the pool to wash off all the no-shower-fire-smelling-bug-spray of camping.

 And now we're back to a quiet week.  Dorothy seriously loves her dollies and took one to the movies yesterday (Secret Life of Pets-- cute) and even packed a sweater in case Isabelle got cold.

 She also helped me make waffles.

 And took some friends to the pool.

Camping Eve

That's right.  Camping.  IN A TENT.

What the hell, right?

Our friends always go, but we don't because yuck.  This year, Ben decided to join the group, but there was a mix up with the dates.  Everyone was planning to go this weekend, but their reservations were for NEXT weekend.  Um.  Ben made his reservation for the wrong weekend (which, until a random email confirmation they received at the pool, everyone thought was the right weekend), so he still wants to go,  So we're going.  We as in me, too.

I mean.

Adventure?!

Next time we talk, I will be a person who has camped.

So.

All four kids are happily in swim lessons at the same time, and it is brilliant.  Cooper-- shy little Cooper-- is even the first one to volunteer to be the fox when they play what time is it Mr. Fox.

 Harry bough some alarming things with his birthday gift cards:

 Dorothy swam over and gave Cooper a kiss while they swam yesterday, and it was the CUTEST.

HBD, USA!!

 We are in the car on the way home from my parents' house, and I am blogging on my phone. I just typed a very witty-for-the-car post and then popped over to my text messages to save a bunch of pictures from the weekend that Ben and my mom texted me and LOST THE WHOLE POST. So. Pictures it is!!

Harry's Little League team lost their second play off game and are out of the tournament and done with season. Kind of a bummer but, um, NOT REALLY. 

Dorothy has a tendency to be kind of a pill in the car, but she was so sleepy and sweet on the way to my parents' house. 

We had a fun family dinner Sunday night, and then Ben and I left the kids with my parents and went for drinks with old speech friends, which is always a blast. 

Cooper woke up with a bit of a mosquito bite on the eye. Yikes!

All dressed up for the 4th:

We took the kids to our old favorite college town restaurant-- it really became our favorite when Ben lived in the house next door to it and we are it all the time. Best pepperoni pizza bread and grilled cheeses ever. 

Dorothy and I posed on the steps of my old sorority house. 

The library! My favorite place ever in college! Also, damn does Cooper make taking a group shot hard sometimes. 

How manny classes did we have in this building?! SO MANY. Too many to count. 

Cooper strikes again!

She's always so happy to see me!!

The boys are in love with go karts, but they drive super super super old lady to church slow. 

We continued our nostalgia your by taking the kids to play at my old school where I attended grades 1-5 and 7-8. (The district reorganized when I was in 6th grade, and I went to another school for a year). 

It was fun to peer in all the windows and see things exactly as I remember them. This morning, Harry and I took a walk through The neighborhood I lived in until high school, and I showed him how my friends and I walked to school and where all my neighborhood friends (now Facebook friends) lived. It was lovely. 

Vodka lemonade slushies! The drink of the summer for sure. 

Blowing stuff up. 

Kiddie table!

Kid who refused to sit at the kiddie table!

Dinner was fun because my parents' friends came over, and in haven't seen them in awhile, but I have known them since they were younger than I am now. It made me think about our friend group and what they'll be like in their 60s. I hope we're still cool. (Ha! I've never been cool!)

Sparklers! This would so be my FB cover photo, but there's just a little too much red minivan. 

We went to the Pekin High football stadium for fireworks. I don't think I have been to the fireworks there since 1996, when I was Miss Marigold and led the stadium in the Pledge before the show. 

How adorable is this place?? Most people would have just taken a pic of the stadium crowd, but not me. Selfie ALL THE WAY. 

This is how Jack looked the whole time. Suffice it to say he loves fireworks. 

Sparklers freak me out. 

This was sweaty bug sprayed Dorothy when I climbed into bed with her at midnight ish. She went to bed at 10:30 and kept up full of energy at 7:30. Ahh, to be 3 again. 

June: What I Read

Halfway through the year's reading, and this month was really really good.  Like, I feel bad ranking any of these books last because they were all wonderful.  This could be a summer must-read list-- that's how great these books were.  Also, I really struggled with where to place the Lisa Gardner book.  I love her.  I love when her new books come out, and I tear through them in less than 24 hours, but I know she can't really compete with, say, Emma Straub, whose books bring me less initial excitement but probably leave me more satisfied.  Or, maybe I am just not strong enough to put pulp fiction at the top of my list because I am a big posey poser.  Either way.

10.  All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Andrews:  This is creepy but enchanting.  Not quite Station Eleven  or The Night Circus or even The Age of Miracles, but it does a good job of creating a universe that's fantastic.

9.  All Stories Are Love Stories by Elizabeth Percer:  The plot of this book is great, but the characters and the actual writing?  Didn't totally work for me.  Still, it was a fast and engaging read.

8.  Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld:  This is my first Sittenfeld, and I really liked it-- almost enough to put the rest of her stuff on hold at the library, but I am working through several summer reading must-lists right now.  I have to tell you something, though.  I have never read ANY Jane Austen.  I KNOW.  I am culturally literate enough to understand the plot and have heard of the characters in Pride and Prejudice, so I could still enjoy this book, but I wonder if I would enjoy it even more if I had read Austen.  (I have also never read the Bronte sisters. Or Tolstoy. OMFG-- there-- I said it for you.)

7.  Dear Fang, With Love by Rufi Thorpe:  This book is charming and sad and lovely.  Check it out.  Like, literally.  From your library.

6.  Happy Family by Tracy Barone:  I cannot even handle that this is a debut novel.  Jealous for sure.

5.  The After Party by Anton DiSclafani:  WOW!  I had not idea I was interested in Huston high society in the 1960s, but BOY AM I.

4.  Find Her by Lisa Gardner:  Loved it.  D.D. Warren is edging out Kay Scarpetta as my favorite female crime solving ass kicker.

3.  Modern Lovers by Emma Straub:  SO GREAT.  And also, if you have not read The Vacationers get that one too.

2.  End of Watch by Stephen King:  A perfect ending to the Bill Hodges trilogy.

1.  Everybody's Fool by Richard Russo:  I, of course, adored this book.  Russo is my favorite living author, and Straight Man is my favorite book of all time.  This one was lovely and reminded me more of The Risk Pool (so great-- if you haven't read it, you should get if from Amazon or your library pretty much right now) even more than Nobody's Fool, the prequel.  As soon as I finished it, all I wanted to do was read it again.

I think I have only read 56 books this year (WHERE HAS THE TIME GONE?!) so I need to move a little faster these next couple of months if I want to set any new records.  And who knows.  Maybe I don't.  Here's to hoping for a banner month in July.  Maybe.