The Camper

Much better picture of my new ink. Not icky. And you can see the placement of it too :) My Mama HATES it. But she hates all tattoos so I'm not going to feel bad.

The good stuff from our trip to Mama and Daddy's camper...

1. We got to drink red Gatorade

2. It was Kids Fest and there was a big water slide (which Gigi went down a total of ONCE and hated it. It was "too scary" )

3. They gave us popsicles!



4. Face Painting!!


5. Gigi is FUNNY. I told her on the way there to close her eyes and the trip would go faster. She looked at me and said, "You close YOUR eyes. Are your eyes closed? Why aren't we going faster?" That kid. My mom always told us that if we just closed our eyes that we would go faster. Of course it seemed like it because we slept instead of asked if we were there yet 475,679 times. But my kid? My kid thinks it will go faster if *I* sleep.


And then the hard stuff.

The camper was one of my Daddy's favorite places. I think it may be my Mama's favorite place in the world. It was H.A.R.D. to go there on Friday evening. It was exactly a month since Daddy died and the lake is HIM. It's my Mama and my Daddy - fishing, camping and visiting with friends. It's my Daddy's tricked out golf cart and campfires. It's "camping" at it's finest. With a fifth wheel camper, beds that are soft, a bathroom in the camper, a fireplace AND air conditioning.

It was all those things and everything looked exactly the same as when I had been there last summer. Except my Daddy wasn't there. My Daddy wasn't there to take us for a crazy boat ride and go under the bridges. My Daddy wasn't there to take Gigi fishing. My Daddy wasn't there to take us on golf cart rides just to pass the time. My Daddy wasn't there.

There were a few tears, but not many. I am trying so hard to be strong for Gracey and my Mama. But sometimes? I just want to curl into a little ball and make the whole world go away so I can just cry and cry. I miss my Daddy. The camper smelled like him. His shoes were there. Gigi and I took the golf cart for a drive and it ran out of juice (it's electric). He wasn't there to laugh at us...or save us.

Our first weekend at the camper without him is over. We had fun but something was missing. Gigi got to drive a little electric boat. As we were waiting in line I glanced down at the dock and saw a man with a t-shirt very similar to one of my dad's. For a moment...just a moment he was THERE. He was walking on that dock after docking the blue boat. He was coming up to get us. And then I realized that it wasn't him. It was actually one of his friends. I was glad to have sunglasses on so I didn't have to explain to anyone why I was standing in line with Gigi with tears in my eyes.

Last night before going to bed I actually thought to myself..."self (because I always begin that way :) ) this is the first time at the camper that we won't get awakened at 6:00 because my dad is making coffee." Sort of sad but exciting at the same time if you know what I mean. Sleep is good in any form! But Gigi fixed that whole sleeping in thing. She was up at 6:00 this morning! That child has not seen 6:00 EVER except for when she was a baby and would wake up to eat at that time and go back to sleep.

Thanks Daddy for the early wake up call.

We got through it. We didn't get the boat in the water (although I'm sure Mama is a good boat driver) and we didn't fish. We didn't get cooler after cooler full of ice. We didn't hear the coffee grinder and paper at 6:00 am. But we knew he was there. Gigi talks about him A LOT. She talks of how he was looking down at us and smiling when we were on the red golf cart. We saw a Cessna airplane and we just knew that Papa was telling us hello.

One weekend down without him...several decades to go.