Tester Jobs Requirements (VIDEO GAME)

Season Opener: Blue Ridge Mountains, North Carolina

At some point this February, my husband set off to retrieve the family camper from South Jersey. We had (once again) dropped the pop-up off for some repairs at the dealership, where it proceeded to stay for the better part of two months awaiting parts and pieces.

At last everything was right as rain and while Jeremy went to pick it up, I did boring weekend chores like grocery shopping and banking.

Well. We just happened to pull back into our driveway at the same time Jeremy was pulling up with the camper. The squeals of delight that erupted from the backseat shocked me because, quite frankly, it is just a pop-up and did we really miss seeing the hulking beast in our driveway all winter? Apparently so. I played along, expressing utter glee (Hip Hip Hooray! The camper is back!) as I ushered the boys into the house.

Do you see the punchline of this story coming? I certainly didnt.

Here is the thing I discovered as I watched an enormous multiples meltdown shatter the peace of our Saturday morning: the boys were not excited that the camper was back. They were excited because they thought we were going camping. Right then. In February.

You try explaining weather and seasons and months and all that waiting nonsense to two and a half year-olds. See how that goes for you. I told them it was too cold for camping. They started to furiously pull out hats and gloves from the closet and insisted that they were not cold. Here all of my propaganda about it never being too cold to play outside came back to bite me big time.

I eventually took them outside and pointed to the trees in our backyard. I told them that we couldnt go camping until the leaves had grown back on the trees. They had to be very patient and watchful boys, keeping an eye on the trees. I dont know why this worked, but it did. Theo in particular spent the next week giving me the daily update on the leaf situation. Eventually, the boys moved on and I heard not a peep about the camper through the whole month of March.

So I was pretty excited to tell them last week that we were finally going camping:

Guess what, I asked in that goofy drawn-out singsong mommy voice.
What, they replied, thinking they might be getting something with sugar in it.
We get to go camping this weekend! Isnt that exciting?
No we not, says my master of the universe toddler.
What do you mean, honey? Yes, we are going camping. This weekend. We leave in two days.
Mommy, we cant go camping. The leaves arent on the trees.

This argument continued as we packed, loaded up, and set off on our journey to North Carolina. Somewhere in Virginia I triumphantly turned to Theo and said, Look! See all those leaves on the trees. I told you there would be leaves.

To which he replied disdainfully, No Mama--those arent trees; those are bushes.

Welcome to our third season with the Mouthy Lively Little Campers. Despite the ongoing debate, the camper has already hit the road (and kept us warm through 30 degree nights!). We had a marvelous time hiking, zip lining, and experimenting with bows and arrows. As always, we hope we can inspire you to strap those kids into the car and do some exploring.

Just remember to bring them back home with you.
Happy Camping.

ebags Crew Cooler II

A few months ago I wrote a rave review about the eBags Crew Cooler II on this blog.  I had owned the Crew Cooler I and it had lasted me for years.  In fact, the only reason I chucked it was because it got a little yucky during a small house fire that we had.  Cant blame eBags for that one...

So once camping season rolled around I was happy to see that Ebags had released the sensational sequel to the Crew Cooler I--the creatively named Crew Cooler II.  This updated version of the cooler had a brilliant new design feature.  The insulated liner on the new cooler unzips and can actually be washed off.  The liner on the old cooler did get pretty funky, so I was unreasonably excited about this great leap forward in Cooler design.

Unfortunately, after a month of pretty heavy use the insulated liner ripped.  This new, removable liner, while brilliant in design, is quite a bit thinner, and apparently more fragile than the old heavy duty liner.  When a relatively new product breaks I usually get pretty cranky.  Particularly if the product can no longer be returned. Luckily for me I knew that eBags has a kick-butt, L.L. Bean-like,  return policy for their own branded products.  Here is the policy from their website:

Our Promise: Lifetime warranty, exchange or return - whatever it takes (5 years for commercial use).
We want you to be completely satisfied with your purchase of an eBags-branded product.
If you encounter a problem with the product, we want to know about it right away.
Contact Customer Service at and well do whatever it takes to correct the situation.
Its really as simple as that!

When I called the companies customer service number their representative was incredibly apologetic.  She acted like she had ripped the bag herself and then devoured my childrens lunch.  After her profound apologies were expressed, she promised that a free replacement cooler would be sent out immediately.  She even asked if I wanted a different color this time!  But I was perfectly happy with Blue Yonder.  And perfectly happy with eBags.

If the liner rips again Im gonna ask for a new color: Original Sin. Better to burn out than fade away, right?