Day 10 of 100 - No internet password

forgot to get the internet password tonight. will post the real post tomorrow.

Day 9 of 100 - A quiet day at camp

I don't have any funny stories from today. No earth-shattering news. No exciting happenings or even tales of rotten luck.

Today was a day to rest. The girls slept late since they've gone to bed really late every night since vacation started. We got a slow start then decided to drive over to Branson. Where L had a headache bad enough to make her cry (we turned the A/C vent away from her head and that cured the headache) and the traffic was so horrible that we gave up and just came back to camp. We talked a little about my great-grandmother who grew up in this area, near the tiny town of Blue Eye, MO. The girls spent the afternoon swimming with Dad and the rest of us did laundry and bought groceries. I edited photos while the clothes washed and we watched them on a slideshow tonight after roasting hotdogs and s'mores over the campfire. The girls had showers and I braided L's hair into small braids all over her head so it'll be wavy tomorrow.

Not much to blog about, but it was exactly the quiet day we needed.

I did call the police station to see if I could get any further on getting a copy of the crash report. They seemed to know exactly who I was and what happened to the report, but it can't be fixed until the officer returns from vacation Wednesday.

Sigh.......................

At least we don't need the car right now and they do seem to be on top of things down at the police station, even if they can't fix them yet. I'll be happy if we can get this whole thing resolved and a plan in place before we get back to Charlotte and actually want to have 2 cars again.

Tomorrow we tackle the enormous job of organizing and packing up, then we'll head off to our friends' house in Oklahoma. Maybe that will offer more exciting blogging material. Of the good kind!

Day 8 of 100 - Happy Independence Day!

This morning we were reading up on the local holiday activities around. We had choices. Many choices. Curiously enough, no parades were listed, but there were plenty of small town festivals.

The ever-thoughful Mr. at Home decided to let the girls choose. Did they want to go to a full day festival with a small fireworks show OR stay at camp and do our own games then go to a really big fireworks show? They immediately chose the big show.

We had an awesome day here at camp. There was a corn hole tournament (Grandad won),

a water balloon toss (Grandad won again),

hot potato (and again, it was Grandad),

and some pool games in the freezing water (those were won by Kate). We had a photo shoot and I took tons of pictures.

We made homemade ice cream and ate that for lunch. Not with lunch, as lunch. It's a holiday and vacation, after all.

After a more nutritious dinner of sandwiches, we loaded up and headed out of town to Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge for the fireworks show. It. Was. Awesome! People came in and brought their own fireworks so we enjoyed 3 *hours* of fireworks before the official show even started. And I'll just say that people aren't afraid to drop a whole lot of cash for some good fireworks out here. When we thought it couldn't get better, the official show started and they had some amazing stuff going on. It was loud and bright and impressive.

It was a low-key, hanging out together, fabulous day.

Day 7 of 100 - A good day

Thanks for the commiseration on our car troubles. It's nice to know that people are angry on my behalf :-)

Today the temps stayed mostly in the 70s here with high humidity. Sometimes as high as 100%. Raining when you're camping in the wilderness is the pits because there's nothing to do except huddle in the tent or the car and play cards all cramped together. Raining when you're camping in town just means that you have to make sure everything is put under cover at the campsite, then you go into town and find something to do. Like stop at the dollar store for rain ponchos because the play you're going to that night is an outdoor drama that can't stop for rain. I figured $2 was a good investment in good weather because if I went prepared with rain gear, then naturally it wouldn't rain.

And it didn't, just so you know.

Today was a relax and enjoy vacation kind of day. We got up, picked up donuts for breakfast, bought our tickets for a play, then rode the trolley into town and walked around, getting snow cones and hot dogs for lunch. The girls thought that was a huge special treat.

It started to rain while we were gone so we spent the afternoon running around to avoid the rain, then when it stopped, we played horseshoes.

It's an awesome game for camping. Then we started singing all the songs and chants K's softball team uses during games. We were laughing and giggling and celebrating the very few good shots we made (except Grandad as he is a champion horseshoe player, but that's a story for another time). Finally the girls had enough and they insisted on a swim before dinner in the freezing cold pool water. Whatever. It's vacation and I like to say yes whenever possible.

