Z liked our time in the mountains so much, she decided to sneak some Bug House gravel home with us in her “cooking” bag (see above). (Sidenote: the Bug House is the screened-in building everyone hangs out in. We each have our own sleeping cabins – with bathrooms! a luxury the Hardy Womenfolk insisted upon – but the sleeping cabins are tiny, so the Bug House is the area we can all visit without getting attacked by too many bugs. There was a skink friend, though.)

And the other thing…it never really sunk in, before, that after a vacation, you’ve got to clean your filthy clothes. With one or two people, this isn’t much. With three people, it can get a bit out of hand.

No Mommy-blog is complete without a photograph of Mt. Laundry

The beer bottle is propped up there so you can get an idea of the vastness of Mt. Laundry. Am I folding? No. The sheer vastness of the mountain discourages me from even attempting to scale it. Instead, I think I will go in my bedroom and cry.

Good news: Z’s exhausted, and my parents are here to help distract her & tire her out. Bad news: I’m exhausted, so less likely to make the most of my sanity-time.

The Best News: It was an awesome weekend. Not only did Husband and I go on some hikes together, but I had plenty of visiting time with both sets of our parents, and I had plenty of writing time – even created a rough outline for the sequel to le manuscript. And Z got to do all the things almost-three-year-olds should get to do in the wilderness…go for walks with grandparents, read stories, eat huge breakfasts, search for the skink, watch Mommy have a panic attack over the Giant Red Spider of Doom, then watch her do it over again over the Giant Red Spider of Doom’s Clone BFF.

I have a lot to say about the Giant Red Spider of Doom, but I’ll save it for a day when I don’t have Mt. Laundry staring at me with its x-ray laser vision from the other room.

And the best thing for kids to do in the woods: play in the dirt with sticks and rocks.