Back from camp

Some day I'll learn to say no to seconds on dessert. And thirds and fourths. Actually, it probably shouldn't take another lesson. I should know by now.

I'm finally leveling out again after a major blood sugar crash on the way home from our blissful weekend in the mountains. We spent three days with some of our best friends at our church's family camp near Sequoia National Forest.

The boys spent every minute outside, learning archery, hiking to the nearby creek, swimming, playing pingpong, tetherball and basketball, collecting sticks, climbing rocks and making up games with their friends. UberDad and I followed them around half the time, and hung out with our grown-up friends the other half, playing cards (him), knitting (me), chatting, and eating too much.

Too much dessert, mostly. We made s'mores by the campfire every night. Freshly baked chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies were set out every afternoon. Saturday we celebrated our friend Mary's 8th birthday with vegan chocolate cake. Then there was cherry cobbler and chocolate pudding after dinner.

I think I'm going to be sick just thinking about it again. But, boy, was it good while we were there.

Thirty minutes from home I started feeling myself crash. Stuffing graham crackers in my face didn't help much. The cranks were coming, and I couldn't stop them. I managed to make dinner for us and my parents, but afterwards I was a mess, getting frustrated at iPhoto for being impossible to use and blowing up at Scott as though it was his fault. (Well, he did buy the Mac. And he doesn't know how to use iPhoto either.)

I really just needed to sleep it off.

Anyhoo...

My friend Catherine called right after we got home to share the news of her fourth baby, Ethan Michael, who was born that morning. Hooray! He is beautiful, looks like his sister Eloise, who turns 3 this month.

Tuesday I dragged myself out of bed to go grocery shopping so I could make dinner to take to Catherine's family in exchange for a chance to hold the new baby. When we got home from the store, I had a message from an old high school friend who lives in Seattle but was in the area and wanted to know if she could come by. It was already 1 p.m. by the time I got the baby down for a nap and heard her message, and I still had to bake chicken, make pasta and then take Puffer to kung fu at 3:30, so I asked if we could get together Wednesday instead.

Scott met us at kung fu so I could go home and eat quickly before going to see Catherine. Her hubby was taking their oldest to dance class, so she was home with the three littlest. As I stood on front porch, I could see her through the window -- tiny newborn on one arm, broom in the other, sweeping off the back patio.

Don't ever expect to see me holding a broom two days after giving birth! I'm much too prone to postpartum indulgences such as, oh, I don't know... sleep? But my dear friend now has three children under age 3, which doesn't leave much time for sleep anyhow. And a little bit of order can be an indulgence itself.

If only I'd indulge in housekeeping tasks instead of too many cookies, my kitchen would've looked a whole lot better when my friend Camille came to visit yesterday. Oh well. We took the kids to the park, and ignored the laundry on the couch and dishes in the sink.

After the jump from vacation to frenzied activity, I really needed a day of nothing but catching up. So, of course, this morning we left the house to go shopping for craft supplies.

The one thing Grouper didn't get to do at camp was paint rocks. We forgot to head up to the craft cabin until Monday morning, and by the time we thought of it they'd already locked it up. So, we went to Michael's to stock up on paint and other crafty things. Puffer, who is usually uninterested in crafts, really wanted some Floam, so we grabbed a 3-color pack. They messed around happily with that this afternoon before kung fu. It's basically tiny foam beads mixed into neon-colored flubber. I could probably make a version myself. Maybe I'll post the flubber recipe here when I find it.

I finally tackled dishes tonight. Tomorrow, maybe I'll finish the laundry. Or, maybe we'll go the park and find rocks to paint. And then we'll come home and bake oatmeal chocolate chip cookies -- for Catherine, of course!