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by Patricia Parkinson

Been home from holidays for three hours. I have to say, I am so happy to be here. Not that we didn't have a great time, we had the best time, the best, the weather was wonderful and when it wasn't we snugged down in the trailer on the fold down table and the fold down couch and watched movies and told stories and went to bed with sand between our toes, and other areas of our bodies I'm sure, and on the sunny days, it was paradise on earth sitting on the edge of the Okanagan Lake in my black and pink bathing suit, building sandcastles, rowing out in the dingy to bird poop island, which later became known as, "The Big Floating Turd," as RV, was the movie of our last two weeks, projected one night on the side of a 40' with three pull outs, the guy had a projecting TV that hooked up to his laptop and we had movie nights, don't ever say that I don't know how to rough it, anyway, okay....lololo...it makes me laugh at myself, that and I found the greatest boutique of alllll boutiques in Westbank, had some alone time one afternoon after a tiff with my hubby sent me off to town in nothing but my suit and a sarong, the hundred square feet held charm for only so long, that and a cell phone call from hell, don't ask, that ended up with me on the buying end in a groovy store that carried a clothing line by the name of "Velvet," I was in consumer and credit card heaven, even went back today it was our last stop of the day as I have made a vow to myself to not leave a place and say, "I wish I did this or I did that," you know, like going to Paris and not seeing the Eiffel Tower, I had to go back to that shop and try on the red sweater I had seen hanging from a maniquin and walked past! GOD! It looks great on me and was stuffed with it's gold bag, (gold bags!) between the now deflated dingy and the roof of the truck. All in all, our holiday was spent looking, looking out, book in hand or computer turned on, I had the best intentions, really I did, but I looked instead at my daughter who went on her first speed boat and taught me, "When you find a penny on the ground tails up, you turn it over and leave it heads up for the next person," it's the best rule in life I've heard since becoming an adult and my son who poured pizza sauce over our sand volcano to simulate lava and told the folks gathered round the campfire that his mother had "diaherra farts," and my husband who flashed me while barbecquing burgers while wearing the most ridiculous red pair of bathing trunks and will understand because he does and won't question the value of the contents of the gold bags, yes, there was more than one, and knows something about star formations that I never knew he knew before.

We went camping and now we're home. I was first in the house as I am every year and stood in the doorway from the laundry room to the kitchen and sort of gasped at the vastness of space and surprise that I actually live in this house. It's our house. Camping on a bigger scale.

Life in a one hundred square foot trailer, okay, maybe it's bigger, narrow, but bigger, with four people, is an experience to treasure, to remember, to endure, the bathroom had lap space only, but in the creases of my tan and in the memories and lessons I will treasure and remember the thing I take away from this vacation is that things don't have to clean and shiny to be perfect, that something doesn't have to be eloquent to be romantic and everything, they, them, he and me too, can be just what we are.

My vow today is to hold tight to this camping feeling.

This is a picture of my family last night at the campfire. If I can ever figure out how to post this picture I will do it..xoxo I promise xoxoxo



Happy Labour Day weekend everyone..xoxoxo Enjoy xoxo