Where do I even start?

Vacation was fulfilling, I suppose. c: I will resist the temptation to post individual blog posts for each day and just try to put the highlights in this one post.

Overall pros for like, every day: Got lots of exercise! Saw pretty trees~
Overall cons: I ate unhealthily and too much. I had no self control ;~; also, mosquito bites. Urk.

Thankfully the exercise seems to have combatted the unhealthy eating, so that problem is mostly non-existant. The mosquito bites were pretty bad, though.

So let's see. On Friday we began driving, conflict was kept to a pretty good minimum, I took lots of pictures

NOTE TO SELF-GET PICTURES FROM DAD

and they were mostly of siblings and gas stations. We retrieved Josh and I sat next to him for a lot of the trip. (The drivers were all in the front four seats, though I never had to drive~ partayyyy)

Saturday was pretty much the same. The whole car ride was pretty uneventful except for the time Mom accidentally started swerving because she thought a truck was going to run her off the road (it looked like he was putting on his turn signals--he was actually putting on his work lights because we had our brights on and didn't notice. But afterwards the truck was pretty mean about it by practically blinding us). I guess we nearly ran out of gas once too. But it was right at a gas station, so it was okay.

When we got there on Saturday afternoon we set everything up. Dad and I set up a hammock between two trees and it was rather lovely. That night I slept in it, but I went to bed at like nine thirty or ten so I woke up at four and couldn't sleep again. I was also having trouble keeping my pillow and the sheet and my blanket all in the hammock (it was new, and it hadn't stretched out at all, so the sides didn't come up around me and envelop me like I would have liked). I also thought I heard something walking around in the woods (it was probably a fox haha) and of course that kept me from going back to sleep too. So eventually (around five, I think?) I got up and read a lot of 'Til We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. It was a pretty good book.

Then, it was obviously Sunday. I wore a skirt and stuff because we were supposed to bring nice things for church. But then we ended up only having a little church/prayertime/devotional thing as a family. And it was good, but I didn't need the skirt. XD

By the way, did I mention that it was COLD when we got there? (Well like in the forties to fifties Fahrenheit, I think... maybe sixties... I can't remember... but it was chilly...)
I didn't bring any long pants with me, either, because last year it was unusually warm for Ohio. And we heard that it had been pretty hot up there this year too. And it was August. :P
So our uncle brought over a huge basket of sweatshirts. XD Thankfully I had the common sense/premonition to bring a jacket. I didn't have to borrow a sweatshirt.

That night, I hammocked again. Yay! I forced myself to stay up late so that I would sleep through the morning. XD I think it worked.

Hmmm, on Monday I guess we got into the swing-o-things... I don't really remember what I did. It all blurs together. 8D That's what happens when your days aren't structured by day-specific events.
Monday night, it was supposed to rain, so I slept on the picnic table on the porch. It didn't end up raining until the morning, so I would have been fine in the hammock, but I didn't know.

On Tuesday, I think we went shopping at Wal-Mart because mom needed something from the pharmacy and grandma needed groceries and I needed pants. ;~;

I looked through some clearance stuff and found some skinny jeans but they were too small because they were skinny jeans and I also didn't know how the sizing worked.
I found some colored skinnies (yes! I had been looking for some!) except that they were expensive and I didn't like the colors of any of them particularly well except for some sky blue ones but then money.
Just when I was thinking I'd never find a pair of pants (I was actually just going to look through the clearance racks one more time), my mom told me there were a bunch of clearance clothes in the back.

There were skinny jeans for like, three dollars each! o_____o
(The reason for my focus on skinny jeans is not that I like them the best. But I already have some bootcut ones here at home. I've actually never had skinny jeans before this. And pretty much all the jeans at the walmart up there were skinny jeans. There were some others but I didn't like them.)
So I got a pair of grey ones that I really really like and a pair of white ones (I'd wanted white jeans for a while now~). I got them both several sizes up because of what was available and what fit best (skinny jeans in the 'normal' size are probably squeezy and uncomfortable... D: ).

