a family that camps together, stays together!

camping is not known for being a "common" portuguese activity because it involves getting dirty but somehow in the eighties this was our families main form of a vacation! "surfside" campground in parksville is where most of our childhood memories of adventure came from and now 25 years later with more cousins, peanuts, trailers and booze the FURTADO's descend on coombs country campground every july (well at least for the past four years we have).

our days are spent imitating our mothers accents, drinking, throwing dry people in the lake and a wild game of volleyball...along side a fierce game of old school poker (for keeps).

it's a gong show like no other and every year without fail we get in s*** for laughing, yes I said laughing to loudly at night around the campfire (this is mostly cousin lou's fault...lol) but seriously no music or catcalls required for this bunch...just some good all fashion cackles! it's a far cry from the days when my brother set the campsite on fire.

it may be once a year i see my extended family but the new memories will forever live on in my kids, like they have for me!

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HOLY CRAP THURSDAY'S

i'm slowly getting good at working a mac but holy crap i suck at cell phones.  have you ever called my cell?, if you know me well enough, you know NOT to call it, you know the odds are good (99.99% of a chance) that it will ring it's "elevator chant" in my office or deep in a purse i used 4 days ago, it WILL go to voicemail and i WILL listen (eventually)to it BUT i WILL NOT call you back on it (disclaimer...too my lovely clients i will always call you back BUT probably NOT on my cell phone!).  i have tried to "use it" like all you cool folk but well i suck,  holy crap i suck at keeping it with me or just using it for that matter. now it's just a joke...look at it, i might as well use the brick unit from the 80's that's in our halloween tickle trunk. as a matter a fact that would be "cooler" to pull out of my purse than this one.  did i mention the voicemail notification sounds like bad porn music?  really telus, come now...you got nothing better?  i was on a "plan" ONCE but that ended up costing us a RIDICULOUS amount of cash, so pay and talk it is!

i think i just don't enjoy being tracked down, in this day and age you can find anyone, anytime...perhaps it's my inner knotty self saying " no way folks...you can't find me today, i'm free as can be (minus the four year old holding my leg screaming for a snack wanting to play doggie in the local costco) yep... like a bird shackled to a long roped poll, free as can be!"  or maybe it's the fact that i have two girls that talk NON STOP and i'd prefer email (at times), or maybe i was in a witness protection program in a past life.

none the less, it's a weird "dinaism" and it's going to stay like this for a while!