This is the last of the stories from our staycation at the river, except this one didn’t actually happen at the river.

In ten days with four people, you sure can accumulate lots of towels and dirty clothes. Obviously, we have no washer and dryer in the camper, so the past few years, over our ten-day staycation, I would make a day around day 5-7 to go home and do a few loads of laundry. I keep an eye on the weather and pick the day that looks rainy or gloomy. Taking a sunny day to go home and do laundry when you could be out floating on the boat is hard to do. But guess what? The day I had to go do it ended up being the nicest day of them all. Go figure.

I wandered home around 8 a.m. I thought I could swing by Dunkin’ and grab a turkey wrap with a small bag of tater tots to eat while I watched Kelly & Mark on the TV while waiting on laundry. Dunkin’ is right on my way home, so it was perfect. I ordered my breakfast and was on my way home. I planned on being back up to the river by lunchtime.

My husband, Chris, just put our garage door opener in our car. This is how I was getting in the house. All the doors were locked up tight. I pulled up in the driveway and hit the button to open the garage door attached to our home. Nothing. I was listening to the Bobby Bones show on the radio, and once in a while, they do a rock game where the cast has to guess the rock and roll songs. The people playing only listen to country music, and when Ozzy, AC/DC, Queen, Nirvana, and many others come on, I love seeing if they guess them. Typically, they don’t guess them. Then I’m in disbelief that someone doesn’t know who sings “Free Fallin” by Tom Petty.

I hit the garage door opener once again once the rock game was over. Again, nothing. I just kept clicking like it was a TV remote. It wasn’t responding. I called Chris, and he said it should work. (Like, I didn’t know how to use a garage door opener or something?) Haha. I told him it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how to work it. I was hitting the button towards the garage and getting nothing.

“Well, what the heck!?” he said. “I wonder if the battery died then?”

We came to the conclusion that this is what had to have happened. The only problem was we had no key. We just had the garage door opener! I had no idea what I was going to do, but I told Chris I’d try to figure it out. He was willing to drive home and help, but I said I would call him if I needed him. Where there is a will, there’s a way! Right?

I thought I would go check some windows. They aren’t easy to get to, and typically they are all locked, but fingers were crossed that a window wasn’t locked, preferably in the back of the house. Out front, our windows are higher up, and it would be my luck that someone would drive up our dirt road and see my big butt trying to get through a window.

(Isn’t that a heck of an image!?)

I spotted a window that didn’t look tight, but how do I even get to it? This was too good not to share with a few friends and family on Snapchat, so I started a video saying what happened and that I was on a mission to literally break into the house. I told them to stay tuned, more pics to follow. Things could get interesting.

Little did I know how many tries this would take.

Oreo Cream Puff Cake

Ingredients:
• 1 cup water
• 1 stick butter
• 1 cup flour
• 4 eggs (not beaten)
• 4 cups milk
• 1 (4.2 ounces) Jello Oreo Pudding
• 1 (3.2 ounces) Vanilla Pudding
• 1 (8-ounce) Cool Whip
• 10 crushed Oreos

Directions:

Heat water and butter until it comes to a boil. Remove from heat and add flour by hand until a ball forms. Stir in eggs. Spread in a 9″ x 13″ greased pan. Bake at 400 for 25 minutes; let cool.

Beat pudding and milk until thick.

Spread on cooled crust; top with cool whip.

Add crushed Oreo and refrigerate until chilled.