how much trouble can a camping trip be?

Well, the camper has to be registered (48bucks), inspected ($21), install brake system on big-gas-guzzling-van ($225), find out your van needs inspection (21), find out your van failed inspection because you need new rear tires (300bucks), new electrical panel for 15 year old camper refrigerator ($150)......I won't do the "priceless" thing....anyway, we needed the tires anyway, but did we need them yesterday? I am getting frustrated...I have to take Aaron to an eye appointment 45 minutes away today....and all the kids want to come (the younger ones), which means it will take forever....but it will be way more fun.....and cost way more money....yesterday, I went to town to get the van inspected at 9:00 am., with Suzanne 7, Sonja 6, Jonathan 4, and baby Camille 8 months.....it was supposed to take an hour and a half because they had to look at the van A.C. (just fixed a few month ago or so, broken again)....so I thought I'd take the kids to the library....nope, closed until 1:00....so I took them to the diner for breakfast....french toast......it was lots of fun....especially when Jon randomly pointed across the restaurant at a family and loudly said, "Wouldn't it be funny if they got kicked out?""...then back to find out the van didn't pass in\pection, then home to switch some kids and tank up the baby....then to Wal-Mart for tires and $155 worth of stuff we didn't know we needed but couldn't live without....(notebooks for 5 cents?) I stopped on the way home for 3 dozen ears of early sweet corn, locally grown....home in time for dinner: I made some chicken soup (those bags of individually frozen chicken breast are great), and the corn....only two each....I'm not sure how much corn they could eat if they could have all they wanted...

After dinner I got some of my clothes packed in the camper, and the kids stuff if all out there...I got it all sorted and packed, and sent it out, and they suppposedly put it away....let's put it this way: I have some work to do. I need to buy food today, and then spend tomorrow doing some cooking and packing.....I could get all this stuff done in a few hours, but I don't seem to have a few hours....life gets in the way....

So, now I have the enviable task of getting out the door in a half an hour with I-don't-know-how-many-kids.......I am such a pushover....can't say no.....and I love being with them...but when I get in the store, and Jon is hanging all over Camille, and Charlotte is trying to stand up in the cart/stroller, and pulling everyone's hair who comes within her range, I wonder....I really wonder. And when these adorable little children are trying with all their might to convince me that they really really need: shoes, sneakers, sandals, bathing suit....because their's is too small, tight, old ripped.....I've said this before, but how many little girls do you bring in the shoe department before you go abolutely nuts? And Jon joins right in....
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