Camping with Kids

Part I:  Our Family Camping History

My family didn’t camp when I was a kid.  No tent camping, no camper.  Just weekends at the lake in the trailer.  The same lake.  The same trailer.

I’ve wanted a camper or RV for as long as I can remember.  But it was when I was racing that the RV/camper bug bit really hard.  My first racing job was an internship with Racing for Kids magazine.  My boss and I spent the night at Daytona in her parents Fleetwood Bounder.  It was great.  Grilling out and hanging with the other race fans.

The DH and I met racing which means we both got a little gypsy in us.  We’ve both had the same goal of a motor home, retiring and riding all over this country. When the girls (HC1 &HC2) were little, we went to numerous RV shows and dealerships.  One of my fondest memories is watching “me can do it” HC2 crawling her cute little diapered behind up the steps of a Fleetwood Bounder at a Marietta, GA show room. 

Shortly after, we purchased our first motor home, a 30 foot Allegro.  We had previously borrowed it from a favorite neighbor Mr. Carl aka Santa (ask Scott about Santa and Mimi’s fruitcake!)  Carl had purchased the RV to drag his Harley around with and wound up not using it much.  So of course next thing I know, the Allegro had moved driveways.

Scott went back to racing part time following the ARCA series. We helped Mark Gibson during the 2003 season and the home motor (per HC1) was great.  Scott would get off of work at the body shop and I’d have the old girl loaded up and ready to roll.

We would leave out for Kentucky, Nashville or Salem Indiana and a few spots in between.  We’d drop the dinette, put a bed rail up and dose the girls up with a little Benadryl and down the road we went.  Bungee cords might have been involved as a safety precaution.

Often times, we would follow AP and Mark in the big truck.  On one such occasion, Scott decided I needed to learn to drive.  So over Mount Eagle I went and we all lived to tell about it.  Of course, my favorite “teach Rebecca to drive” moment occurred on our way to Kentucky.  We had us a convoy headed through Louisville KY.  Three little girls were bouncing on the rear bed and the motor home was just a swaying.  It was rush hour traffic.  I had a semi on my right and a concrete wall on my left.

Poor Scott was drawn up in the nagivator seat like a sour prune.  AP was on the CB harassing me and at least two more vehicles of teammates were attempting to follow and not wreck from the CB chatter.  I had a grip on that steering wheel so tight, I thought I'd bent it.

By far, our best ARCA racing home motor story involves the departed Bobby Hamilton, former truck series champion.  I drove the home motor and Scott drove the race car transporter.  We had loaded an assortment of bicycles in the car hauler plus had tons of gear in the motor home.

We pulled into Kentucky Speedway’s Competitor RV lot.  Scott had HC1 & 2 in the truck and I had HC3 who was an infant and Gracie the dog.  I picked our usual spot and backed her on in.  We had a couple of crew guys with campers and normally all camped in a row.  As I waited for Scott to get parked, a beautiful maroon Prevost pulled in an parked a few spots down from my left.  Bobby Hamilton soon got out and was talking with some more folks setting up camp sites.

Scott and the girls drove up and we started unloading: dog, wagon, stroller, three kids.  It looked like the little allegro had threw up the Clampetts.  Next thing we know, Bobby fired up the prevost, pulled in the middle of the lot and backed into a spot on the other side.

Scott and I both died laughing.  We told that story all weekend and somebody finally said something to Bobby.  He finally walked over and said it didn’t have anything to do with the kids.  He just wanted to be on the other side.  Yeah, Right Bob.  I believed you.

I guess you had to have been there.  We had a blast in that ugly little motor home.  I always had four or five kids in my RV even though it was the smallest one in the lot.

We also learned a lot in the little allegro.  What to bring, how to pack one tight and what to leave at home. I can’t wait until we finally have us a big rig, diesel pusher with an outside entertainment center, extra fridge and basement storage.  That's right...the Clampetts are gonna move on up!

Anti-Fast Food: Homemade Pizza

One of the biggest budget killers for us has always been that last minute run through the drive thru.  With three growing girls to feed, this can be very expensive.  Busy days and evenings make it hard on us moms.  Last Thursday, we had one of those days.  No left overs in the fridge and we were all tired and ill.  Yikes.

What to do?  I threw together some pizza dough (recipe from the Big Chicken roll up dough).  My kitchen aid mixer has been getting a workout here lately.  I highly recommend using your mixer and dough hook if you have one. 

 This time, I modified the recipe by adding a little more olive oil, Italian seasonings and some garlic salt.  This will make enough dough for two pizzas on my PC small round baking stone.

