Busy, Busy Weekend

It seems like everything was happening this weekend. We had more stuff to do this weekend than we usually do in a month! On Friday, one of our friends from Seattle came to visit. John has known Kristin since they went to the U of M together in Minneapolis and I got to know her when we lived in Seattle. We had a great time showing her our favorite little boy, around our house, neighborhood and some of our favorite St Louis sights.

One of our first stops was the Gateway Park (the Arch). Here is William and Daddy holding hands walking into the park.
Holding hands and holding a stick. Sticks are fun.
The arch. This would be picture 45687651321968484 we have of the arch.
One of my favorite new pictures
One of the few ways he'll tolerate being carried these days for any length of time.
Kristin and William's first time touching the arch
Walking with Mama to our favorite picture spot by a reflecting pool.
See? So pretty!
Unfortunately, once William saw the water, all he wanted to do was swim. Not great when the water is yucky and there is no guard rail. Mama had a lot of work to do to keep everyone dry!
William and the arch
Mama and William

After the arch, we all went to dinner at PF Changs to try something new. Turns out Kristin has been there a few times and we weren't taking her anywhere new! Oh well... After dinner we went back to our house and put the baby to bed and visited for awhile. The other big news is Kristin was the first person to use our new basement bathroom to shower - no complaints!

Saturday was a full day. My club from the middle school I taught at was having a fundraiser and there was a huge garage sale I have had on my calendar for the last 3 months. So, I got up early to hit the sale early on and checked in with my kiddos. When I got home everyone was up and ready so we went to one of our favorite places to hang out - down town St Charles. We enjoyed the people watching (it just so happens there was an Oktoberfest happening - yes, in September, so there was a lot of good people watching going on). After wandering around downtown, we ate lunch at the Little Hills Winery and then checked out Oktoberfest.

William is always a fan of the choo-choos near downtown. The choo choos are in the background and there is a plane in the sky. Notice the shirts? We sure liked Newport!
Still checking out the airplane and holding hands with Daddy.
Trying funnel cake for the first time - he thought it was okay. He liked the German polka music a lot more though - he was dancing until we dragged him away!

We brought William home for his nap and offered to take Kristin to see some other interesting sights. However, we all were feeling a little tired and everyone opted for a nap instead. Kristin had to be back at the airport before dinner time. Which worked out great for us because we were invited to our neighbors wedding and then a birthday party that evening. We sure know how to pack it in!


PS Hey look mom and dad - we didn't even make her work while she was visiting! Amazing - it can be done!

This Kid Cracks me Up

We've had a good weekend. Busy, but good. I have some random pictures that I've been meaning to post and then a weekend update to post. I'm working my way through this new book so it will probably be quiet for the next few days or so.

I can't remember where we were going...but I turned around to find Mr Cool hanging around in our backseat.

William rarely picks up anything to take a bite using his front teeth. So, I've been trying to encourage him to start biting things more by giving him very soft foods in larger pieces. Here he is working a banana like it is corn on the cob.

And he still isn't taking a bite- he is trying to suck on the piece of banana until it comes off of the larger piece.
With all the moving and shifting of everything in our house that is going on, we are unearthing quite a few items from the past - for example the list of things I wanted to get done the first summer we moved into our house. Interesting enough, five years later most of the stuff is done.

Warning: It must be in the water

A whole lotta congratulations all around for so many people!

1. Our neighbors had a baby girl either yesterday or today. I knew it was going to happen, just not sure when it actually did. They are kind of busy right now or I would call and ask 'em how it's going.

2. My high school friend Robyn with baby #2 in February!

3. My other high school friend Jessica with baby #1 in December (she is lame without a blog...)

4. Our St Louis friends: Jenn, Chris, and big sister Charlotte are due at the beginning of March

5. My second cousin Kayleigh who is due any day now....

6. And then I guess there is me...


So, who else? Anyone else want to confess?


PS The only person who actually guessed my secret after the first set of clues was my WMS friend Sundi! Go Sundi - you win a....big hug!

