Ironwood (Part 1)

• Our trip up to Ironwood wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  We got packed up and got the car loaded and were in bed by 10:30 or 11.  But I couldn't fall asleep!  I laid awake for  a long time... tossing and turning.  I was having hot flashes and my lower back was hurting.  So finally at around 1 I got up, had something to eat, watched an Office episode (just like old times) and fell asleep on the couch.  I slept for maybe an hour before we had to get up and leave.  Lila was awake for an hour or more, just chillin, playing with the GPS.  Then she screamed and cried for a half hour before falling asleep for a few hours.  I fell asleep for maybe 45 minutes, which is pretty good for me because I usually have a hard time sleeping in cars.  That's all the sleep I got that night-- maybe 2 hours.  Yikes.  When I woke up, we were already past Chicago.  It all happened so fast; leaving that early was an awesome idea.  We stopped for breakfast at a McDonald's in Illinois.  Lila had a good time walking around and charming the old men who were there for coffee.  It was probably only 6am central time.  Lila liked eating the hashbrowns and saying hi to the kids who were next to us (lots of families were traveling and on the road).  We stopped again an hour and a half later at a gas station and Lila got to walk around in a field for a while.  And then I think we made it to Minocqua, WI without stopping.  We ate lunch at a Culver's there and let Lila walk around outside for a while.  The last stretch of the trip was a little rough.  Lila got cranky.  But for the most part she did great!  She looked at books or played with the iPad.  She did sleep a little but not a lot.  We stopped at a rest stop in Hurley and then finally made it to the camp at 2pm (central time) I think.  So, all in all, a very successful trip :)  Without stopping it would've only taken us around 8 hours!
• Mom, Dad, and Jim were gone when we got there, but Melissa, Angela, and my nieces were upstairs watching The Emperor's New Groove.  We surprised them.  So they all got to meet Lila and I got to see the Jones girls for the first time in almost 2 years.  They are so big!  Lauren doesn't seem too different to me, because she's always been pretty articulate and mature, but Paige and Eva seem so big.  They were just little girls when I saw them last, and now they can talk, talk, talk.  Eva sat next to me and put her head right in my lap and continued to watch the movie, just like she used to do when we would visit them in Ohio.  
• The girls got their swimsuits on and headed out to the little swimming pool Lori and Jim had set up in the yard.  It's deep enough to have a lot of fun in.  Melissa and I also got our suits on and I got Lila in her's too.  But Lila did not like it at all.  She'd be okay if I was holding her and her feet weren't in the water, but she didn't want to be in the water.  It was so hot outside most of the week... hot and humid.  But the older girls had a lot of fun.
• So, on Friday and most of Saturday it was just us, the Joneses (minus Vince), Grandma and Grandpa Betzold (who had driven up from Missouri), Jim/Angela/Emily, Jim and Lori.  Late Saturday night, Mike and Cassandra arrived.  I think it was also on Saturday evening that the Boggs arrived.  Rich and Tracy Boggs have been good friends with Jim and Lori for a long time.  Rich was Emily's counselor for a while when she was having her anxiety problems, and he was also a big support for Mike through his divorce.  So we were expecting it to be nice that they'd be there.  But it turned out to be very awkward and weird... because instead of just bringing their 2 teenage daughters (Hannah, 18, and Emma, 15), they also brought Hannah's fiance Tyler (also 18... they're getting married next week, not in the temple, he just got baptized)... which Jim and Lori all knew about.  But they also at the last minute informed Lori that they were also bringing David (a friend of the girls, who was black, not a problem but a kind of funny situation, considering the Betzolds are kind of weird about black people...) and Jan (pronounced Yawn), a German exchange student.  AND they also brought their 3 dogs, and Lori has a strict no dog policy at the camp.  So it was very awkward because the Boggs were pretty inconsiderate and we had strangers here and extra people we hadn't been counting on.  They were planning on staying till Friday (tomorrow), but they ended up leaving on Monday!  (Lori prayed Sunday night that they'd leave on Monday).  They didn't go to church with us.  The girls (Hannah and Emma) walked around in immodest clothes.  The first night all of the teenagers slept out in the tent, and the second night they all slept in the living room in the lodge.  It's Lori's rule that unmarried boys and girls sleep separately, obviously, but they all slept in the living room and Tracy was like, "Oh, they've been doing that forever."  I don't know, it just felt so weird to be around them.  Melissa pulled Lauren aside to talk with her about it, and Lauren's like, "I'm so glad that I'm not the only one who's felt weird!"  Melissa really wanted to "protect" the girls from some of the behaviors of the Boggs kids because they're so impressionable and in their formative years.  Melissa is awesome.