After dinner, we cleaned up and headed out to the Great Passion Play, an outdoor drama that depicts the last days of Jesus' life. The "stage" is a village built on a mountainside with tons of people involved, animals racing across, and birds swooping through the air. It's a very impressive show.

Now, it's late, I'm tired, and tomorrow is another late night of fireworks following a full afternoon of local activities. If we so choose. That's what I love about vacation. We can do whatever stuff we want and ignore the rest without offending anyone. Like right now. My eyes keep drooping shut, so I'm off to bed. Goodnight all!

Hey, look! I actually made it into a photo!

Day 6 of 100 - No, wait, THIS is the real one

I'm on-line!!

The wonderful awesome amazing tech-savvy Mr. at Home got the correct drivers installed from my hard drive to...my hard drive (don't ask) to make my dad's wireless device to work with my laptop and I can now post from my spot beside the campfire.

Modern-day camping. What can I say?

So let me tell you about the start of this vacation. Mr. at Home's job has been incredibly busy and stressful for the past year and more. He hasn't had much of a real break from work during that time and for him, this trip isn't a real break either. I'm making him drive half-way across the country with specific plans in mind. His idea of a vacation is renting a house and sitting on the beach or beside a mountain stream for a week with nowhere to be. But he's a trooper and is putting up with my plans.

I think I mentioned that last week he finally broke down and bought a new car. His 16-year-old Camry was on its last legs and we found a great deal. That was Wednesday.

Friday Mr. at Home was broadsided coming home from work.

Fortunately, no one was hurt. Unfortunately, the people who hit him were not the most cooperative and pleasant. We didn't get their personal or insurance information, but no worries, it's on the crash report.

Right?

Well, the crash report didn't show up online. And the officer is on vacation. And his sergeant says the report probably got lost in the system. And no one else can get in and do anything about it. And we'll just have to wait until the officer gets back.

Dealing with all that was a huge stressor this past week because no one was willing to help us and his spiffy new car is sitting in the body shop parking lot waiting...

Between work, dealing with the car, and getting ready for this trip, we haven't had a moment to breathe lately. Money has become an issue as we don't know what to expect with regard to the car. It was the other driver's fault, but we don't know if it can be repaired or if the frame was bent or if they'll just total it out and will we end up losing money since it was a brand-new car? Too many questions and nothing we can do except twiddle our thumbs until the police department decides to untangle their mess.

So now we have the stress of the wreck and the ensuing uncertainty involved with the car. We left for our trip a little before 2pm yesterday, lost an hour sitting in mountain traffic, and spent the night in a hotel just west of Nashville. This morning we saw the car next to us pumping gas get scraped by a moving van. We were incredibly thankful to avoid that disaster, only to have our windshield cracked by a flying rock shortly thereafter. After the 3rd call to the insurance company in a week, we found out that windshield replacement will be less than our deductible so we have to pay for it.

Did I mention it's been a hugely stressful time lately? We just can't seem to catch a break. First I had to get new front brakes on the van before the trip, then the car was wrecked, now the windshield has to be replaced. They say bad things happen in 3s, so let's pray that we won't run into anymore car trouble for awhile.

I'm ready to just sit back, relax, and enjoy spending time with my family for a few days. I want to enjoy the cooler Ozark temps, ride the trolley around town, watch the girls hang out with their grandparents, and hang out with Mr. at Home. Speaking of which, I'm going to get off this computer and do just that.

Day 6 of 100 - From the campground

still typing from my phone since i have to have the office physically register my laptop. i got it to type in the body. for now. no guarantees that i wont press the wrong key and get kicked out. we are here and i wanted to post something. i wanted to put up a nice long wordy post, but maybe tomorrow. i will try to get the internet issue taken cae of early and write a real post.

Day 5 of 100 - My phone won't let me type a body to this post, so I'll just say goodnight from Nashville in the title

• we made