Sunday, August 7, 2011

Day 4 - Going Home

Finally today, on the last day of camp, everyone woke up healthy.  We'd have loved to have that happen earlier on in the trip, but we're grateful for it today.  Today's breakfast consisted of cereal, and the activities, for the most part, consisted of packing up.  We did play one more game of Bananagrams for the road, and took some really great pictures. 

We've been doing this camping trip for 13 or 14 years now.  Our families have all changed during this time.  We miss the time when all the kids were little.  We miss the time when all the kids could come.  Unfortunately, but fortunately they've all grown during the years.  Some have gotten married, had babies, have jobs and responsibilities.  We're so grateful for the times we've had, for those that still come (and leave friends and boyfriends behind for this one trip : ), and we miss those who can't.  But mostly, we hope that this is a tradition that can go on for many years to come, with as many "Whartons" as we can drag out here with us!


The Picketts, Pearsons, and Hymas Family

Don't judge.  The bathrooms consisted of vault toilets without even sinks!

Kev and some of his favorite girls.

A Motley Crew!

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Day 3

Last night was truly one of the best nights of my life.  Kevin slept out on the couch bed in the camper because he was afraid of my germs.  I was feeling much better and just slept so great, spread eagle the whole night.  I did at one point hear what I thought was a lot of moving around.  It was still dark out, so I knew it was early.  Whoever it was, though, didn't come disturb me, so I quickly zonked back out.  It was well after 9:00 am before Kevin finally poked his head in and said, "How are you feeling?"  I assured him that I was practically good as new.  He said, "Great.  Cause Brinkley is sick and you are now officially on duty."  Uuuuugh!  Really?  We were so careful to keep her away from me yesterday, but she did keep coming in to check on me AND they made really cute duct tape bracelets for their craft and she brought me one as a get well soon gift.  Poor thing.  See, compassionate service really doesn't pay.

So, I rolled out of bed and started playing nurse maid.  She'd been throwing up about every 45 minutes steady, since 5:00am.  I guess that was all the noise that I'd heard during the night.  The first night we got here, I gave her and Lily a ziplock bag and said, "If you feel sick during the night, throw up in this."  So, two nights later, when she did feel sick, she woke up and did throw up in the baggie.  Then called Kevin.  She's amazing!  And so sweet.  Kev said that she kept apologizing for keeping him up and disturbing him.

So, I got up, checked one her, then started cleaning.  Luckily I have extra bedding, so I stripped our bed and Lysoled everything, then remade the bed.  Brinks would throw up, and of course feel a lot better and be perky for a while, then start feeling sick again.  I was able to venture out of the camper some.  I gave her a walkie talkie for when she needed me and sat down to play Bananagrams.  It was so fun!  That's all I wanted to do.  And we played A LOT!  All day long.
Bananagrams, Chips Ahoy, and the great outdoors.  Life is good!
So, I'd play a few games, then Brinks would call and I would go hold her hair up while she threw up, then come back and play.  Finally, by late afternoon, Brinkley was holding stuff down and ventured out to lay on a cushion in the main camp, with the rest of us.

Beth and Mike, who were also out camp hosts this year, might I add, were in charge of dinner, which was super-yummy fajitas.  I really wish I'd have been feeling at 100%, because I wanted to eat about 4 of them, but since my stomach was still tender, I just ate 1.  What a waste!

After dinner, we continued with Wharton Wars, Minute to Win It.  Last night we didn't give out any prizes, so tonight we pulled out prizes and let those who had won last night choose (Kevin said the prize tables looked like a Dollar Store that had exploded), then we started playing.

Unfortunately, Mom and Dad weren't here tonight, so we had to find new Minute to Win It Hosts.  The adult Hymas girls took over and thanks to Mom's fine tutelage, did a very good job!
Mama Hymas (Dawn)

And Daughter Hymas (Amber)
Landon, doing the Elephant March

Shelbie's version.

Uh - if you don't like my panthose, bring your own next time!

Brinkley, with her Junk in the Trunk

Lily, getting her groove on.
Games we played tonight were Junk in the Trunk, Elephant March, Wetball, Defying Gravity, and Shoe Fly Shoe.  Brinkley even got in on the fun for a few minutes with Junk in the Trunk, then got really sick again and had to have a team member stand in for her.  Poor girl.  I think everyone had a good time.  I need to take a survey to see which was the favorite, regular Wharton Wars, or Minute to Win It Style.

Poor Brinks went to bed as soon it was all over, but the rest of us stayed up and played Bananagrams.  I felt bad because Dawn was pretty well sick of it by now and if we were a nice family, we would have stopped and played something else, but we just COULDN'T and so we just DIDN'T.  We're bad!  She sat and watched us for a while, and then finally went to bed.

The highlight of Lily's evening was getting to stay up until midnight, and then having Kev take her on a midnight stroll around the campground.  Of course, she will be exhausted tomorrow, but hopefully not sick . . .




