It was just one year ago that we made our trip out here after Mark accepted his job. The first few months were rough, being separated while I finished school, being in a ward where we felt so out of place, but now everything feels as it should be.
If we haven't said it enough, we love living here. We love our new ward. We love our neighborhood. We love our jobs. We just love Michigan!
Even though I sometimes complain about the lack of mexican food, I can't complain about anything else! And I have officially survived my first of many winters!
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Just plain bad luck?
So we went camping this weekend, we've been planning this trip for about a month now. So many things seemed to go wrong.
First, the day of our camping trip, the campsite calls us (while I'm at work, and Mark was with me) to tell us that the campsite is flooded and will be closed this weekend. I was really looking forward to that site, they had swimming and fishing not far from the camping area. Mark goes to the library and books us at another nearby campsite.
Our new campsite has only port-a-potties, gross and filled with spiders (I'd rather pee in a bush than in there!), and has NO running water! The potable water pump didn't work.
After meeting up at dinner in Toledo, with Paul and Melina as they made their trek cross-country, we go to Wal-Mart to get Mark a 1-day fishing license. I arrive to the sporting goods section at 8:45 pm. A store attendant came to the counter at.... 9:30. Several other people were waiting for someone too, and they wandered around the store continuously asking when someone was going to come to Sporting Goods. Not only did we wait 45 minutes (missing the sunset and our opportunity to make s'mores), but no one in the entire store knew how to issue Fishing Licenses...
So we head to Meijer. We arrive at sporting goods, only to find out they close their section at 8pm. I guess we have to get up earlier to get the license before we go fish.
We get to our campsite at around 11, way to late to build a fire so we just head to bed. There was a HUGE spider sitting right on the zipper into the tent, even Mark was afraid to go near it. We wake up and have breakfast and head to Meijer again to get that darned fishing license. The meijer we went to this time has Sporting Goods open until 9pm! If we had gone there first this problem could have been averted.
We didn't get to fishing until 11:45, all the fish were gone. Mark got his line tangled in a knot, then it got stuck in a tree,... we left around 1:30, with no fish to show for our trip.
We go for a walk that afternoon and Mark got eaten alive by mosquitoes so we turn around. We took a nap in our tent and see like 15 spiders crawling on the outside of the tent, we flicked them all off one by one, outside we realize they weren't spiders, they were ticks!
Mark and I put on pants and shoes (instead of shorts and sandals), and spray down in bug spray. We're reading our book by the fire and notice a tick on Mark's lap. We think nothing of it.
A few hours later, just crawling into our sleeping bags to play games and read some more, we notice another tick has attached itself to Mark's calf. Neither of us knows what to do so we call:
Rebekah (the only person we know in the medical field), no answer.
David (our go-to look up things on the internet, maps, e-mails, addresses, phone numbers), no answer.
Doug (the only person we know how has had a tick before), no answer.
Rachel (goes camping frequently) FINALLY AN ANSWER! She suggests we pour on Olive oil and use tweezers. No such luck.
We call Mark's parents, and they suggest submerging the sucker in olive oil for a few minutes.
While waiting Rachel sends phone numbers to the nearby hospital.
"We're sorry, we're not allowed to offer medical advice over the phone, but you can come in".
Finally at 11:30 Mark is Tick free, and we search the tent for any more.
What an experience! We have never had so many bad things happen to us on 1 camping trip!!
We're just grateful we arrived home to our house untouched with new bloomed flowers (that we didn't know we had) and yummy strawberries in the garden.
Overall, a good week end :)
First, the day of our camping trip, the campsite calls us (while I'm at work, and Mark was with me) to tell us that the campsite is flooded and will be closed this weekend. I was really looking forward to that site, they had swimming and fishing not far from the camping area. Mark goes to the library and books us at another nearby campsite.
Our new campsite has only port-a-potties, gross and filled with spiders (I'd rather pee in a bush than in there!), and has NO running water! The potable water pump didn't work.
After meeting up at dinner in Toledo, with Paul and Melina as they made their trek cross-country, we go to Wal-Mart to get Mark a 1-day fishing license. I arrive to the sporting goods section at 8:45 pm. A store attendant came to the counter at.... 9:30. Several other people were waiting for someone too, and they wandered around the store continuously asking when someone was going to come to Sporting Goods. Not only did we wait 45 minutes (missing the sunset and our opportunity to make s'mores), but no one in the entire store knew how to issue Fishing Licenses...
So we head to Meijer. We arrive at sporting goods, only to find out they close their section at 8pm. I guess we have to get up earlier to get the license before we go fish.
We get to our campsite at around 11, way to late to build a fire so we just head to bed. There was a HUGE spider sitting right on the zipper into the tent, even Mark was afraid to go near it. We wake up and have breakfast and head to Meijer again to get that darned fishing license. The meijer we went to this time has Sporting Goods open until 9pm! If we had gone there first this problem could have been averted.
We didn't get to fishing until 11:45, all the fish were gone. Mark got his line tangled in a knot, then it got stuck in a tree,... we left around 1:30, with no fish to show for our trip.
We go for a walk that afternoon and Mark got eaten alive by mosquitoes so we turn around. We took a nap in our tent and see like 15 spiders crawling on the outside of the tent, we flicked them all off one by one, outside we realize they weren't spiders, they were ticks!
Mark and I put on pants and shoes (instead of shorts and sandals), and spray down in bug spray. We're reading our book by the fire and notice a tick on Mark's lap. We think nothing of it.
A few hours later, just crawling into our sleeping bags to play games and read some more, we notice another tick has attached itself to Mark's calf. Neither of us knows what to do so we call:
Rebekah (the only person we know in the medical field), no answer.
David (our go-to look up things on the internet, maps, e-mails, addresses, phone numbers), no answer.
Doug (the only person we know how has had a tick before), no answer.
Rachel (goes camping frequently) FINALLY AN ANSWER! She suggests we pour on Olive oil and use tweezers. No such luck.
We call Mark's parents, and they suggest submerging the sucker in olive oil for a few minutes.
While waiting Rachel sends phone numbers to the nearby hospital.
"We're sorry, we're not allowed to offer medical advice over the phone, but you can come in".
Finally at 11:30 Mark is Tick free, and we search the tent for any more.
What an experience! We have never had so many bad things happen to us on 1 camping trip!!
We're just grateful we arrived home to our house untouched with new bloomed flowers (that we didn't know we had) and yummy strawberries in the garden.
Overall, a good week end :)
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