Look who's back from the dead. (spoiler, it's me)

So, You want to go to Assateague, right?

Because there's wild ponies/horses there, right?

And you might get to seen one, right?

Because it's so cool, right?

AND THERE SO CUTE AND AMAZING, RIGHT?

Stupid ponies.

Now, we're not idiot campers. We've gone camping once a year for several years now, often in the mountains, where we have to be careful of bears. There was this one place where we couldn't go 10 feet before getting reminded to be careful of bears in our food. (The first thing we did when we got there was spill a huuuuuge bag of trail mix but it was alright nothing happened) but with bears, they wait until you're gone, or asleep before looking for food. But ohhhh no. These ponies are RUDE.

So, all the warnings we see are warning you not to leave food out overnight, and don't take in the tents because they'll smell it, but most of the warnings are for idiots who want to walk up and pet them, take a close up selfie, and for goodness sake they have teeth and are not afraid to use them. But we all knew that. 

So anyway, it's the second day I think, and we were finishing up lunch, so all our food is out next to and on the table, excepts for the cooler, which was under the table. (Thank goodness it was) Most of us kids were finished, and we had sat down in a circle to play mafia. (we played it a lot when we were there, its so much funner with more people) since its mafia, we had our eyes shut. We didn't see the ponies until almost the last minute, three of them, a little taller than me, heading straight towards us. Of course the little kids were scared.

They were instantly up, yelping and squealing an little kid frightened noises, running towards my dad while he tried to shush them. I was terrified, (when something big and heavy ad taller than you is approaching and you're on the ground, it looks very intimidating) and after a blank moment started trying to figure out if we could outrun a pony over those sand dunes and get to the bathrooms. They were cinder block buildings, and heavy doors that opened outward, so it would hold against a pony. (I'm pretty sure) I was helping herd them all away from the camp to a sand dune farther away. I had decided that the little kids would be the biggest problem, since they can't run as fast, the sand dunes are terrible footing, and its almost slower carrying them.

Luckily it wasn't necessary. 😛

This is about how far away we were. They ate everything on the table, and what they could get out of the buckets. One of the buckets was shut, they just kicked it over and kept kicking it until the lid fell off. (They cracked the lid almost in half) they ate a bag of carrots, plastic and all, an entire bag of apples, (that made my dad mad, he was going to grab one when he noticed them coming) all the bread, the gluten free pretzels, (that made Ivy mad) the marshmallows, (that made EVERYONE mad) and everything else except the cheerios, which they couldn't open. (that made ME mad. No-body and no-thing touches my food)

a few of us went down to parking lot, where Hazel's mom was, (I forgot what she was doing) and told her what happened, and SHE got mad, because they were so rude, and also her husband and two smallest kids were in one of the tents, and that scared me, because she had said that the ponies trample people's tents sometimes. Then Hazel's dad woke up and came out of the tent, right next to a pony. 😳

It was a very nerve wracking ordeal.

This lady who worked there showed up, and she tried scaring them away, but when they left, it was only because they had eaten everything.

The parents then talked with the lady for a bit, and she told us about one time she cooking in the back of a trailer, when a pony came up and head butted her, so she got pushed ten feet away and fell over, while the pony ate what she was cooking. She also laughed at us for thinking they wouldn't come up and scare you away, and to add insult to injury, told us kids that we had to fill up our little holes, because a pony or person might break a leg. 

The parents realized that she was right, and told us to go fill them up, and we were scowling indignantly because they weren't holes they were nests and we had been driven out of our native habitat the previous year and were struggling to find a new home, and we hadn't had enough food for months and it was nesting season and the lack of food meant much less eggs than normal, and now they had hatched, and we were struggling to feed them, they were starving and then a plague came and that paired with the lack of food wiped out half the hatchlings, and now this human wanted to take away the only home our babies ever knew? Where would they live? But we still had to fill up the holes, so we did, and relocated our surviving imaginary hatchlings somewhere else. 

Yes, I'm a teen. 
Yes, I play games like that still.
Yes, the story is a group effort so
No, we usually have no idea where its going to end when we start, and 
No, the death toll is not normally that high. 😆

Anyway.

So! Sorry for leaving so long, after the whole week of vacation, we spent a week sick, (but not meee still not sure how I avoided that one) and then I was too lazy to blog, and then the laptop wouldn't work. But now it will, and I'm making myself write this because VBS is starting next week (finishing this post it starts this evening) and after that I'm going to camp again, (anyone remember when I went, two years ago?) but Ivy is coming this time. She's super excited.
I also took ZERO photos the entire trip but my mom took some, so I'm using them in this post. (thanks mom!)

