Unexpected Adventures

Our church does a group camp out every year. Last year we signed up, but chickened out the week before because we had company coming to town or some other excuse. Ever the optimist, I signed us up again this year, even though we've never actually tried camping with William. No time like the present - because as you all know, I love camping.

Now, to be truthful, we weren't really camping as we stayed in nice cabins with beds in them and everything. There was a kitchen with electricity, a stove, refrigerator, freezer, etc. So, we roughed it, but I don't know if I would classify it as camping.

We were about 15 miles away from the campground, the roads on our map were blocked by huge barricades marked "ROAD CLOSED". This was unfortunate because...well we didn't know how else to get there. We ended up taking a crazy detour through small town Illinois without ever really knowing if we were going to find our way to the park. I think we probably tacked on about 45 minutes to an hour of extra driving time - but proud that we figured it out using only my keen sense of direction and a small one page map of Illinois.

Our family arrived at the group site on in time for dinner. We grilled and set up in our cabin. It was warm - maybe in the upper 80's, which wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't been 23847268734628% humidity out. Just sitting in a lawn chair watching John grill made me sweat. William, who doesn't believe in sitting in lawn chairs, was drenched in sweat as he insisted on running in every direction with his poor mama chasing after him to keep him safe.

The group camp site we stayed at in Pere Marquette State Park

Our cabin is the one in the middle...see how close the fire pit is?
Inside the luxury cabins - windows with screens! And a light!

Everyone else arrived and we had a nice time visiting and watching the kids chase fireflies as the sun went down. Someone built a campfire and we enjoyed some music and treats. The bigger kids were playing some version of flashlight tag/scream as loud as you can and run away game. Which was great fun to watch, but wasn't conducive to putting William to bed at him regularly scheduled time. The kids were hiding around the cabins and in the trees letting out terrifying shrieks every time someone ran by them. So, William stayed up pretty late. We finally got him down about 10:30 or 11 - roughly two hours later than normal. John and I went to bed ourselves shortly after when we discovered a problem.

It was still in the lower 80's and 50000% humidity. After listening to stories from last year's camp out (temps in the 100's during the day and in the lower 50's at night), I brought our super warm sleeping bags and fleece pajamas all around. It wasn't until I was laying on my cot trying to sleep that I realized how miserable it was trying to sleep. So, we made some changes including partially undressing William in his sleep and settled in for the night.

That is until about 2am. I'll spare you all the details, but William was awake from about 2am until about 6am - and mama with him. The poor kid was trying so hard to go back to sleep. I could hear him rolling around in his portable crib and then moving around trying to get comfortable. Several times, I pulled him out of the crib and put him in the bed with us. A poopy diaper, 4 trips to the bathrooom (standard pregnancy consequence for me), 15 kicks to my head and a total of maybe 2 hours of sleep for me made for a rough morning. But, the cabins are close together and when one group of kids are up....all of them are up. But! We had big plans for the day so off we went.

Saturday morning, there were kids events at the State Park. William would rather watch the boats go by on the river.
Suffering from lack of sleep. William was NOT happy to be pulled away from the highway and boat watching. Although it looks like he is just sitting there, this is the start of a tantrum....
William trying to run in a relay
Finally mama helps...
Found one! Yay! Here Dada..
More games...somehow all the little kids (under 7 ended) ended up on this side of the rope. None of the older kids could be convinced to switch sides, so John is trying to even things out. I think he is still sore - my husband doesn't do anything halfway! Also notice William trying to help...

Tug of war started and William is trying to figure out what in the world was going on...I was just as happy to have him out of the way so no one would step on him!
After watching several rounds, William finally gets the hang of tug of war - too bad everyone else is done playing!
William really thinks he is one of the big kids...these big boys were sure great with letting him hang out with them. Sippy cup and all!
After fun and games, our group went to the apple orchard to pick apples! We've never been with William because...well, we're lazy and didn't go last year. William was SO intent on the tractor that pulled the wagon out to the apple trees - he cried when we got off to pick apples!
So happy riding the tractor wagon!
Inspecting the apples before...
Tasting it!
If you look carefully, you can see he got several bites out of the apple - hopefully someone checked to make sure it was an okay apple to be eating....
Picking Mama a red apple from the tree with Dada's help

Saturday night we talked about packing things up and going home. None of us slept well (or at all) and we were worried it would be a repeat. Somehow we got really busy and never made a plan - we ended up staying. William got to bed earlier and went down right away. Even with kids screaming and adults laughing very nearby. And he slept all night long. He only woke up after we had packed most of the cabin up and were getting ready to wake him. He was SO tired!