Friday, August 5, 2011

Day 2

It became a running joke at camp that when we woke in the morning we wondered who would be hit next by the Germ Worms.  My teenage nieces started singing, "Another one bites the dust!"  Each day we expected it to be Carvel.  He was, after all, sleeping in the same bed and camper as the other sickies, and we couldn't imagine that any amount of Lysol would kill all those germs.  Of course later, we also found out that he was downing Airborn, and that was his secret weapon.  Well, looking back, I'm thinking that it would have been nice if he'd have shared his secret weapon with the rest of us.

By Friday morning, the whole Hymas clan were basically healthy.  Dawn and Emilee were up and about, and thankfully Hadlee had only had it a few hours and was fine by Friday morning too.  Unfortunately, that didn't mean it had passed.  It was still running rampant through the campsite, and had just jumped campers.  As I was beginning to wake on Friday morning I felt good, still wrapped in the sleepiness of dream land.  Then, I rolled over.  That one little movement was all it took to send my stomach swimming.  I got up and headed up to the bathroom praying that I was fine and was just imagining the rumble in my stomach.  By the time I got back to our camper, I was pretty sure that I wasn't.  I grabbed a big ziplock baggie (the thing Emilee had said she was using to throw up in) and climbed back in bed.  Kev was waking by now and rolled over to give me a hug.  He heard the rumple of the ziplock and said, "What is that?" and looked down.  You should have seen his face.  His eyes got big as saucers, he flew back against his side of the bed and said, "Are you sick?!!"  If circumstances were different, it might have been funny.  I told him that I thought I was fine, but was just taking precautions.  As the morning wore on though, I knew I was not fine.  Breakfast was made, bacon and french toast (my favorite) and I didn't move from bed.  My mom showed up and they started playing Bananagrams, and still I layed there, steadily feeling worse.

They came to visit at one point with words of encouragement like, "Don't worry, it only lasts 24 hours," and "Compassionate service just doesn't pay."  Kevin left with the other boys to go shooting and I lay there feeling like death.  I was apparently running a fever, which none of the rest of the sickies had had.  That just doubled my pain and suffering.  Finally, I realized that I was and took IBUprofin, which helped a lot, because I had been miserable.  I told Beth that she needed to call Kevin home because when I died, I wanted him to be the one to tell the girls.  I know that was dramatic, but it was miserable.  And I felt so sorry for myself.  I could hear Mom, Beth and Dawn out at the picnic table hoopin and hollering and having a gay old time.  At one point Brinkley got hurt and I couldn't even help her because Kevin had quarantined me.  It was a bad day!

Finally about 3pm I ventured out and sat for a few minutes, then everyone went to the lake and I went back and took a nap.  At 5pm I came back out and was much improved.  Dawn made lasagna for dinner and I ate a little.  My mom had been there all day, and my dad showed up at about dinner time to visit for a couple of hours.  Thursday is the night we usually do Wharton Wars, but since Emilee was sick I held off and promised we'd do it Friday.  Well then of course Friday  I was sick, but I decided that maybe we could do a few Wharton Wars activities that night, and I'd do the rest on Saturday.  This year we were doing Wharton Wars Minute to Win-It style.  My mom is a huge fan of the show and I figured she could help, and would also get a big kick out of watching the kids.  I had the poster made, so I split the kids into teams, gave them their colored bandannas and told them to start strategizing.



Landon, Jakey, Lily - Ready for action!

The games we did tonight were Bite Me, Rapid Fire, Dizzy Mummy, Chocolate Uniforn, A Bit Dicey, and Suck It Up.  My mom was the host, and she was the bomb!!



Bite It - Kev and Amber weren't even part of the teams, but after the kids did it
first my mom and Dawn had to try it (that's what I needed a picture of),
then Amber and Kevin.

Holy crow!  Really?

Dizzy Mummy

Chocolate Unicorn
After the Minute to Win It Games I was finally able to play a few games of Banagrams with my mom.  By then, I was totally wasted and I headed to bed pretty early praying that no one else would wake up with the Germ Worms tomorrow.


Thursday, August 4, 2011

Barry's Marinaded Chicken

I didn't take a picture, but wanted to post the recipe for Barry's Marinaded Chicken.  I call it this because I got the recipe from Dr. Barry, a dentist that I used to work for.  His wife made it for a work event and it was really yummy!

Barry's Marinaded Chicken
Makes 5 lbs Chicken

1 c. oil
1 c. soy sauce
1 1/2 t. horseradish
1 1/2 t. garlic powder
1 c. 7-Up
5 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts

Combine first five ingredients. Add chicken. Marinade at least 24 hours.  BBQ or bake chicken that you need. Freeze the rest in serving size packages for later use.


Day 1

Though the weather channel called for rain Wednesday night and Thursday, we didn't get any Wednedsay and woke on Thursday to beautiful blue skies.  I was in charge of meals today, so as soon as I got up, I started cooking.  For breakfast we were having ham, scrambled eggs with cheese, and fried scones with honey, jam, powdered sugar.  I quickly learned however, that not everyone would be joining us for breakfast.  During the night, the germ worms had infested my sister Dawn, and her daughter Emilee (16) and they were down for the count.  Jacob and Shelbie seemed almost fully recovered though, which was nice for them.

