camping

Camping Question

/ Shane / Leave a comment

In light of my recent camping post being linked to by a camping blog, I thought I would put up a little poll about something that came up when we were camping. I meant to include this in my original camping post, but I forgot to write it down on my blogging notes from the weekend, so it slipped my mind.

In other news, we are down to a 1 car family as Sara’s car takes an extended stay in the shop (should be about a week when all is said and done). And there will still probably be more repairs in the future. We are having a pretty bad run as far as car trouble goes. I think when all is said and done, we’ll have spent about $1,300 in about two months between our two cars. It’s really not too bad when you consider we haven’t had much car repair for the past few years, so maybe we should count our blessings. Still pretty annoying though.

Vacation Part I – Camping

/ Shane / 7 Comments

Our vacation got off to a bad start.

When we left our house the car had a little trouble starting, but I promptly forgot about it. After all, Sara had been driving the car just that morning and she hadn’t had any trouble. Unfortunately though, it did mean something after all and after stopping at a highway oasis to use the bathroom, the car wouldn’t start again. They didn’t have any jumper cables inside and they told me to call the highway patrol for a jump. While waiting for them to show up, I didn’t have anything to do except try and eventually it started. It actually worked out pretty good. We called a relative to find a repair shop further up the road and we were in an out in less than an hour. They said the battery was “older than dirt” and they were surprised I hadn’t had trouble before this. They even fixed my headlight while they were at it. It was probably more convenient than if it would have happened while at home.

So we got to the campsite a little later than expected, but not too much worse for the wear. It was kind of a weird place. First off, it was completely flat with no trees whatsoever. Standing on our campsite we could see all the other campsites, minus those blocked by all the big honking motor homes (which was like all of them). Second off, the camp store had the largest selection of booze I have ever seen outside of an actual liquor store. I mean, it’s one thing to allow drinking in your camp and quite another to stock it 4 deep on the shelves. Third, the place was packed and yet it was…empty. Other than the two tent campers next to us, the entire campsite was silent after nightfall. From every motor home came the flicker of T.V. I just can’t quite fathom why people would even bother going camping if it’s going to be like that. It also rained a little, but it didn’t really effect much; we had time in the morning to let the sun dry everything out before we left.

On Saturday we went to the actual reunion. It was great, as usual. The food was good (especially Grandma’s rhubarb crisp!), it was fun to visit with family, we ended up with some embroidered towels from the raffle and Evie enjoyed the horse drawn wagon rides (she took a few). The weather was very odd. Every 10 minutes it would switch between sunny and hot and rainy and cold as if someone was flipping a switch. Every time it got sunny I was itching to put up the tent, but Sara wouldn’t let me. Her brilliant plan worked to perfection because by the time we finally put up the tent, we missed the rain entirely.

The next day we took our usual yearly trip to the Waupaca Camping Park. This place is really great; they have a lot of cabins and nice tent sites, they are very clean, they have a nice playground and they have a heated pool. The campsites are laid out nicely with lots of trees, etc. We did some hiking, the highlight of which was seeing an enormous turtle, at least two feet long counting the tail, sunning on a rock. We went to a very strange place named the Animal Haven Zoo. It wasn’t really a zoo so much as a series of connected pens. You never knew what you were going to find, one minute you’d be feeding goats, the next minute you’d be checking out some lions. It was way better than I was expecting and I would definitely recommend it. Buy the animal food too, it is well worth $1. They also had a surprisingly nice gift shop.

One day while running around the campsite, Evie fell down and skinned her knee and smashed her face on the pavement. We felt really bad, especially knowing that she was going to have a mark on her cheek in all of her birthday pictures. She wasn’t too concerned though, she was more upset about having to put on a band-aid than anything. Other than that we did all the regular camping stuff; smores, pudgie pies, hot dogs and brats, and more rain. It actually rained 5 out of 7 days that we camped, but the only day it was really a problem was on Thursday when we were getting ready to leave. We were already getting puddles in our tent and everything was soaked by the time we got it into the car. By the time we were ready to go, I was really ready to be home. Evie had a great time and really was an angel. She even slept well!