After giving the dough about 20 minutes to “rest” I divided it in half and rolled it out on my stone.  I baked it for about 5 minutes.  For sauce, I opened a jar of Prego that was in the pantry and used some turkey peperoni that was in the freezer.  Shredded cheese is a stable for us. (I can’t hold a block of cheese with the right hand and grate it any more.  And, I’m afraid I’ll lose a finger if I try that grater leftie.)  Bake for about 7-9 minutes or until it is as brown as you want.

 

In just a few minutes, I had a homemade pepperoni pizza in the oven.  It might not have been pizza hut, but it didn’t last long either.  As soon as it was scarfed down, I threw together another one. 

No, I didn’t sneak any veggies in this one, although I’m sure I could figure something out.  And since I had all of the ingredients in the pantry, we saved a whole lot of money.  Total Cost for two pizzas:  Maybe about $5.00.  We used ½ package of turkey pepperoni ($1.50), 1 bag of cheese ($1.66), and ½ jar of Prego ($.85). 

Grand total not including flour: $4.01. Now that is my kind of fast food!

Freeby Alert

To "celebrate" my new Facebook page, The Adaptive Mama, I am going to give away a copy of one of my most favored cookbooks, Shared Secrets from Mitchell EMC.  My Mama has many copies of the EMC cookbooks.  In fact, back in the day, these cookbooks were printed up at The Camilla Enterprise where she worked and I basically grew up.  I have made many laps around tables, putting cook books together.

Mama has numerous editions of the old red ones and even a green one. I may not get much from my folks monetarily when they pass, but I get every single one of those cookbooks.  Every now and then, being the only child pays off!!

These books have some great recipes from all over the EMC's service territory.  But what makes them really special to me, is the notes and dog ears left by my Granny and my Mama.  Plus they read like the history of this area.

So if you enjoy cooking from "scratch" or need a book with recipes plain old down home cooking, go over to the facebook page like and share.  At 200 likes, I will give away the cookbook and you just never know what else I might round up to go with it!

Frozen PB Cookie Balls…Great for Busy Moms

These little jewels were born of frustration.  The Middle child, aka HC2, short for hoodlum child #2, doesn’t eat.  All day.  What, a member of the Newton Thorpe household that doesn’t eat?  Say it ain’t so.  Ahhh, tis true.  She will go to school, not eat breakfast, break or lunch.  So when she gets home, I’m trying to find something she will eat. 

Now, don’t be calling DFCS and telling them I don’t feed my children.  We have plenty of food in the house.  Lack of appetite is a side effect of her school meds.  It is a battle we have been fighting for six years with her.

HC2 and HC3 love anything homemade and baked.  While researching future posts about freezer cooking (RAD style) I came across freezing balls of cookie dough.  Duh…that would be great since I only need to cook 10-12 per batch, once or twice a week.

After fetching the hoodies (yes, I call them that to their faces, albeit with love and affection), I went to work mixing up a batch of peanut butter cookies.  I rolled the dough into balls and baked about 20 for our test run.  They were a successful hit:  HC2 ate the majority of them.  Whew.

The rest of the dough was rolled into 1 inch balls and placed on wax paper on a metal pan and put in the freezer.  Once slightly frozen, I placed in a freezer bag.  I now have about 52 future cookies hanging out in the freezer.  I can place them on a cookie sheet to thaw, go get the Hoodies from school, and pop in the oven when we get home.  This is a quick easy snack and I controlled the ingredients.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups crunchy peanut butter
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) softened unsalted butter
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, (spooned and leveled)
1 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cream Peanut butter, sugar and butter, when mixed add the egg and dry ingredients.  Mix well.  Roll into 1 inch balls, flatten with a fork to get that bakery looking criss-cross pattern and bake on cookie sheet.  I use parchment paper, just because I like the finished cookie.  Bake for 12-14 minutes, but check them…a thinner cookie will bake quicker.

 

Cimzia Update

Warning: Medical talk…a teeny bit graphic for the needle queasy type.

My new meds came in last Thursday all packed up and surrounded by cold packs.  Having no idea what was in there, I eagerly opened the box.  Wow!  The syringes were really cute and get this, designed ergonomically for RAD patients.

Since I didn’t want to “lose” the weekend, I decided to inject Sunday evening.  And although these adorable little vials of medicine are friendly to the joint challenged community, I still had to rely on my Mother to handle the sticking part.  Which, by the way, she does with entirely too much relish.  Being right handed is proven to be a challenge since my right wrist is permanently knitted together.  I am still learning to conquer the world as a leftie. Smiley face.

