SURVIVOR: Giesen

We’re back from what was an awesome first weekend of the season at one of our favourite sites, Mt. Kidd in Kananaskis. While it was cooler there than in Calgary (it is the Rocky Mountains after all, and there’s lots of trees and shade), the weather was awesome and we had an amazing time. Arriving at our campsite in record time by 6:30 PM (we still had a LONG evening ahead of us), Dave backed into our site, with me navigating on the phone, the very first time. Not even one forward correction needed. We high-fived and complimented each other on not losing our touch over the winter. Then Dave built a fire. In three minutes he had a roaring blaze. Again, we felt pretty good about ourselves and I already had the words for this blog post forming in my heads. Feeling pretty good about ourselves, we ate dinner by the fire and enjoyed the flames for a few hours before the cold inspired us to go inside. That’s when things started to go sideways. :P Here's just a few of the mishaps we laughed our way through this weekend.

I had lit a candle on the table for some ambiance while we watched an episode of Smallville inside the Enterprise and ate our dessert. Afterward, in typical fashion, my kids argued about who’d get to blow the candle out (how old do they have to be before that nonsense stops???) Just as Max was about to huff and puff, Kira bit his bullet. He pouted. Feeling sorry for him, I told him to get the matches so I could light the cancel again for him to blow out this time. He yanked the big box of campfire matches from the shelf – and sprayed them all over the trailer. Everywhere. They landed in food. I was still finding matches in random places two days later. Anyway, he brought me over a match and I tilted the candle toward me to relight it – and poured hot wax all over my bare leg, my pyjamas, and the couch. Luckily, I didn’t burn myself, and I know how to get wax out of fabric with an iron. Then, the huge water jug we had brought had a broken cap – unbeknownst to us. Not once, not twice, but three times, the cap mysteriously shot off the jug (I swear!), spewing water all over the inside of our trailer and whoever happened to be standing nearby, which was always yours truly. Dave also knocked a cup of water off of his night table with his foot, which landed all over his devices – thankfully they were safely covered in his backpack. And Dave sliced through his thumbnail with his pocket knife while whittling something for the kids. There was a lot of blood but thankfully he doesn’t need stitches!

We also forgot a heck of a lot of things this weekend. We’d been making lists and putting things away for weeks in preparation, but it just goes to show us that no matter how prepared we think we are, there’s always something. Syrup, marshmallows (WHO goes camping without these things???) our water bottles (hence why Dave had an open cup of water on his night table), JACKETS (the weather may have been beautiful during the day, but it was a different story at night. This is Alberta, after all…), ice cream (we love a bowl or two while watching movies in the trailer), and wine (there’s nothing like drinking wine in a tin cup in front of the fire). So yah, as prepared as we thought we were, we weren’t! Guess we are a bit rusty after the winter after all!

Dave and I have been watching Survivor ever since the very first season, and we recently started enjoying it with Kira and Max, who now love it as much as we do. A few weeks ago, I ordered each of us a buff from cbs.com. The current season is Brains vs. Brawn vs. Beauty, so I ordered Max a Brawn one, Dave and I, a Brains one, and Kira, a Beauty one. The order arrived VERY late but thankfully the day before we left (CBS’s shipping times to Canada are abysmal). The kids were thrilled, though Kira refused to be Beauty and insisted on being Brains – that’s my girl! I was happy about that even though it meant I’d have to wear the Beauty one myself. Ah well, I’m cute. :P We wore our buffs all weekend. Max even wore his to bed. We also decided to make each camping trip a Survivor experience. The kids spent a couple of hours on Saturday designing an Immunity necklace and we held a simple immunity challenge – balancing on a log in the woods while trying to balance an object in our hands. It was over too fast so we think we’ll come up with more challenging battles for the future. Kira gets bragging rights to being the first Survivor: Giesen immunity necklace/challenge winner. She and Max battled it out to the end. She credits her “years” of ballet classes for helping her hone her balancing skills. I was out first thanks to inner ear problems I had as a child.

We four weren't shy about wearing our buffs around all weekend, even to the camper's center when we went to the arcade and to buy treats. Someone there pointed to my head and asked me if we were really on Survivor. I should I have said yes - instead I said we were fans and had just purchased them online. The kids bugged me about not saying that Jeff Probst gave them to me. I started wishing I had said that too, so I said I would say that to the next person who asked. And...wouldn't you know it, no one else asked. :P

Usually when we pack up on Sunday, we feel sad because we know we have to work the next day. Not so this weekend! We have the week off because my dad and stepmother will be visiting, and the kids are on their second week of spring break. We drove home, unpacked, didn’t even unhitch, and within 30 mins the Enterprise was back at the storage site. I cleaned the inside while Dave hitched it up to the truck while still at the camping site, so it’s all ready to go for our next trip, which will be to Mt. Kidd again in early May.

Enjoy a few pics from our weekend. And thanks again for reading. Don’t forget to leave a comment!