All in all a very nice vacation!

Did you miss me?

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Of course you didn’t, because you didn’t know I was gone.

It’s been a long week and a half or so. Evie and Sara were in MI all last week until Thursday when we met for camping. Always when Sara is going to be gone I think to myself, “I am going to have sooo much time to do whatever I want!” and then I end up being busier than I normally am trying to get all the stuff done I’m supposed to get done while they are gone. So I was actually staying up late every night trying to finish everything I needed to do and didn’t get a lot of free time.

I ain’t complain’ though, because Sara had it much worse. Evie has taken it into her head to have some real tantrums, screaming, kicking, the whole nine. I remember a particular phone call in which I could hear Evie in the background yelling gems like, “It is nice to bite mommy!” Most of these tantrums involve the potty in one way or another. She is very willful and doesn’t like being told what to do, therefore, every little thing becomes a battle of wills. I understand this is pretty typical of her age, so once we are through it, we’re hoping it will go dormant again until she is a teenager.

Many of the problems are exacerbated by being on vacation. First off, she doesn’t have her usual routine going on around her. Second off, she is getting less sleep since her sleep schedule is off and her naps are often shortened because of stuff that we’re doing. Third, she is having a really good time and doesn’t want to do the things she needs to do (like sleep). Finally, when we are busy trying to do things she has more power to disrupt our life and she knows it. And she does not use this power for good. All of this lead Sara to proclaim it the “worst week she’s ever had as a parent” and seriously think about canceling the vacation altogether.

All that unpleasantness aside, there have also been some bright spots on the potty training front. She doesn’t really have a lot of accidents and she is starting to stay dry through naps and even through the night sometimes, despite her diaper. One night she even got Sara to take her to the potty in the middle of the night so she could go.

The actual camping went really well. We were going to tent camp, but the prospect of a wet weekend caused us to upgrade to a cabin and I think it was a wise choice. We were basically unaffected by the rain. One of the highlights of the trip was going to a u-pick strawberry and cherry farm and picking our brains out. Each strawberry was better than the last and I probably ate a pound of cherries.  We may have overdone it a little bit on the strawberries; I don’t know how we can eat them all before they go bad. We’re doing what we can though and even as I write this I am eating fresh strawberries!

Evie also had a great time. When we got home she stayed in the car for about 15 minutes hysterically crying for us to get back in the car (right now!) and drive back to the camp site. She has also been asking to do some of the things we did while camping, such as “see the doggies” or “go swimming”.

So that’s about it, back home safe and sound, at least until the next vacation. I don’t have any quotes for you today, although I’m sure she said plenty of hilarious stuff over the long weekend.

Update Post

/ Shane / 3 Comments

So I haven’t been posting much for the past week or so, but we’ve been really busy what with the holiday weekend and all.

So last week we had some friends from Philly (well Jersey really) visiting and staying at our place the whole week.  (Although I did mention our trip to Maggianos)  They have a daughter about Evie’s age, so it was nice for Evie to have someone to play with, or at least follow around and imitate.  It worked out pretty well for them to use our house as a base of operations and strike out from there all around Chicago.  We didn’t get to do all that much with them since we were working and all, but we did manage to go to the zoo with them.  Their daughter is really cute (maybe even a match for Evie, although exactly the opposite…dark hair and dark eyes) and smart as a whip.  Ever since they left all I can think about is, “Will Evie really be able to do all of that in 10 months??”

Then, last weekend we went on our semi-annual camping trip in Michigan.  It was the usual camping trip with Evie, which is to say, exhausting!  It is a lot of work running around after her in general, but it is like 10 times as much work when you are camping.  Especially this time because she wanted to be walking around (and into everyone’s campsite) from sun up to sun down and anything you wanted to do to get in the way of that was not appreciated!  So I didn’t have time to play any cards or any sort of games or anything.