I wonder if I should turn this into a blog post about clothes sizing and insecurity and everyone being beautiful no matter what and hm no I won't do that XD I'll let Bethany write that if she wants to because she has more clothes expertise and is also nicer. c:

Tuesday night I was a lame-o and slept inside because the hammock was wet and someone had put the cooler on the picnic table. I could have moved it but I was being lame. :P

OKAY SO WEDNESDAY
On tuesday night I had planned things with Shadow and Sophie. So on Wednesday, my daddy drove me to Sophie's house and Shadow and I surprised TWIG by me being at Sophie's house and we laughed more than was necessary and then when Sophie got back we played a sixth grade edition of Trivial Pursuit and were feeling really smart until Sophie joined us and informed us of the fact that we weren't playing the normal game. ^^;
After that was an old version of super mario and food and ice cream and it was all delicious.
Sophie was reading a huge impressive book that had plays and stuff in it while Shadow and I tried to keep Yoshi from running away from us.
That night there was sleeping and I woke up at daybreakish and read a book of Grimms Fairy Tales from Sophie's bookshelves because it was so quiet and stuff. c:

By the time we ate breakfast and stuff it was like eleven, I think, and I was being really indecisive because there were just so many OPTIONS and I didn't want to inconvenience Sophie's mum by asking for something that would cause extra work but then I realized that my indecisiveness was probably even more inconvenient so i just asked for the same thing Shadow ate which was eggs and toast and it was good.

After that I showered and found Shadow playing Pokemon and Sophie still reading that impressive book so I joined them and drew pictures so we were all kind of sitting around together but not talking or anything. XD
After a while, Sophie's mum took Shadow and I to a coffee shop that they had taken Shadow to before and she wanted to show it to me. Sophie stayed at home for some reason I either can't remember or never heard.
There was some drawing and writing and dictionarying but there was also pokemoning and I checked stuff on my iPod because there was wifi and I hadn't checked stuff in a while. Then my iPod died so I illustrated a song and there was also hot chocolate and coffee and cookies and yum.
Then Elle came and got us and Shadow and Sophie and I played Munchkin which thoroughly confused me for the first few rounds and then I kind of got it. Then we played Apples to Apples over the phone with Bella (shadow's little sister).
After that Shadow and I played more super mario and Sophie made us ramen since dinner was still in the making and Shadow was hungry.

Dinner was this delicious pizza thing with fresh tomatoes that were cooked right onto it and it was delicioso~
We began reading this roleplay aloud that Shadow and I had and were inviting Sophie to join. We ended up reading it to her and her parents while we sat around a fire and there were smores and yum.
Then we all went inside and put more posts on the roleplay and I ate some more ice cream.

Then I slept and then I got up in the morning and read almost exactly half of The Fault in Our Stars which I liked significantly better than any other John Green books I had read.

Sophie had a musical on and we ate some breakfasts which was leftover pizza.

After that I had to leave and Shadow came with and Sophie stayed behind. Sophie's dad drove us to the coffee shop and I examined a hole in the floor and then just as Shadow and I were starting a game of checkers with sugar packets, Sophie's mum showed up and then we left and ran over a hubcap somehow and had to stop on a bridge but a repairman of sorts was driving right behind us and got out a cone and fished the hubcap from beneath the car. :D three cheers for that guy!
Then Elle was dropped off at the airport and then we headed toward the campground but then stopped at Wendy's to get Shadow some food and then we got to the campground and they met mi madre and then I packed things up and that night Judah, Kelsey, LaRissa and I slept inside since they wanted to pack up our tent. The boys stayed in the tent they had been in since it was our uncle's tent.

Then Saturday morning we left and there was a family reunion which for me was admittedly quite boring but the food was good and I saw a baby mouse and talked on the phone with Bethany.

Then we drove and it was rather boring but we had music this time so I played all my indie music and enlightened Josh as to why indie isn't so much a genre as a production choice.

When Mom was driving I kept conversation with her about desks and school plans for this year. When Josh drove, I tried to sleep because during the night it was my job to keep Dad awake while he drove (from like midnight to six). We were both terribly unmotivated to stay awake because it was kind of boring and dad felt like just pulling off in a rest stop and sleeping except we couldn't do that.
I tried to make conversations but they were short.

Then I suggested we play a word game so we started out going through the alphabet with interesting words but it quickly became a 'go through the alphabet with interesting words and try to find ones that Claire has to look up' game and the dictionary history on my dictionary app probably tripled at least. XD

But by X I was falling asleep. Thankfully Josh was awake by that time and Dad drove for a while longer before mom took over and the rest of the drive was basically dad and I sleeping on each other on and off. XD
Until the afternoon when dad moved up to the passenger seat and then we ate some food and I finally got my Peace Tea (Flying Js and Pilots don't have them, blahhhhhhh and those are the stops my father favors).

We got home and did laundry and stuff and I cleared a desk mostly and we ate pizza because everyone was too tired to cook. XDDD

THE END