So we spent Sunday morning clamming and beach combing. My favorite aspect of the trips to the coast. We pulled up a 5 gallon bucket of littleneck clams and looked at Starfish, Sea snails, found some Sea shrimp and watched the rock crabs scurry back and forth.
Leif was in the backpack and we would stand the backpack (it has a kickstand for this purpose) up in various places while we would clam. Leif would watch us digging in the mud and giggle. Winny played on the beach. Hans and I are digging clams, Leif is giggling, then I hear a thud and Leif howling and screaming. I turn around to see him face planted forward in the tipped over backpack, blood running down his forehead.
Sucky mom award here. I didn't realize he could rock the pack, or that it wasn't stable enough, or both. He whacked his head on a barnacle and it was bleeding horribly. (Hans reminded me that my classification of "horrible bleeding" with Leif was about 6 drops of blood, a trickle.) Still, it was the "whack" that got me most. I pulled him out of the carrier and ran him up to the cabin. Once there I cleaned it out with water, then soap and water, then antiseptic and H2O2 and put antibiotic ointment on it. It was a couple scratches with a kind of puncture wound in the middle. I was very worried about infection.
Leif fell asleep shortly after that and then I started thinking about concussions, and if I should let him sleep or not. I finally dealt with just sitting in the bedroom reading while he napped. I felt like the biggest shit mom ever.
That afternoon we headed off to do a little shopping, Hans bought mortar shells to set off, and bought me a few sparklers.
We get back and I got my pissy hat on. We walk in and lo and behold the family is having a potluck in 1 hour. Great, I didn't know. What am I supposed to bring? I grab out a brownie mix I just bought and mix it up. But no, I can't put it in the oven because the oven is in use (even though nothing was in it and there wouldn't be anything in it for 30-40 minutes). I was tired and pissy, so Hans ended up finishing it up for me. Got it in the pan and hauled the pan over to relatives cabin and bakes them. Get to the potluck and yay, the brownies were a hit.
I love to cook. I take pride in making food for people. So not knowing about the potluck just put a black cloud over it all. Sure, I didn't *have* to bring anything, but I can't show up empty handed. This is my in laws... there would be talk.
The rest of the trip was fine. The 4th was nice. Leif slept through the fireworks, so I stayed up at the cabin on the porch while everyone else lit off fireworks at the beach. Finally at dusk, Hans and his cousins, Evan and Skylar, headed out to the floating dock.
Since Hans was a child and they would spend 4th of July at the coast, he remembers the big kids setting off the fireworks off the dock. One uncle even obtained his pyrotechnics license to get the really, really big fireworks. Now, finally, it was Hans' turn to make the trek to the dock. They had about 60 mortar shells and started getting fancy with tying the fuses together for up to 5-8 bursts at once. These are the BIG fireworks that spray all above you. It was cool! Hans had a great time.
There was a lot of talk about uncle buying my FIL out of the cabin. Part of the problem is that my FIL lives in Alaska and uses the cabin maybe once every 5 years. Although Hans and I (through his stake) use it about once a year. Uncle, while drunk, assured us repeatedly that we are welcome as long as we don't mind their friends, or we can use the cabin when they aren't. When is that? They are most always there. Sigh. Sad to see the cabin possibly leaving our immediate family. But I can't blame my FIL for not wanting to pay utilities and upkeep on a place he never uses. Options include us taking over his share. But being that we only go once, maybe twice a year, it would be expensive. And then we would have to deal with uncle, who really, really, wants it for himself and would make this possession unpleasant, I believe. Or we can just back off and let him buy my FIL out. We will likely do the later. We would like to buy a camp trailer and if we do, we can park on the property and have our own place to stay without negotiating bedrooms. This is probably more ideal for us.
Tuesday morning was the day we were treking back. Aunt and Dee Dee had to work early in Seattle so they got up to leave. Uncle said that he would help clean up and would stay until we left since a lot of the mess was theirs. Evidently he changed his mind. We got up and all three were gone, but had left a note. Consequently it was up to Hans and I (effectively one person because of Leif) to clean and shut the cabin down. We had plans to leave about 10-10:30 am when Leif would be scheduled for a nap. We left, in a very, very pissy mood, at 12:40.
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