We went on a hike and we saw two sets of deer bounding out of the woods onto the path in front of us.  It was really quite amazing considering we were singing childrens’ songs at the tops of our voices to keep Evie happy!  As a side note, I did have some outside confirmation that my family has a preternatural ability to spot deer at any time.  I always thought I had a knack for it, but compared to my dad, I’m pathetic.  Anyway, we also managed to make it to the beach one day.  You know, it’s funny, every time you go in Lake Michigan, or even swimming in general, you say, “Once you’re in the water it’s not so cold!”  But then the next time you’re like, “Oh yeah, well not this time because it is COOOOLD!”  And then you get in and say, “Once you’re in the water it’s not so cold!”  Plus everybody around you is repeating the same thing.  How many times does that have to happen before it really takes?  So we went to the lake and the water was super super cold but then we got in and were surprised to discover it wasn’t that bad.

Only tangentially related but, when I was little we always had 2% milk.  When I would go to someone else’s house and they had skim milk I just couldn’t stand it.  It just seemed like colored water to me.  (Of course now all we have is skim milk, but that’s not my fault).  Well, when we were camping, Chris (who was the main skim milk house that I went to when I was growing up) said that sometimes he just puts water in his cereal and it tastes exactly like skim milk.  Aside from sounding completely disgusting, I think this upholds my theory that skim milk really is just colored water.

In terms of an Evie Update, she has really been surprising me lately.  I think she is entering into a stage where she is just learning everything so fast and picking up things you don’t realize she is picking up.  This might be fatherly doting, so if you don’t want to hear it skip a bit, brother.

Three times today when we were going through a book she pointed at something I didn’t know she knew and said the word for it aloud:  house, apple and flower.  Sara told her to knock on the door and she went over and knocked on it just the way you would.  When has she ever knocked on a door?  Today she took Sara’s keys and went over to the door and tried to reach up to where the keys go.  Probably the funniest thing was I had her little horse and I was pretending that he was telling me secrets.  I would just put the horse up to my ear and whisper, “spsh spsh spsh” and she would laugh hysterically.  So I just kept doing it because she thought it was pretty funny.  Later I gave her the horse and she put it up to my ear and sort of “spsh spsh spsh”ed.  That really cracked me up, that she copied that part!  I didn’t even really realize I was doing that.  Now in retrospect I think she wasn’t laughing at the idea that a horse was telling me secrets like I originally thought; she apparently understood much better than I knew.  She was laughing at what an idiot I was making of myself sticking a horse in my ear and making funny noises!

Evie also has two new tricks.  The first is making herself so mad that she pukes.  That is a fun one, let me tell you.  The other one is farting in the bathtub, which she is not too young to think is funny.  She gets a little devilish grin on her face and heeeeaves up her stomach and really cuts one.  Then she looks at me and laughs.  She gets good resonance out of the tub.  Sometimes she tries to lift up her legs to see the bubbles.  This is now a multi-night occurrence.

And finally, football season is finally upon us!  I’m only in one Fantasy league this year for the first time in a long time.  I think that will work out nicely though since I have less time then I’ve had in a long time.  I really get giddy with excitement when I think about the Packers on MNF!

Missing: One Blogger

/ Shane / 2 Comments

So, you’ve probably noticed there haven’t been a lot of posts lately.  That is because we have been having some crazy weeks lately!  First off, I went to Detroit for business from Tuesday until Thursday night, then Friday we left for WI for a family reunion until Sunday, followed by camping with family from Sunday until Wednesday, followed by one night in Madison with my brother, then back to Chicago on Thursday when people began arriving for Evie’s big birthday party which was on Saturday.  I think we are mostly cleaned up now and everything put back in order, but there are still a few loose ends.  Lets just say I am not looking forward to going to work tomorrow, but I am looking forward to a weekend off next weekend!

So lets see, camping.  Well, let me say for starters that this was the most exhausting vacation I have ever had.  Camping tends to be a lot of work in the first place, but with a baby it is 10 times worse.  There are so many more things to take with you and remember and every time you leave the campsite you end up making 3 more trips back because of all the things you forgot.  So we were planning on driving all the way to the reunion but by the time we got out the door and then with typical Friday rush hour traffic, we realized we were crazy to think we could go that far in one day.  So we ended up finding a campsite at a state park along the way.  Even though it meant putting up and taking down the tent one extra time and rearranging the car a little, it ended up working out pretty well.  It was only $30 total for the night (rather than $100 or who knows how much for a hotel) and it really wasn’t all that much work.  The only bad thing was the mosquitoes!  Due to all the flooding, the mosquito population in WI is really out of control.  I probably got ~25 bites that first night.  They were actually fine for the rest of the trip, but that first night we couldn’t even leave the tent.

