Fort Wilderness Camping with the Girl Scouts - Easter Sunday

After all the little girl scouts had gone to sleep, two of the leaders hid Easter eggs all over our campsites for the girls to find in the morning.

So early Easter morning the girls woke up to a colorful array of eggs scattered throughout the sites.  And in the trees.

That's right, the trees.

Evidently the squirrels of Fort Wilderness thought they should be part of the egg hunt, too.  And they got an early start.  Eggs were open, had holes chewed in them, and were falling from the treetops.  It was hilarious.  The girls had fun finding the eggs and then ate a cereal and fruit breakfast while we got to the business of breaking down camp.

Check out was at 11 but it took us a little longer to get everything packed up.  Luckily no one came by and yelled at us to get out.  We managed to pack up the trailer and get it attached to the Suburban on the first try and we all gave high fives to each other in glee.

We seriously were so freaking proud of ourselves.

We had promised the girls we'd let them shop in the gift shop before we left so two leaders took the girls to shop while one of the leaders and I took our cars loaded with gear off the site to the parking lot. Once all the girls had shopped and we were back at the parking lot we realized our girls were starving. So what did we do?

We put leftover spaghetti and meatballs into plastic cups and let them eat in the cars.  They got to forage into all the leftovers from the coolers and everyone was happy as we got on the road to go home.

It was about an hour into the drive when my co-leader and I in the van noticed that one of the lids on one of the bins on the trailer was flapping around a little.  Before it flew off and caused a ten car pileup on the Florida Turnpike, we pulled over and assessed the situation.  Some highway side securing solved the problem and we were back on our way.

Halfway home, I discovered that The Man and his family were holding the annual Easter egg hunt for Munchkin to arrive.  So I informed my fellow leaders that I'd be making a detour before we pulled into town to drop Munchkin off at the family party so that all the kids could get to hunting.

Munchkin happily skipped off to the hunt in her girl scout camping clothes and not a pretty Easter dress as would have been the norm... but I don't think anyone cared.

By 6:30 every girl had been delivered to their parents, the van had been unpacked, and I was driving home to an empty house.  After a hot shower I fell into bed, exhausted.  And that was the end of me.

Not that I gave up anything for Lent anyway, but The Spaz will be celebrating the end of it with copious amounts of booze...

The next few days in Spazland are going to be a little nutty. I feel like I've been triple whammied by life.

Thursday is The Man's birthday.  While I'm not planning a giant celebration for him (sorry, Mr. Wonderful), I'd still like to make his day special. :) So I need to find some time to make the house somewhat enjoyable for him and bake him a birthday cake. No big deal, right? Unfortunately, I also have a girl scout meeting that night that is necessary for me to attend so the tribute to The Man will have to wait until after the meeting.

Why on earth would a girl scout meeting trump The Man's birthday? Well, because on Friday (Earth Day!) I'll be heading up to Disney's Fort Wilderness with thirteen 9 year old girls, their bikes, and 5 other grown women for a weekend camping extravaganza. So the meeting on Thursday is kind of an important one to touch base with the girls and their parents and to pack up the minivan.

Now, it's not as if I haven't known about this trip for EVER.  But I just wouldn't be me if I didn't leave all the pertinent little details to the last minute.

So between now and Thursday I have to somehow find the time to clean out the van and vacuum it so the girls aren't accosted with something foul that may be living in the 3rd row, get to the grocery store, do enough laundry to make sure everyone has clothes for camping and for the boys at home until I return (including Easter clothes), set up our tent to make sure it's not all screwy for some reason (and to make sure I know how to set up our tent), put a First Aid kit together for the troop, put the topper on the minivan, clean the house, buy all of the stuff we'll inevitably need for camping, buy Easter stuff, pack 200 colored eggs with candy and treats, get new tires on the van, bake a cake, host a girl scout meeting, and, oh yeah, actually get some work done.

I'm giggling a little. It's probably hysteria. 

Our check out time from Fort Wilderness is Sunday at 11:00 AM.  Easter Sunday. It was a bit of a screw up that we actually booked this camping trip for Easter weekend, but oddly enough, it hasn't caused too much of a disruption with the girl scout families. Out of the 16 girls in our troop, 13 are attending and the other three are not missing the trip due to the holiday.

So on a morning when I would usually be watching my babies wake up to colorful, chocolatey, jelly beany goodness, I'll be breaking down a camp site and loading girls into cars to head home.

And hopefully we'll be able to get to The Man's aunt's house by 2:00 for our annual Easter egg hunt.  I'm sending The Man and the boys with the previously stuffed eggs just in case we don't make it.

I think I'll be having a nice, stiff, Easter evening drink.

Where my peeps at??

So my kids get about 3 tons of candy each for Easter. The Easter Bunny evidently thinks they're very good every year because he leaves yummy, sugary goodness for them at multiple locations.

There's one Easter candy that I, personally, look forward to every year. Back in my day this particular candy only came out at Easter. Now it's been repackaged and shows up throughout the year masquerading as the Gingerbread Man, a Jack-o-Lantern perhaps, and this year I even saw cute little red hearts for Valentine's Day.

But the best is still the original. The ooey-gooey, crystallized sugar covered, artificially dyed, marshmallow peep in the adorable little chick shape. I cannot express to you my love for them.

Okay, so maybe I can express to you my love for them.

This year my little monsters came home with something different in their baskets. They looked like my beloved peeps. They even felt like my beloved peeps.

They did not taste like my beloved peeps.

Sugar FREE Peeps??!

What kind of atrocity is this? I mean, SUGAR is exactly what the peep is all about! It is the nature of the peep!

These blasphemous little puffs have not earned the right to bear the name Peep.

Splenda does not melt in your mouth like sugar. It's like someone glued some yellow pencil shavings to my marshmallow. It does not glisten like a peep should, it does not smell like a peep should. It is just wrong.

Let's not even get me started on how awful the actual marshmallow is. I am saddened. What is this world coming to?