Unfortunately, I wasn't as lucky. I was up listening for William, making trips to the bathroom and listening to the wind blow through the trees. Although it wasn't at hurricane levels anymore, Tropical Storm Ike started blowing over our campsite in the early hours of Sunday. It rained and was very windy. I did manage to get more sleep than Friday night, but it sure wasn't quality sleep.

Sunday morning, we got up and packed everything up. It was still raining pretty hard and we were anxious to get home. We went up to the lodge for a quick breakfast and to say goodbye to everyone else. However, after eating and helping with clean up, the ranger came in to report that no one was going anywhere - with all the rain a big mudslide had washed out the road. He thought he might be able to clear it with a snowplow or other machinery. But, he also thought we might want to get comfortable as it could take him awhile to get to the equipment and clear the way out of the camp. So, I sent John out into the tropical storm to take some pictures of the campgrounds.

Standing at the steps of our cabin. The distance from our cabin to the lodge up on the hill (all meals were here). The bathroom was to the right of the cabin on the right side of the frame. At the top of the frame you'll notice some pink. Yep, I sent John out into the tropical storm with only a pink umbrella to shield himself.

Upclose-r picture of the 1930's lodge...very nice!


The one lane, uphill curvy road that leads out of the campsite...unless there is a mudslide.

Finally, the mudslide was cleared and our whole group drove out - no one wanted to be stuck by a second mudslide! This time we opted to try and take the ferry home instead of the crazy off the map detour from Friday. We checked and the ferry was still running in spite of all the rain - YAY!

The first ferry we took on the way home (Brussels ferry). These ferries are way smaller than the Washington State ferries we are used to. They looked kind of like a pontoon boat with lanes drawn on them. Maybe 20 cars fit on it? Not at all what I was expecting.
William's first ferry ride! 9/14/08. I wanted to take him out of the car and take a picture, but I knew he was going to throw a fit when I tried to put him back in his seat. So, in he stayed.
After the Brussels ferry, we took the Golden Eagle ferry. Again, much smaller than what we are used to, but it worked. That is, until we started driving! The Golden Eagle ferry dock is roughly 12 miles away from our house and we were very relieved to be almost home! When we got off the second ferry, there was really only 2 choices about how to get home. This area is really rural without a lot of cross streets or major roadways. Right or left was the only option, so right we went. Until we went to turn onto Hwy C...the road was closed due to flooding with emergency vehicles blocking the way. So, back we went past the ferry to make a left turn. The above picture is what we drove through for about 5 miles until we reached the interstate. All the cars in front of us were other members of our congregation. It was pretty stressful driving (me) and several times we almost turned around to go back to the ferry. However, we knew everyone in our car was getting hungry and tired - taking the ferry back would mean at least another 3 hours of riding in the car.
More flooded road. Boy, were we happy to see the interstate....by the way, we are driving on the left side of the road because the water was more shallow there. You can kind of see the yellow line through the water on the left side of the car in front of us. Since we were driving super slow, John was able to lean the upper part of his body out the window to get this picture. We like to live on the edge :)

PS It was still raining when we got home. According to the weather reports and our own baby swimming pool rain gauge, we got roughly 6 inches of rain between Saturday night and Sunday morning. Luckily everything inside the house was dry and cozy because after all our adventures, I sure needed a nap!

Explanations...

I've updated the clue pictures so you can see what my hints were about:

Clues #1, #2

Clues #3, #4

Clue #5

Last set of clues

At the beginning, I was worried about being too obvious and giving things away too soon. John and I were trying to wait and tell people around the 12 week mark. He did a pretty good job...and I tried not to tell more than one person per day. So, if you haven't had a call or e mail from me, that is why. I've been avoiding you because a) I'm really bad at keeping my own secrets and b) I've been totally exhausted.

So, now that we have cleared the twelve week mark, I'm free to share some more information with you. Baby #2 has a due date of 3/29/09 - which we all know is just an approximation of the arrival time. We don't know the gender of this baby and we aren't sure we are going to find out this time. After all the trouble we had naming William, we've started compiling a list of name possibilities. However, I don't think we're going to pick anything final until after the baby is born like we did with William. Just fair warning: you can ask me what I think we're going to name the baby and I'll give you the pick of the day/hour/minute/millisecond (John will probably say "ask Kelly"). But, don't run out and get anything monogrammed until after the baby comes.