Why it is Awesome to be Married To Me

We all have our flaws, including me (I know, GASP!). However this week, I take the cake. Here is just a sampling of why it is totally awesome to be married to me:


1. I call you frantically at work to remind you about a doctors appointment you are almost late for. A whole 24 hours before you need to worry about leaving.

2. Nothing you suggest sounds good to eat. Ever. I don't want anything to eat, at all. Except for maybe a big brownie. With chocolate chips. Do you have any of those?

3. Although you have cooked 17 different things for me in the last week with a 19 month old underfoot the whole time, none of those things are appetizing any longer. For this reason we have in our refrigerator currently: half of a lasagna, a noodle hotdish, beans and rice, grilled chicken, and a huge pack of tortillas I talked you into last week at the store.

4. That huge Sam's club bag of lemons you tried to talk me out of last week at the store. Ummm...yeah, I won't be using any of them anytime soon.

5. I call you at work to tell you something important and can't remember what it is as soon as you answer.

6. Both loading the dishwasher and washing baby diapers make me gag. You inherit two new chores. YAY! (garbage and catboxes are still yours too. I'm not taking on anything new)

7. More than once lately, we've had to make a second trip to the store for the one item I went for. What do you mean we only needed milk? I didn't buy milk...

I'm sure there are more...but this is all I can come up with. Off to bed...

Sleep Talk

Last night, I turned my light off after reading. It was late. Each night before I fall asleep, I always check the baby monitor and am lulled into relaxation my William (and usually John's) heavy sleepy dreaming. William is a wild man in his sleep and so it isn't unusual for there to be banging and rolling going on over the monitor either. However, last night William breathed a deep sigh and then in a very satisfied manner said "ahhh...trucks" very clearly in his sleep.

I had to giggle...and then I went to sleep.

Hold my Hand?

William is growing and growing. Usually when we go somewhere, I take William out of his car seat and carry him into the store. As quickly as possible, I try to stow him in a cart before he either wiggles away of becomes so heavy I start paring my list down to the bare essentials (1 loaf of bread in any condition and a container of milk of any variety or size). In conjunction with the heaviness, he has also begun to entirely loath the riding in the cart. It is rare that he will park his behind in the kid section of the cart and allow himself to be buckled in without a sweet bribe to distract him (crackers anyone?). And there better be plenty of the bribe to make it through the store because otherwise he will choose an inopportune time to wiggle out of the safety belt and try to stand up almost falling over onto his head. Somehow over the last few weeks, he has become so much more heavy (I don't think it is all him. Part of it is me - I'm tired) that even that walk to the store is becoming a challenge. So, I'm letting him walk more - as long as he holds my hand. So far, so good. The cutest part is that he will stop and wait for me (I know that this waiting stuff is only going to last so long) with his hand outstretched. He'll say "Hold hand mama?". Very sweet - how can I refuse?

On Friday night, it was cool and we were looking to get out of the house for a little while. We elected to take a short walk through the neighborhood. We rolled the stroller out and locked up the house. William entertained us by attempting to put the brakes on the stroller while using his feet. Quite difficult when the brakes are at the same level as your armpits. We put William in the stroller where he proceeded to do his slippery fish/stiff as a board routine. After a few minutes of the neighbors discreetly checking on us, we gave up on buckling him in and started walking. He was thrilled to be holding John's hands and kept commenting as we walked "Hold hand Dada?" Even more cute was that when other walkers/bikers/scooterers needed to come through, John would move over to the grass to let them through. William would have none of it. If Daddy was going to walk on the grass, so was William. If Daddy slowed to look at a tree/car/something, William would need to stop to examine it carefully as well. I decided to push the stroller for the walk as I was certain he wasn't going to be able to walk the whole way. He sure proved me wrong! He walked the whole time - it probably took us an hour to do a 15 minute walk, but he walked it all without complaint, holding John's hand the entire time...

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!