Back to breakfast - usually I make my scone dough, but since we were were camping, I tried a box mix.  It was Honeyville Scone Mix, and can I just say, it was really good.  It was easy to prepare and the dough cooked up just beautifully.  I would totally recommend them.  Everyone thought they were yummo!

This was a pretty lazy day.  I cleaned up from breakfast, then setup the craft that I'd brought for the kids, which were picture frames they could decorate.  Kev and Beth's husband Mike started doing some tinker job on our truck/camper.  Carvel, the sickos husband/father, headed into town to hit the Walmart, where he loaded up on Pepto Bismal, Lysol Spray and Wipes, and apparently Airborn for himself.

Day 1 Crafts - Picture Frames
Landon, Brinkley, Jacob, Lily, Kylie, Emilee, Shelbie
After crafts, the kids headed off to play.  The younger ones decided to have an Airsoft War, which was fun to watch.  The looked like Mercenaries hunting each other down.  They had a lot of fun.
Jacob, Brinkley, Dillon, Lily and Landon

Freeze Suckas!!!
After lunch we went to the lake where some fished, some swam, and some just sunned themselves.  A new addition to our campout this year was my niece Amber's baby Hadlee, who was 9 months old.  She was yummy sweet and a real treat.  Amber's husband couldn't get off work to come and we sure appreciated him letting his girls join us.

The brave ones - Brinkley, Shelbie, Lily and Beth.

Amber and Hadlee - Sun Goddesses.

I'd been dying to play a new game that my sister brought up, Banagrams, so after the lake we got cleaned up and were getting ready to play when little Miss Hadlee started throwing up.  Oh crap!!  She'd caught the Germ Worms.  Well, up until this point, I had pretty much stayed away from my sick sister's camper, but before I even thought, I started helping clean up.  I was washing hands and sanitizing like crazy, but Kev was still saying, "Oh, you shouldn't be doing that.  You're going to get sick."  Oh why does he always have to be right?

 I was cooking dinner too, and by the time we got Hadlee all cleaned up, it was time to get started.  We were having Barry's Marinaded Chicken, a Bowtie Pasta Salad, that I was really excited about trying, but it ended up kind of sucking, Zucchini and French Bread.  Today's sickies, Dawn and Emilee were starting to venture out and did have some french bread at dinner.  And FINALLY at about 9:30pm, Beth and I sat down and played our first game of Bananagrams, and it CHANGED MY LIFE.  OK, not literally, but it was one of the most fun games I'd ever played.  I LOVED it!  We played for about an hour, then headed to bed.  I was really excited about getting up in the morning to play again.  Mom was coming up to stay for the day, and I knew she'd LOVE the game and play with me all day.  Little did I know, but the Germ Worms had other plans . . .

Brinkley wanted feathers, and my Hair Dress Extraodinaire niece, Amber
agreed to do them.  Several of us ended up getting them, but Brinkley was the most excited.

Later, before bed, Brinkley, "I can't believe we got these for FREE."
Thanks Amber!

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Day 1/2 of Wharton Camp

Everyone arrived to our Annual Wharton Family Campout location by 4:00pm on Wednesday.  As previously mentioned, we were camping this year at Payson Lakes, which is up Payson Canyon.  The campground is at about 8,000 feet elevation, so it stays pretty cool all the time.  Days were warm, and if you sat directly in the sun at noon, you'd probably get hot, but the air was a very comfortable temperature during the day.  The nights cooled off considerable and we definitely wore sweats and hoodies or jackets while sitting around the fire or playing games in the evening.  Payson Lakes Campground has 3 loops of camping, some groups sites, and a beautiful (cold) lake, that some people swim in.  Lots of people canoe and kayak.  The camping areas are well-shaded with lots of trees.  They don't have flush toilets though, just the vault kind, which is always kind of a bummer.  It was a nice campground though, very roomy and quiet.

After stopping to visit, we started unloading and setting up.  My sister Dawn, from Idaho, had two sick kids with her.  Her son Jacob (10) and daughter Shelbie (15) had woken during the night sick and throwing up.  We appreciated her die-hard attitude and the fact that she didn't let a little vomit keep her from joining us on this long anticipated event, but DID encourage her to keep them and their nasty little "germ worms" (as Kev called them) tucked nicely in their camper, so the rest of us didn't get infected.

For dinner the first night, we always roast hot dogs, so eventually my pyromaniac nephew, Dillon (14) made us a fire and we had dinner.  After dinner, the men had a nice yak session, eating peanuts by the fire, and the women gathered around the picnic table for games.  Tonight we played Would You Rather?.  We had to determine whether other players would rather do one thing, or another.  Such as, "Would you rather chew a piece of toenail off a really dirty man's foot, or thoroughly lick the armpit of a man who hasn't bathed since a week?"  We got a big kick out of it.  Our favorites were the ones we had to make up ourselves.  By this time, both my sick niece and nephew were feeling much better, and were out and about a little.  We determined that this bug they'd caught was apparently just a 24 hour thing, which was a relief.  After that game, it was pretty late and we all headed to bed.