Attack of the ants (and a spider), YIKES!!!

Being that Nick was on leave this past week, we decided that a camping trip was a must. Why we decided to do this in the middle of the hot, humid Okinawa summer is beyond me. We both came to question this later. So on Wednesday, after he reenlisted five more years of our life to the military, we packed our little bitty car to the max and away we went.

Life was good as we traveled for almost two hours to the campsite. We got there and got set up pretty quickly. We only intended to stay one night, but it was still exciting!

The campsite is right on the beach so we decided to go take a swim to cool down. Kara was so excited that she took off toward the water. She usually is kind of skid dish about water, but we've been taking her to the pool a few times a week to get her used to it. She was so excited and you can see that excitement in the pictures.

After we swam, I went to look for shells, while Kara tried to drink some of her daddy's Monster energy drink. That's all we need is a hyped up Kara, she has enough energy on a normal day! I tried to get Kara into looking for shells with me, but she wasn't having it. I was sure missing Maddy at this point, she was always down with shell hunting with me. I found some pretty cool ones to add to my collection. Maddy would be proud!

Dinner time was near so I began grilling the potatoes and corn, we also had steak, YUM! I was surprised how good the potatoes were on the grill. I had never tried cooking them that way before. While eating dinner we noticed some ants on the table, so we had to kind of rush our eating (hence the lack of pic of our food), but it was still very tastee.

Kara and I went and checked out the little park that was near our campsite. She was so funny on the slide, she just likes to sit on it. She also is getting pretty good at climbing the stairs and bridges. She will go a little bit and look back like, "Come on, Mom!"

After dinner, we blew bubbles and then went to watch the sunset. It was so pretty and relaxing to watch. We also enjoyed looking through all the coral for shells! Luckily we had a nice ending to the day because the night had some surprises in store for us....

After the sunset, we got Kara ready for bed. She fought me until her daddy came into the tent and calmed her down. She was out like a light for him in minutes. It always happens that way. So Nick and I made a little fire and roasted some marshmallows. I would have taken pictures, but my camera's battery was dead at that point. It was the first time I ever used this camera, so I had no idea on the battery life. My new camera is really cool being that it is waterproof!!! But on with the story. Not too long after we ate our marshmallows, Kara woke up. It was very hot outside and she was sweating so bad. It was around 9:30 so Nick and I laid down with her. She was so hot and upset that Nick took her to the car to cool down. I stayed in the tent while they were in the car. I looked over and saw a HUGE spider on the side of the tent. We're talking about the size of my fist people. No joke! I wasn't sure if it was inside the tent or not. As Nick was coming back into the tent, I could barely talk to tell him to turn the lamp on. I was so freaked out. Turns out it was inside our tent. My husband was a trooper and killed that massive thing. I wish I could have taken a pic of it to show you, but I was way too horrified to think of anything other than creepy crawling things. When we finally got over the shock of that we tried sleeping again. Kara was still resisting, with the help of the men that decided to play basketball right outside our tent at 10pm. At this point none of us were happy campers. We were hot, we were tired, we wanted peace and quiet. So Nick took Kara to the car once again to cool and calm her down. This time I decided I was so hot I would make myself a little ice pack to sleep with. I then saw that ants had invaded our ice chest. They were EVERYWHERE! It irritated me, but I tried not to focus on it too much. I. NEEDED. SLEEP. Finally at around 10:30-11:00 I think we all dosed off. It was a rough night with the heat and my not wanting to walk to the bathroom that was forever away. We awoke at around 6:30 am to find that our tent had also been invaded by ants. Luckily they weren't on us or our bed, but the rest of our tent was covered. YUCK!!!! We were fed up with the craziness so we cleaned everything out and packed our little car up. We were home by 9:15am and took a nice nap that day. I think we have learned our lesson about camping. DON"T do it during the hot summer or on a rainy day. Ha ha!

My Top 10 Pages

Nick and Kara are so adorable together. She is her daddy's baby. They light up when they see each other!
I love this page for the wording alone, it's so true.....

Some of our family beach pics from November. I love these pics!

These pics were taken in December on my step dad's birthday. You can't tell Kara is adored by them at all can you? Understatement of the year!

