Camping...What?!?

So I have been feeling really optimistic for a few weeks. I am trying to hold on to that feeling because the bad days are really BAD. You know what I mean. So what started this week's hope? Again if we are Facebook friends you saw this picture I posted from our first camping trip in our new to us RV.

This spring we made the really hard desion to sell our boat and buy a RV. We have some family and friends who are big campers. After years of watching them make memories we decided it would be a good idea to try this fun and exciting hobby.  Once our boat was sold Matt begain his process of doing reasearch and hunt for the best one he can find. As crazy as it sounds he always finds exaxtly what he is looking for and we haven't been burned, much.

He had so definite things he was looking for, a RV called a toy hauler. That way we could take a bunch of big items. (More on that in a minute.) So he found what he was looking for and his brother and his family were camping at a few places this summer. After a look at our calander and a few calls he managed to find an open spot. We joined Matt's brother and his family for their camping trip on July 29. The first day was a Thursday until Sunday, which at first we kinda thought was crazy, but which is brilliant. 

So now we have a camper and a site reserved, time to find out how well I can move inside it. Lol Matt opened up the slides and pushes me up the back ramp and into the "garage" in the back of the RV. In order to even see the inside I would have to walk through the door way and small hallway then pause in the kitchette area even to get my wheelchair inside. I was able to walk but I was tentive. Matt says I often doubt myself in those first attemps. I did get a chance to sit on the couch. We laughed at how we kinda wished we could have them in our house.

Matt put an adjustable base in place of the matress because right now I am not sleeping flat all night. And the ability to adjust would just make me feel comfortable. It was a ton of work though. He spent so much time working with the boys makiing that adjustment. As sad as it was after all his hard work, I ended up sleeping on the couch recliners the last night there. 

Jumping way ahead in my story, so forget that I said that for a few minutes. We left the house when Matt was really anticipating arriving at the site. It took way longer to pack all of our stuff into the RV. So much of the stuff we packed we didn't end up needing. But you don't know until you've overpacked one time, right? So we get to the camp ground around dinner time. Lucky for us our site was a pull through, and it was right at the entrance. Matt's brother, Steven came to help Matt hook up. Again we are really new to this whole camping and in a RV to boot. It had been about 13 years since we had been tent camping. I'm pretty certain our youngest son was a baby. I have pictures of the boys and Matt sleeping in the back yard in a tent when I was very pregnant with our 10 year old and we hadn't gone camping not in our back yard while having 3 kids. So yeah...at least 13 years if you were actually following that hot mess of thought. Sometimes explaining how my thinking process seems off, but I honestly can't blame the brain injury for that crazy thinking process. I have always been like that, now there are things that I'm not quite sure is exactlly the way I remember it. 

With Seven's help we found out that our "ready to camp" RV had a hole in the water line. Ugg...the wonderful world of buying used. So that meant no hand washing or bathroom useage, but we were close to the bathrooms and if we couldn't walk that far Uncle Steve's RV was close. The biggest loser in that whole deal was me. I couldn't climb stairs to get into their camper, and looking at the park's map we couldn't find a handicapped bathroom for me. 

Thankfully for me there where a few guys working security at the park riding around in golf carts. Matt was able to ask one of them. There was a large bathroom located in the laundry area, but it got locked when the office shut down. But thankfully he unlocked the area for us for a few hours. I was so incredubly thankful! After a quick meal of hotdogs we went the short walk to Steve's site and had a fire. During that time Matt poured me a red solo cup, because that's what we had lol, of wine.  That wouldn't be overly note worthy except for the next part. When I was ready for bed Matt pushed me to our site and up into our RV. As I stood up I felt the effects of the wine. I think I can count the times I've had anything to drink in 4 years on one hand. 

I stood up and said oh no to Matt. He laughed. But at least he knew this could really be fun. Lol The first few steps felt strong and steady. I walked all the way through the RV to our bed. This would have been fun in any state I was in, we had not practiced getting in and out of bed. It was a tight squeeze. I mean tight. Now since I spend the majority of my day in a wheelchair and haven't worked on my abs much lately, I have gotten round in the belly area. I wouldn't normally talk about that too much online, but as Matt and I stood face to face belly to belly, there wasn't any spare room. Which I found funny. I started laughing. I couldn't stop to tell him why I was laughing, which of course made me laugh harder. Eventually I did make it in the bed. I had a plan for sleeping in a bluetooth eye mask so I could shut down my brain with listening to sounds I used for brain breaks at home. 