I read the instructions several times.  She read them too.  I also read the white paper included in the box, seeking out those side effects in the finest of print.  I didn’t see anything abnormal, other than immediate death by heart attack, so we proceeded onward.

Now when this pack says inject at a 45 degree angle like a dart that is what it means.  The needles are not very sharp and not tiny either.  So the first injection wasn’t pleasant and the meds burn.  The directions said to inject in fat and if using two injections put one in stomach and one in the leg.  Oh well.  My belly is wide enough for two injections per me, one on the left and one on the right.

The most common side effect, watch the injection site for rash or reaction, did not occur.  Yippee!! And as far as other side effects, I’m doing OK.  I have had a dull headache this week that has gradually gotten better and I’ve been a little achy and tired.  It is hard to tell if it is the cool damp weather or the injection.  I know my bones are ready for some warmth…these last two weeks have been painful.  Nothing I can’t handle with a little ibuprofen. 

The doctor offered prednisone until I could get the meds in my system good.  I said no thanks.  Let me tough it out.  I’ve been making very slow progress on weight loss and didn’t want to give up that ground to a steroid bump.

The best think about Cimzia is I don’t inject again for two weeks.  I will take another “double” dose followed by a third double dose in two additional weeks.  Hopefully at that time, I can go on the maintenance dosage of one vial every two weeks.  After about 12 weeks, I might be able to inject monthly.  So here’s to praying this is the biologic that will work for me and ease the disease progression.  I badly want to get back to a “normal” life.

Homemade Taco Seasoning

I made my mix on Sunday afternoon, trying diligently to get all of my goals for the prior week accomplished.  And this was one of them.  I had some of the spices in my pantry.  However, I also bought some new because I couldn’t tell how old and didn’t know how long the spices had been in the pantry.  Probably, since we moved in nearly 7 years ago.  Yes, it has been that long.

So I gathered up all the spices and the recipe that I was planning to loosely follow.  I also had a pack of taco seasoning in the pantry and had previously read all of its ingredients.   Oooh Yuck! Many words which I can’t pronounce and that ain’t because they are Spanish words.  Talk about scientific and in our food.

 

The following is the “recipe” I used and multiplied by 9.  I figured if I was gonna stand there and measure, I wanted enough spice to last a while.  We eat homemade Mexican a lot at our house.  “A” has been lobbying for Taco Tuesday for some time and “C” will eat chips, meat and cheese when she won’t eat anything else.

1tbsp chili powder

¼ tsp. garlic powder
¼ tsp. onion powder
¼ tsp. crushed red pepper (I used cayenne pepper)
¼ tsp. oregano
½ tsp. paprika
1 ½ tsp. ground cumin
½ tsp. salt (you may want more to your family’s taste)
1 tsp. pepper

 

What I learned…this is probably cheaper if you and a friend, or two, go to Sam’s and buy the chili powder, cumin and paprika in the $4.88 canister.  Maybe pick up a bottle of wine and voila!  You have a spice party!! The Sam’s size spices would make plenty of homemade seasoning for several people due to only using small quantities of the other spices.

Also, I up-cycled an empty peanut butter jar and washed it thoroughly. (Y’all like that term…my Grannies had no clue that saving all those mayo jars and peanut butter jars was recycling! Who knew???)

Bonus Post: Banana Nut Bread

I cleaned out the refrigerator and was appalled, ashamed and downright annoyed with myself at how much money I threw in the trashcan.  Several months ago, Scott cleaned out the camper fridge and all the stuff from it wound up in the house.  Add some very busy schedules and it became a glorified mess.

So I chunked at least a week’s worth of our grocery budget in the dump.  Sigh.

And then, two very ripe bananas started staring at me.  And staring.  I couldn’t throw them away.  Just couldn’t.

So they became this:

Recipe is from the Shared Secrets from Mitchell EMC.  If you don’t have this awesome recipe book, go get one.  I give them a lot as wedding presents.  It has many timeless recipes from some great ladies that are no longer with us.  You will use this book, dog ear the pages, splatter stuff on it and thoroughly enjoy it!

Banana Nut Bread (Gloria Davis)

2 cups plain flour

¼ tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. soda
1 ½ cup sugar (I used part white, part brown)
3 eggs
¼ cups sour milk (I used plain old skim)
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup bananas, mashed
1 tsp. lemon juice (didn’t have any, so left out)
½ cup nuts, chopped (probably used a few more)

And "C" ate it all up.  She loved it.  Considering that she hasn’t been eating much these last few weeks, I was thrilled when she kept coming back for more.  FYI: I baked in my PC stone fluted tube stone.