Now that the fog I've been living in has started to lift, I can honestly say that this time 'round was harder for me than William's pregnancy. I've been terribly nauseous for at least the last 6 weeks. Nothing sounds remotely appetizing and about 89.7% of smells make me gag. Even more frustrating is when something sounds like it might be okay - things can change. For example, two weeks ago we went out to eat at Applebee's because we had a gift card. I had trouble finding anything that sounded okay, but finally settled on some soup and salad. By the time it got there, there wasn't any way I was going to be able to eat it. John willingly (read: not happily) agreed to trade with me until I noticed he had broccoli on his plate. Then, he just ate mine for lunch and brought his home with him for lunch the next day. I wouldn't let him heat up the broccoli in our house - I'm super nice like that. However, as with William, I have not actually thrown up. Just felt like I might at any minute for about 6 weeks.

John has been wonderful and amazing. He has come home early upon request to play with William while I nap. He is doing the majority of our cooking and cooks odd dinners with minimal smell without complaint. He has totally taken over the loading of the dishwasher and washing of our cloth diapers as I really struggle with the smells from both. He hasn't complained when everything around the house is sliding. Very little has been accomplished around here while John is at work. General cleanliness, personal hygiene, physical fitness activities, financial accuracy, blogging and fun William activities have all suffered greatly and in some cases been eliminated entirely. It is surprising how much parenting cannot be accomplished (well) from the couch. As William walked by the couch a few weeks ago, he reached out and patted my favorite spot and said "Mama, couch". Yes William, that is where Mama sits on the couch a lot these days.

To recap: We're pregnant and we're so very excited. We hope you're excited for us too. I think we've turned a corner in the total exhuastion and nauseua so hopefully things will be caught up to speed shortly. We'll see....

*Watch for the camping updates tomorrow during naptime....maybe!

Home...so tired

We're home from camping in the hottest, humidest, stickiest weather ever followed by a night in the middle of a tropical storm. Although I had big plans for a big picture post followed by some big explanations, they are going to have to wait. All three of us are pretty ragged around the edges after a trip with all kinds of adventures we weren't expecting.

On top of it all, I'm currently have a quite intense visit with my old friend Heartburn - so the pictures, stories and explanations will have to wait until naptime tomorrow (at least)!

It'll be worth the wait, I think...

Last Set of Clues

If you still can't figure it out, you'll have to wait until Sunday evening (or later) after we return from camping...here are the final clues:

Last Clue #1: This is the ultrasound picture we got at our 7 week appointment with our OB. We got to see a very strong little heartbeat and our new little baby. John and I agree this baby was much cuter during the first ultrasound than William. Probably because William's ultrasound was at 5 weeks and he looked like a blob. This one actually looked more like a baby.
Last Clue #2: Another ultrasound shot from our almost 12 week appointment. There are not any concerns about this pregnancy that require these ultrasounds. The 7 week ultrasound is standard for my OB. The 12 week one was a bonus - our OB told us most of the time she can't find the heartbeat before 14 weeks and asked if we'd rather have another quick ultrasound. We weren't about to turn her down! During this ultrasound, the baby was very active and wiggling. Every time she had a great picture of it, she would freeze the frame to print the picture. In that brief second, the baby would move to another area for a less clear picture. It was still fun for us to see though!
Last Clue #3: William is going to be a big brother!

The very last clue I'm having trouble getting uploaded. But, I think you'll get it from here...

One more Clue...

Clue #5: Here is a sampling of the foods I had craving for when I was pregnant with William: Chilli's, brownies, oranges/orange juice, lemons/lemon drops, root beer, and fruit.

Here is one more clue. I think I'll post my last set of clues on Friday afternoon before we leave for camping attempt #2. That is, provided I can find one more prop that seems to have gone missing....