The reunion was a lot of fun, although it seemed like a lot of people were missing; specifically my cousins!  Very few of them were there.  Attendance was a little down this year, I think it was around like 170 people.  This was my first time at the new site, but I liked it.  The only complaint I have about the whole thing was the fireworks.  Now, I understand that not everybody has a sleeping baby and its not like I am one of those parents who thinks the whole world should stop and bow to my will because I have a kid, but I have to tell you it was as if the fireworks were going off on top of our tent.  In fact that is not wholely inaccurate since I was standing outside of my tent when the first one went off and an 18 inch piece of debris landed about 2 feet away from me.  Aunt Lois actually found some of the debris inside her car the next day!  But I digress.  By the time Sara made it to the tent she found me huddling over Evie with a pillow covering our heads.  But it worked apparently because she was back asleep as soon as the fireworks were over.  She even slept through the 4 wheeler drive-by / off road show a few hours later.  Oh, and (as usual) our dish to pass went over very poorly.  That wasn’t so bad though, since we ate it for pretty much the rest of the trip.

The rest of the camping went pretty good as well.  There is not a lot of time to relax since (like at home) you are always thinking about the next thing the baby needs to do.  By the time you get everybody up and showered and dressed, you start thinking about breakfast, then diaper changes, then naps then lunch, then more diaper changes, etc.  Before you know it you are working on baths and pajamas and bedtime.  It was fairly hot, but we (I) managed a dip in the pool I think every day.  The campsite was really nice, I would definitely recommend it.  It was obvious that the people really work hard to make it a nice place.  The pictures on the website don’t really do it justice, but maybe that is because they are constantly upgrading everything.  My family has gone there I think 7 of the last 8 years or something like that.  Some of them even get Christmas cards from the owners!  I would definitely go back there again.  We would probably still tent camp, but the cabins were probably the nicest cabins I have ever seen at a camp site.  Our tent was the perfect distance from the site where we had a fire every night: far enough away that we wouldn’t wake her up, but close enough that we could get there in a hurry if we needed to

Speaking of being away from the tent, Sara had this great idea I think she got maybe from parent hacks.  In order to separate ourselves a little bit from the tent when Evie was sleeping, we improvised a baby monitor.  Sara would call my phone, put both phones on speaker and then mute my phone.  Her phone would stay with the baby.  Since we don’t use minutes between our phone, we could let it go like that for hours.  The only hard part is remembering to charge our phones constantly.

Anyway, Evie was again walking like a maniac all the time and again improved so much on the skill that she is now walking.  Everyone was really helpful with her and it was very appreciated.  She is starting to have some serious mommy issues (like separation anxiety).  Also, she got some major diaper rash which meant kicking and screaming at every diaper change as well as hating the outdoor baths.  Even though there were plenty of people to take her for long periods of time, I just got more and more worn out every day that went by.  By the time we left I was sooo glad we were staying in a hotel the next night and not camping or even going back to our own house.  If we went back to our place we would have ended up unpacking, etc.  So the hotel was perfect.

So we went to Madison and got to take a tour of the capitol where little brother works.  His co-worker gave us a tour, and he could definitely be a tour guide.  He has worked there for something like 38 years so he definitely knew what he was talking about.  Our hotel was literally across the street from the capitol which was handy since we had to leave early from the orchestral “concert on the square” to get Evie to bed, but we could still hear and see it from our room.  We walked around the shops and things and ate at some restaurants and generally confirmed what everybody says:  Madison is a great town!  We even discussed what it would be like to live there, although probably not until we retired.  The only thing we’re not sure of is that it, like much of the rest of Wisconsin, seems to be built on quite a beer culture that we have no desire to participate in.  Well, it was just an intellectual exercise, but it goes to show you it is a nice town!

Okay, I think that is enough for one night!