Grant, Charlee, and the Kidney Stone Campout

"Grant, I need to go home!"

"Huh?" came the sleepy reply.

"I need to go home! I am passing a kidney stone and I hurt so bad, and I'm scared." I cried.

"Scared?" Grant asked still trying to wake up.

"Yes, scared. I had to walk all the way to the latrine and I was scared." I answered still balling my eyes out struggling to close the tent door. Arms came from behind, wrapped around, zipped up the tent and then held me.

"Oh Char, why didn't you wake me?"

"I dont know, I just thought you would offer..."

"I was sleeping. Honestly I didn't even comprehend you were gone."

"I know, I just..."

"What do you need me to do?"

"Can you give me a blessing?"

"Of course."

About 12 hours earlier

"Call me when you need me to pick you up" I said

"Okay, I love you!" Grant replied, gave me a kiss and headed to his bio lab.

I had about two hours before Grant came home and we would begin getting ready for camping. Yes, I went camping while passing a kidney stone. That is what makes it an adventure. In those two hours, lets see, I did the dishes (yes one productive thing), played an hour of Assassins Creed: Brotherhood, (not so productive) and ordered the American Set Assassins Creed (to be less productive!) Haha, let me tell you, my game is Skyrim. I often play it when Grant is doing homework or if I am home alone. Grant's game is Assassins and lately I picked it up and well finished whatever left he had on it. So feeling a little guilty and AS I was playing, I stopped for a brief moment to buy him some more games that he can play. I bought it on my mom's amazon account so that he wouldn't know and I could surprise him. We both are TERRIBLE at keeping secrets from each other. The only thing Grant ever kept a surprise was the day he asked me to marry him. (He as a lot of pride in that!) So I found myself sitting on the couch next to him... and I spilled the beans. We just get too excited and can't wait to tell one another.

Grant did his homework and then around 4 p.m. we had a bit of shopping to do before heading into the wild (which actually turned out to be not so wild). We got home around 4:45 and started making our yummy tinfoil dinners. We cut up potatos, carrots, mushrooms, and hot dogs, mixed them all together and added the flavor: olive oil, seasoning salt, ground pepper, parsley, lemon pepper, and crushed red pepper. Packed up Chief (which is the name of our Grand Cherokee Jeep) with our new sleeping bags, tent, and camping chairs, food and clothes and headed out.

Now Grant has been wanting to go camping since we moved to Rexburg and finally the weather allowed us. I was getting a little scared because it was April, which in Rexburg most of the snow is still on the ground and we were only hitting high 60's, for me is NOT warm enough to go camping. Grant was ready to set out. I was able to tame to mountain man in him long enough for the weather to hit high 70's. Then I let him loose, which was not a mistake. We had the most amazing time, that is until 12 am in the morning.

We decided to try a place that was pretty close since it was a weekend camping thing. It was called Warm Slough. Here is my rating out of 5 (5 being the highest), I would probably give it a 3.2. We liked how close it was (which turned out a blessing a little later), and it was pretty enough. It had the river running through most of it, ENOUGH trees but we both decided that we like the REAL woods, mountain woods, and mountain smells. Where we were was more fieldy, literally we looked into a field, but our least favorite part was the company. It started out as fine. we had semi-close neighbors and there were groups of the younger (teenagers and collage students) generation coming and going. Most of them didn't bother us until it was around 9 where a bunch of what we assumed as college kids build a gigantic fire and blared their music which we could hear just fine from all the way across the field.

But I am getting ahead of myself. We really had a blast. We found a pretty decent camping spot, the last I might add. We parked Chief and started setting up camp. It might appear so simple and stupid of us to get excited but this was the first time using our new camping things for their designed purpose: camping. We learned a few things: bring pillows. Sleeping on rolled up blankets and backpacks aren't the best thing in the world. Paper towels and washing water; some campgrounds have spigots for water this one did not and we often found our hands ashy or greasy from our food with no place to clean it up except for our pants. We also forgot trash bags but luckily we did have plastic bags to place our trash in. Last but not least, tampons. Yeah... I was passing a kidney stone on my period. It's really been a wonderful experience.

After setting up camp we checked out the river and found the latrine which was a good distance away. Gathered up wood on the way back and started our fire for our dinner. THAT took a little while because we had to build it up and then wait for it to burn down so that we could cook our tinfoil dinners on the coals. We chilled during that time, explored the woods behind us, grabbed some more wood for the fire, played guitar, took a ton of pictures and soaked up the smoke and sun. It was delightful. Another thing that was delightful was our food. They turned out fantastic. After our delicious food we roasted marsh mellows and just sat and enjoyed the fire. We talked a lot. Mostly about past camping experiences. I love my husband so much. When you find a person you can just sit and talk to for hours its a good sign that he OR she might be the one. I found my one and have claimed him as mine. "I shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine, and he shall be my Squishy!" -the famous Dory.

Around 10 we decided it was a good time to go to bed. We have become old people since we have been married, though I don't think waking up at 6 will never be appealing for us, but going to bed early has. We climbed into our wonderful tent and into our warm sleeping bags, and rested our heads... on the not so very comfortable make shift pillows. Our loud neighbors kept us up for a bit but honestly sleep found us some how until later that night.

I woke up in so much pain in my bladder, a lot like a bladder infection feeling. I knew that my kidney stone had made its way down and was almost out. I was also surprised because I was on oxycodone and didn't think I could be in this much pain while drugged. I turned to Grant and had to say his name a few times before getting a response.

"I am going to the bathroom." I stated, but I really should have said, "I'm going to the bathroom and would like for you to come with me, because its dark and the walk to the latrine is far, and I'm afraid I will be on the disgusting toilet for a while." But I didn't.

"Okay," I got a sleepy reply and that's all I got. Grant has trouble waking up during the night,

I sighed, a little disappointed (which is unfair, I know) and put on my shoes and made the long scary walk to my most desirable destination, a stinky latrine, to pass my kidney stone. I was there for only about 10 minutes, nervously waving my phone light around looking for spiders. At last I couldn't take it anymore. Still in pain, I walked back to the tent and...

"Grant, I need to go home!"

"Huh?" came the sleepy reply.

"I need to go home! I am passing a kidney stone and I hurt so bad, and I'm scared." I cried.

"Scared?" Grant asked still trying to wake up.

"Yes, scared. I had to walk all the way to the latrine and I was scared." I answered still balling my eyes out struggling to close the tent door. Arms came from behind wrapped around, zipped up the tent and then held me.

"Oh Char, why didn't you wake me?"

"I dont know, I just thought you would offer..."

"I was sleeping. Honestly I didn't even comprehend you were gone."

"I know, I just..."

"What do you need me to do?"

"Can you give me a blessing?"

"Of course."

He gave me a wonderful blessing, asking Heavenly Father to calm my emotions and help me cope with the pain. I felt almost immediately better. Grant asked me several times what we should do but I didn't want to have to decide, which doesn't make sense because Grant doesn't know how much pain I am in, only I do, so it is me that needs to make the call. So after 5 minutes of him asking and asking, my weird pride gave way because I was still in pain.

"Lets go home."

And home we went. We packed up the car, tent and all under 10 minutes and made the short trek home. After that I was probably on the toilet for about another hour before the pain faded away. Grant stayed up waiting for me, doing all he could do which wasn't much, but I still loved him for it. I'm sure I passed the kidney stone in that awful latrine but had an hour of pain afterwards before it disappeared. YEAH! It's gone! Plus I had a wonderful time camping with my handsome husband! Was it worth it? Yes, definitely yes!

NOW time for pictures.