When we went to Florida in December my BFF, her mom, and daughter joined my mom, Kara and me for a day of shopping. We had so much fun. I had to title this "Generations" because there was three for each of us. Click to enlarge and read the quote, too perfect!

Maddy is always putting together crazy outfits. Most of the time I would make her change clothes before leaving the house. This particular day I just thought she looked hilarious and she wasn't shy when I grabbed the camera to get some shots of her.

Maddy with her little sister and cousins. The title is supposed to be Super stars, but I didn't see the point in adding the word star with the background paper. This is the simplest page I think I've ever done.

I just love the title, "Fresh from God". Kara had just gotten out of the bath when I took these pics. She is truly a gift from God.

This is from this past Easter. Kara and Maddy had an egg hunt in my in-laws front yard. They had so much fun!

This is actually a two page layout, which I NEVER do, but I just had to do this one. It is one of my favorite ones, I am actually not done with it yet. I still want to add a few embellishments. I am still trying to decide which ones to use, but I had to add it to my post, cause it's just too sweet!

My new year resolution was to do a scrapbook page for everyday of this year. So far I am doing pretty good. For January and April I am short 12 pages total, otherwise I am all caught up on February, March, and May!!! I don't scrapbook everyday (although I want to, life gets in the way a times), but I try to catch myself up when I do sit down to do it. It's my most favorite hobby in the world and my biggest stress reliever. It just calms me like nothing else. I wanted to share some of my recent pages, my ten favorite ones I have done lately. I am open to critics. Hope you enjoy!!!!

Some new scraps:click to enlarge!

My mom wanted to see some of the pages I have been working on and this is the easiest way to share them. I have been sticking to my one page a day rule pretty well. I am happy to say I have done 48 pages since I got home from the states. Pretty impressive huh? I am going to apologize for the poor quality of the pictures. I took them in a hurry and didn't take time to edit them, but you get the gist of it. Enjoy!

I apologize that this one isn't turned the right way. I am too tired to change it.

Our camping trip

Mommy and Kara on the beach. It was cool out so she was still in her PJs.

Daddy and Kara on the beach. Notice the yucky weather.

Our Valentine's picture=true love!!

They adore each other! Notice she has a baby in hand. She always has to have a baby near.

Nick eating his first smore EVER!

Kara and mommy

Our tent you can see daddy and the monkey inside.

This year for Valentine's Day I wanted to do something fun, something out of the ordinary. My first idea was for us to hike up to Hiji Falls, however my neighbors said it's closed until April. BUMMER! So we were racking our brains as for what to do and I casually mentioned camping. Nick said it sounded like fun, so the planning began. We were both so excited. We've had a tent for a few years now that we've never used (although my friend Samantha and her husband used it once). So anyway, we made a trip to the BX and Commissary to buy some supplies and food. I had read on the Internet that the weather wouldn't be the best but tolerable. Only a 20% of rain expected for our first day there. The next day called for cloudy weather. Ha ha you can see where this is going. So anyway we packed up the car and made the 1 1/2 hour trip up to Okuma. I kid you not that as soon as Nick was inside the place to reserve our spot, it started raining. No big deal; we can handle some rain I thought to myself. Nick had to put up the tent in the rain, hence the lack of pictures of that event. It was only drizzling so I helped him with the last finishing touches and unloaded the car. Kara was having a blast crawling around in the tent. The rain continued off and on throughout the night. Poor Nick had to eat half cooked hot dogs ( I had already cooked mine) and cold beans because the rain started up as he was cooking. We had smores later that night, but they weren't melted all the way for the same reason. It was overall kind of funny. We ended up staying in our tent for the entire afternoon with nothing to do. Kara seemed to enjoy herself until it got dark; then she was upset. I think it's because when it's dark in our house it's night-night time. Kara is no fan of going to bed. It was a rough night of sleep, being that we were on the hard ground (next time we are taking an air mattress). I know it sounds spoiled, but I have to have comfort during sleep, it's a must!

The next morning we went to their restaurant for breakfast. It wasn't the best food, but we were thankful to get something that was at least fully cooked. After breakfast we walked on the beach for a little while and then packed up for home. The cloudy weather was miserable. The sun was no where in sight. It was so foggy and gloomy, but we will plan better next time. We know to bring a cover to cook under, some board games, and air mattress to keep ourselves content! I can't wait for our next adventure!!!