Camping

Friday we went camping with our ward. The boys had fun. We went early. Nearby where we were camping there is a small zoo. I has animals that are found in Minnesota. We saw river otters, a wolf, a black bear, a cougar, a woodchuck (aka a groundhog), some prarie dogs, some elk and dear, some bison. We saw some farm animals including a mama cow and her baby, a goat, and a pony that Ben tried to feed some straw to. We had more time to kill before setting up our tent, so we went hiking. They have a few trails to chose from. We went over a river and hike quiter a ways, but we weren't quite sure how far until the trail ended. As soon as I started to get tired (Ben was already tired by that time) we turned around.

We were basically the first ones to the campground. We picked a prime location, and set up our tent. As soon as the tent was up and the air matresses inflated, Ben wanted to go to sleep. All he said all night long is I'm tired. We kept the boys up so that they could see the campfire and eat roasted marshmellows.

When it got dark we gave the boys glow sticks and they had fun with them. Ben was kind enough to share one with his friend Ian. Luckliy enough when Ian wandered off, he was still clutching onto the glow stick. That made it easier to find him.

When we went to bed we were able to see the stars. I pointed them out to Gavin and sang twinkle, twinkle little star. He would point to the stars and say star, star. David tried pointing out the big dipper the Ben.

Gavin ended up sleeping between David and I. Gavin was so tired he was out in seconds. Ben had to arrange his stuffed animals, glow stick, and sippy in a certain way before he would go to sleep.

The night was long. I had a hard time going to sleep. There was lots of noise coming from the camfire. They had started singing camp songs, and did it loud. Then they started telling riddles. Finally after a while it was dead silent. I had a hard time going to sleep because I needed to use the bathroom. We all got some sleep. I was informed that the purpose in camping isn't to come and get sleep.

In the morning, no one knew who was in charge of breakfast. I would have gone over to help, but my little shadows would have made it hard. Ben was starving by the time breakfast was served. We had pancakes and the boys liked that. I would stand in line while David helped them eat. Each time I went through, I was able the get three or four, come back and give most of those away to the boys. I had to stand in line about 5 times before I was full.

David was good enough to pack up the stuff while breakfast was being served. We had to wait for the tent to dry. The tent was covered in dew in the morning. It almost looked as if it rained during the night. I'm glad David pulled the rain fly tight or else we would have been wet in the morning.

Thunder, lightning and late nights

I'm working on very little sleep right now. Last night we had a thunderstorm. About 2 in the morning Gavin decided he didn't like the thunder. Each time he could hear it he would start to whimper. I finally ended up in the boys room touching Gavin to reassure him he was OK and everything would be fine. It took some time for him to get back into a deep sleep. I go back in my bedroom to sleep. I'm just about out, when I hear Ben yelling, "Mom, dad, mom, dad," until I come. All he wanted was for me to flip his pillow over and to fix his blankets. I did get a little more sleep, when I heard David turn the shower on at 6 this morning. He had an early meeting at work or else he would have taken a later shower. I drag myself out of bed so that I can get a shower in before David leaves.

About 9 today I'm out of energy. I can hardly keep my eyes open. Ben asks if he can watch a movie. So I get one on for him. Get both boys snacks, and I lay down on the couch for a short nap. Ben is pretty good about leaving me alone while I'm trying to nap, but Gavin can't leave me alone for even a half hour. 25 minutes into my nap, Gavin is bugging me for more fishies and water. So i get him his stuff, duct tape the fridge closed, and lay back down. Again he does something to wake me up. I look over and he has smashed his fishies and has scattered them all over the floor, not a big deal I vacuumed yesterday, but I can vacuum again. He then pushes buttons on the DVD player and the movie stops. Ben is upset, I'm upset, Gavin is in time out in his bed while I clean up the mess and get Ben's movie going again. Gavin does something else, I put him in time out. He says sorry and gets out, seconds later he is back in time out. I am furious with this kids. I can't look at him, I just put him in his bed, call David to tell him how frustrated I am and I cool down. I got to get Gavin and he has fallen asleep. I felt bad about not giving him lunch before his nap, but he is out of my hair for a while.

He is now up and fed. We will see how the rest of the day goes. David should be home in a few hours. Hopefully Gavin will listen and be a little bit nicer.

Gavin

So last night Gavin got into the fridge (a common occurrence) and decided it would be fun to empty our water. He was pulling on the spigot and water was coming out. What fun! He was laughing so hard. He thought it was funny to see how fast mom or dad comes to stop him. I was angry at him. No matter how many times I pull him out of the fridge, tell him no, and give him a time out; he still gets back into the fridge. It makes me so frustrated when he won't listen. I wanted to be mad at him for a while, but of course I couldn't.

As David was getting Gav dressed for bed, Gavin was trying to get away from David. Gavin's arm was pulled a little too hard in the process and he started crying. No matter how much I moved his arm, he would still scream in pain. My nurturing came out, and I couldn't stay mad at Gavin. We gave him Tylenol hoping it would help with the pain. I think it lessened it, but didn't make it completely go away.

He was being such a ham. While I was holding him, David was making him laugh. I was holding his arm in place, whenever I let go, Gav would start crying, but I would grab his arm again, and he would just smile. Even when he hurts, he is still able to ham it up.

Too bad for Gavin his arm hurt all night long, any time he moved it at night, he would start crying. He stayed in to same position all night long. I would go in to comfort him, and he would fall asleep again. Many times I would get up and repeat comforting Gavin, until I was so exhausted that I couldn't get up any more. Many thanks to David who got up when I couldn't. This morning when Gavin got up, his arm still hurt. Miraculously he was healed after sitting on my lap and me feeding him. He has been fine all day long. I have not been fine, I have been tired.

We went outside and took some balls with. He was just fine carrying to ball. He had fun kicking it and throwing it too. I think he'll be just fine.

Wisconsin Dells

We went to the circus museum. The boys had fun there, as long as we didn't do a tour. They had a few mini shows that we could watch. The boys laughed really hard at the clown. They also enjoyed watching the elephant dance, and the dogs do tricks. We looked at circus wagons and some of the other displays there.
I found a two headed freak that I took a picture of. Wait it was only the boys.
Here are my parents, little brother, and my boys. My parents enjoyed having their grandchildren around.

Here is the only time we tried to play outside while at the condo. The mesquitos were awful, even with repellant on we still got bit.
Benjamin and Grand ma.
Here is Gavin on the stairs of the condo. I could not keep him off of them. It was up and down constantly for him. The other thing he liked to do was climb in the fridge and try to shut the door. I couldn't keep him out of the fridge.
We went on a tour of the Dells in a DUCK. The DUCK is an amphibious vehicle that the army made for WWII. All of the DUCKS they had to restore. The fastest on land this thing could go was about 40 mph, and the fastest on water was 7 mph.

There was an helicopter we could climb in and play around in. Gavin accidentally hit a button with his foot, and the helicopter started to make noise. He was scared and wanted to get out after that.

Sadly enough I didn't take any pictures while we were at a water park. My dad had his camera out and ready to go, but I was to lazy or distracted to get mine out. We ended up going to two different water parks. One was Chula Vista. They have a great indoor and outdoor water slides. I had fun going down the slides with David, my dad, and Kelly. Ben had a great time going down a slide over and over and over. Gavin went down a small one twice for my dad. We also went to Riverside Water Park. The water was too cold for Gavin. He did not want to get in it at all. There were some slides we could go down tandem with the boys. Gavin did enjoy that, and even requested to go down with David.

I really had a fun time with my family.

Thanks mom and dad and Kelly for making it an enjoyable trip.