But let me tell you about Assateuge!

This was in May, and we drove up to Hazel's. Bubbles had her birthday at their house, and we set out the next morning for Assateuge. The drive was really cool, and we went over a lot of bridges. I liked it, Thorin didn't. 
When we first stepped out of the van, the first thing we noticed was the wind. It was SO windy. I found it exhilarating, and even after a few days of it, the only thing I didn't like about it was my slightly chapped face. That was also why I didn't take any pictures of the dolls we brought, it would have been IMPOSSIBLE to stand them up.

Our campsite wasn't that far from the parking lot, but with the dunes and shifting sand, it seemed a lot farther than it was. If you ran, it was a little faster, but you had to walk at least one way, because running against the wind was almost slower than walking, it was that windy. 

It was difficult putting up the tents, but the parents got them mostly behind this big sand dune, and we helped put all our backpacks in the corners to help hold them down. Even being protected, I still spent the first night with a curved overhang of tent wall over me. That first night we didn't get to bed until late, and we were to tired to really do anything than argue over the blankets and end up sprawled all over the place. The next night we actually planned out where everyone was, and made sure everyone had enough blankets, except for me, because on that first night I had ended up with only one blanket, a really large fuzzy one, and I slept with one end under me and the other folded over for covers and I was fine. The sand was so soft, I slept better than any other camping trip we've been on. Ivy had another blanket like mine and was freezing, so she got more blankets for the second night. I guess thats what you get when you're not a living heater. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 
But we read Percy Jackson, and played with princess dolls by flashlight, and had a grand old time.

Have I mentioned that sand? We had a lot of fun in the dunes, (we found this particularly large one that blocked the wind entirely, that was where we dug the holes for our nests) and i already told you about how comfortable it is to sleep on, but it got all in the tents no matter how careful you where, and it made my ankles so tired form trudging in it everywhere that by the end of our stay, I have now sampled Anakin's view on sand. 

We went on this walk, on a board walk that you could see very far from. The wind had slowed after the first day, but it never stopped, and it was still very breezy.

We found this place, it was this huuuuuuuuge inlet of water, and it never got above my knees.
It was warm, the sun was shinning, and I kept intending to see how far I could wade out before it got deeper than my knees but I kept getting tired or distracted. So that never got finished. 😛

when we were coming back from the walk, we started going to the car, one of Hazel's little sisters was walking barefoot, she stepped into the grass, stood stalk still and started screaming. The grass was full of these little prickle things, like a pea with thorns. Princess also stepped in them, since they were the only two who wouldn't put their shoes on after we got out of the water. So that was fun. 😑

 It got really pretty when it got sunny. 🌅

(the one on the left is Daisy) 

It was still too cold to go in the water though. 

We went on a walk down the beach, I love walks like that. 🙂🌊

While we walked, we played a game that we had lived by the coast our whole lives, and we fished for a living, only going to school occasionally. The most exciting part was when we caught a shark, and sold it to buy a better boat. 😛

But eventually we had to leave. Hazel and her family went home, and we dropped by Oma's, since we were pretty close by.

 (I'm to the left in the hat, Princess is in the pink behind me, Ivy is in blue on the right, and the other two are Bubbles and Wacko)

 We also went to an aquarium, and Thorin was our own personal tour guide, he literally knew everything a tour guide could have told us. 

Daisy also took some selfies with Oma's cat. 😛

I think I'm about done here. 
Vbs starts today, I'm going to be helping the kids learn the moves to the songs. Search 'game on vbs 2018' if you want to check out the songs, we'll be doing 'we have hope' and 'joy' as well as the theme song. It's going be fun! (and totally terrifying)
And then camp next week, (even more terrifying) so I won't be posting for about two weeks, but I have pictures from a bird sanctuary we visited, and a photoshoot planned, so I'll post after I get back. 🙂
I'm considering getting an instagram account for this blog, because I'd like that better than writing blog posts. I'd still have this blog, and I'd post on it occasionally, but it would mostly be on instagram. The problem is that several of you don't have/aren't allowed an instagram, so you'd be missing out, and I don't want that. ☹️

Anyway, have an amazing day everyone!
Bye,