Daddy's Boy

William has always liked hanging out with his daddy. It's different than hanging out with me (which we do every day) and they play different stuff. In the last month or so he has really made his preference known: when Daddy is available, that is where he wants to be. It is so so SO cute to watch, my feelings aren't hurt at all. He'll follow John around the house and sit next to him, copying his pose exactly. If John leans against the wall, William will attempt to stand leaning against the wall. He loves to sit in Daddy's chair at the table and every morning asks me "Dada?" I reply "Dada went to work, he'll be home soon." In the last two days, the question has become "Dada, soon?" I feel like it is stretching the truth a lot to agree with this statement because at 7am, it isn't at all soon when Dada will arrive home again. But, I don't have a better way to put it in a one and a half year old's vocabulary. So, I am forced to agree "Dada soon." and try to come up with a good distraction.

This is where John spends most of his free time. In the box. Both William and John would like to thank Grandma and Grandpa for bringing another box to our house.
Peeking out the top (John is still in the box)Tonight we were working on building some shelves to organize our basement storage area. William always likes to be in on the action. First he helped by handing John screws and then graduated to scribbling on the boards with his pencil.
Helping - there are a lot of these because it was C-U-T-E!Watching Dada drill. I am always astonished by how long William will watch John work on something quite happily. Way longer than he'll watch me make him a sandwich for his lunch, that's for sure.
Checking out the square.
Here is a picture that William drew today. I'm posting it because it is cool. The squiggly set of lines on the left side of the page is what he drew first. He drew the loop-de-loop and pronounced it a "bee". I thought it kind of looked like a bee and made a mental note crossing "art prodigy" off of my list of possibilities for him. Then he made the second set of squiggly lines on the right side of the page. Again, he declared this a "bee". Curious, I asked William what noise a bee said. Confused, he looked at me and said "B". When I looked back at the picture it does appear the letter B is on the page. Twice. Do I think it means anything. Nope. But it is kind of cool...

Night-Night....

Today William and I drove through the remnants of hurricane Gustav (honestly, it sounds cooler than it was, I promise) to pick up a piece of flooring we need to bridge the doorway between the playroom and the family room in the basement. Rain was pouring down and it there were a lot of puddles on the road. I was driving and didn't notice that William had fallen asleep in the backseat of the car. He couldn't have been sleeping for more than ten or fifteen minutes as we weren't in the car for that long. It probably wasn't the greatest way to wake up (cold rain falling on you), but what can you do?

I ran him hard before lunch and put him down for his nap as our usual routine goes and close to 45 minutes later he was still crying. First playing, then whining, then complaining, then crying which quickly morphed into the hysterical abandoned child alone in his room. When I went to get him he had a messy diaper and I changed him up. However, I could tell that there wasn't any way he was getting back in that crib for another try at a nap. So, we rested together on the couch for about .000342768 seconds until he was up and ready to play again. All was going [somewhat] well considering the conditions until dinner time. He was sooooooooooooo hungry, he couldn't get the food in fast enough. I wasn't paying very close attention because I was trying to shovel bites of my own dinner into my mouth between cutting up more food and reloading William's tray when John started laughing. I looked up to find this:

A tired boy*
It is hard to believe, but we left him there like this and he woke up only to comment on the dog next door barking outside and to shove a few more pears into his mouth. He chewed with his eyes shut. I was able to wipe off his tray, both his hands and his face and he stayed asleep. It was only when I tried to unbuckle him that he woke up.

In other total cuteness, William has been saying "nigh-nigh" to us for several months now before he goes to bed (when prompted - no prompting, no cute goodnight). However in the last week he has stopped "nigh-nigh"ing us when prompted and instead tells one of his favorite toys goodnight instead. Tonight, for example:

Me: Say good night to daddy
W: Bye bye choo-choos
Me: You're right, goodnight choo choo trains. Now, say good night to daddy.
W: Bye bye color crayons
Me: Okay, whatever 'night crayons. Now, say good night to daddy.
W: Nigh-nigh box

And here is where I gave up and took him into his room to finish the bedtime routine. Afterall, he does have a lot of toys to potentially say goodnight to. After I put him down and did a few chores, I walked past his room one night this week to hear a very sleepy "Bye bye cars..."

Still waitin' on that nigh night for daddy though.

*Note: William had been sitting in a booster seat with us at the table, which we all loved. However because of the construction of our kitchen table, there was a small rim on the underside of the table perfect for pushing little feet against. William was constantly leaning back in his chair AND tipping himself over during meal time. The battle was not going to be won at this stage of negotiations (there is very little negotiating as of yet) and so it was back to the high chair for now.