A weekend in my life

I haven't posted in a few days, so I thought that I would let y'all know how life's been going. I got my last grade on Friday - and A+ in Spanish. That means I have a 4.0 GPA still. (Yay?)

We went camping this past weekend at the cliffs of the Neuse state park. We had a good time. Dad and I went earlier and set up camp before Mom, Becca, and Rob got there. We had a nice campfire going and roasted some sausage dogs. Some got a little crispy and dark, but we just called them done. After that, we had some marshmallows and if we were feeling adventurous, we made some smores. They were gooooooood! Then it was dark and cold; really cold! My sister and I shared a tent and we were both freezing, huddled up in our respective sleeping backs. I couldn't fall asleep because every position I tried left something exposed - my nose would go numb just as I was dropping off, or my hand, or my face. I eventually did succeed in succumbing to sleep, and I woke up at the ripe hour of nine. I then made an expedition to the bath house and took a shower. When entering the bath house, the first thing I do is to hunch my neck and look all around for bugs and especially spiders- I HATE spiders! I found a huge one in front of one shower stall - I say huge, but who can really say given it's state of decomposition. I inspected all the stalls and found one that I could tolerate for a few minutes and began a hasty wash down. Emerging all fresh and clean and rosy-faced, I made it back through the wilderness to camp and tucked in to some delicious grits, fried eggs, bacon, biscuits, strawberries, and Sunny Delight. After that superb breakfast cooked by my Dad, we gathered our fishing poles (myself excluded - I grabbed a camp chair and a book) and headed down to the river to find our favorite billabong. Going down a cliff is a risky business, but we succeeded well enough. We didn't rappel down the side or anything - we took the long, long, long series of earthen stairs and then took the path flanked on both sides by copious amounts of poison ivy. I have never seen so much poison ivy! Well, that's not saying much because I have a terrible inability to identify poison ivy, no matter how many times someone points it out to me. I have adopted a policy of 'if it's green, I don't touch it.' Growing up, I have come to realize that I have absolutely no immunity whatsoever to poison ivy. I had poison ivy every summer, multiple times, until my waist and hips got larger than my wish to explore our woodlands. Thankfully, I haven't gotten poison ivy yet this weekend, and I have my fingers crossed. Anyway, we made it to the fishing spot, which is along the mouth of a large creek that feeds into the Neuse river. Mom, Dad, and Rob had been fishing already that morning, and I had already seen the the four fish that Dad caught - all brim and yellow gill about the size of my hand. Now, it was time for Mom, Rob, and Becca to catch some fish. We stayed down there for a few hours, and all together caught five keepable fish - we threw back two and almost - almost caught the biggest catfish. Mom had set her pole on a cypress knee and we were all watching her bobber, when it went down -way down. Dad was standing with his back to it, getting a hook out of a fish, so I dived for the pole, half-eaten banana in my hand. I can feel the fish putting up a mighty struggle, and so I realize that it's a big fish. Then Becca takes the pole out of my hands and tries to pull it up. We got a fleeting glimpse of a gray, whiskered, big fish, before it slips off the hook and got away. That was the highlight of our fishing expedition. We left and made it up the many, many, many steps to get back to camp. I thought my thighs were going to fall off! We had lunch, and then nothing would satisfy everyone else but that we go for a walk. So, we went for a walk, and walked, and walked. We walked for two hours, exploring the lake area, and then all of the nature trails. We were almost back at the campsite when my parents decided they wanted to do one more trail, so us kids waited on the little stage while they went on their walk down those same dastardly stairs. We kids played movie title charades for a while, and then went back to camp. Dad cooked dinner- fried fish, hush puppies, and pork and beans. I roasted several sausage dogs, and we all were satisfied. Then came smores, and then came bed time. Becca and I have a ritual of shining our flashlight all around the inside of the tent looking for various creepy crawlies. I am so very paranoid when it comes to spiders and bugs - I had a very bad experience once that I do not intend to repeat. (once at FFA camp, I was getting ready to bed down when the arbitrary desire to rearrange my bedding gripped me, and so I pulled up my blanket, exposing a huge, hairy, black spider crawing across my sheet. I have never been the same since) So, we checked every surface of the tent - the floor, corners, sides, and roof. We checked inside the sleeping bags, and I checked inside my pillow case; it would surprise you how devious those little buggers can be. After that, we settled in for a decidedly more comfortable night, only to be awoken by the fear of an impending severe thunderstorm. So I made haste to get to the bath house and get back, and pack almost everything up to protect it from the storm, and then we sat underneath a tarp on the picnic table and watched the storm. I love thunderstorms, and I always wish that they were more intense, with possible tornadoes. No such luck - a few strikes and some big booming thunder, but no fierce intensity. Then it was time for breakfast- pancakes and bacon, mmmm. Then we went for a walk - only an hour this time, and then we packed up everything and loaded it up, had some watermelon, and came home. We unpacked everything, and then I took a blessed shower, free from the threat of spiders and other unmentionables. And now here I am. I hope everyone had a great weekend - I sure did.