The plan worked. While I woke up a few times the sound of rain lulled me back to sleep quickly. I didn't wake up when the kids came in, which is amazzing in itself. We had 5 Kids in our RV. We had our oldest son's girlfriend with us. She was given the bed Cole would have slept in, kicking both boys to the couch. On a quick sidenote, we gave them some very firm rules. By what we were able to observe they respected our rules. Good job Loukas and Jaz!!!

 Thank you!

Getting up in the mornings continues to be a struggle for me because I continue to need so much help just to get up and out of bed. I would love to get up and make coffee and make breakfast and just be in the mornings. I'm sure I've said this before Matt is a night owl and I am not. I don't get up super early but once my body wakes up I can't go back to sleep. So we will have to continue to work on the best solution for both of us. I thought that sleeping on a recliner would help some of that. I mean, in my head I have no muscle problems, I'm just as strong now as I was 5 years ago. Lol but that is not true I found that out in the morning I slept on the chouch/recliner. So again in my mind I imagined waking up and pushing the back and legs to be able to sit up a bit in the recliner. A lot of the reason is it takes me so long to drink anything I like to get a jump start on my water drinking. But I couldn't get enough strength to do any of the stuff I thought sleeping on the recliner would help! Ugg...

The park we were at was beautiful! Although it was like glamping. My sister in law did warn us that this park would ruin all other parks for us. She wasn't kidding. It had bathrooms, which I didn't see, a pool, on a river. And every afternoon they blew up a ginormous water slide. Oh and it had a air filled jumping pad at the play ground! I don't think I've seen anything quite like that before. If I was a kid that was the place you would find me!

So one of the reasons for the Toy hauler RV was Matt's brillant idea to buy a golf cart to help me get around. I didn't have any idea how wonderful it would be to have that little bit of freedom. 

I can't really explaine how great it was just riding around going and doing nothing! As much as I loved the boat this is so much better! We took this for rides around the park and groceries and ice cream. We found out on our very first trip to the park store that the bar on the back that Matt added on as something to hold for the kids, would hold my wheelchair almost as it was built for it. (If Matt tells you diffrently it wasn't originally for my wheelchair.)

My big take away from this trip, besides a weeks worth of catch up naps, was something that happened the first night I walked through the RV. I can do this! It was really a moment of peace to my heart that I was able to walk steadly for that short walk. But it encouraged me so much I had hopeful heart on Mon. morning that I hadn't had in a long time.

Also I need to tell you this story because it so moved me... Matt and I took a rides to find our group of kiddos. We ended up at that slide because that was were our crew was. We took videos of all the kids sliding down the huge slide, when one of the security team members started up a conversation with us. (On one of our trips to the park store this gentlman brought the wood we had bought at the park store to our campsite because we didn't have a great place for it on our cart.) Some how we got into the conversation of how I ended up in a wheelchair. He shared with us the story of his wife. She had some similar injuries to mine. I won't share her story because it's not mine to share, but I will share how moved I was. The things she has overcome...amazing! Really! And listening to her husband speak about how proud he was at what she has overcome...you guys seriously...he loves her and was so very proud of her hard work in getting where she is now! It made me wonder if that is how Matt talks about me. That didn't matter at that moment it was just so amazing just to hear how he talked about her! I didn't meet her. But the next day as we started the long process of packing up I knew that I wanted to just say hi and give her a big hug in words. I have no idea if she would have taken a hug, but I just wanted to hug her. But if you know me I am a hugger! I cried as I wrote the note, really a long letter, I really needed her to know that her story and listening to her husband speak about her would pushed me to not give up for a long time. We all need to know no matter what the situation we are not alone.. Every time in the last few weeks since our trip I have had some moments of struggle but our journey can and does encourage each others to take that one more difficult step forward and not give up.

So friends, we had a wonderful end to July/start of August. The camper is in being fixed. We are hoping to maybe get one more fall trip in!  

I started writing this post last week but it took me the whole week to recover mentally and then on Monday of this week at physical therapy I walked for 35 minutes.  Then I had to recover from that...but some really good stuff happening here.

#TeamGavrilides