vacation

Rounding the Lake Part 2: On Wisconsin

/ Shane / 2 Comments

So, the first leg of our journey was up through Wisconsin. We wanted to break up the trip as much as we possibly could, so we only drove up to my Grandma’s house the first night. Grandma had already gone up to the reunion, but we weren’t actually at her house very long. We spent most of our time there making cupcakes.

Evie wanted cupcakes for her birthday party, so we needed to make a lot of cupcakes. We didn’t want to make them too far in advance, because we wanted them to be fresh, but we didn’t have time to make them right before we left. So Sara mixed all of the dry ingredients before hand and we finished making them and baking them that night (yes, we did all the dishes!)

This part of the trip kicked off what would be a continuing theme of the trip: every time we stopped anywhere, even for one night, we had to entirely unload everything from the car and reload it the next morning. The problem was that our car was packed to the gills, so removing one piece of the puzzle usually required moving all of the other pieces. Also, it seemed like we always needed like one thing from the one suitcase way in the back. I probably loaded and unloaded the car maybe 10 times.

The next day we managed to make it to the reunion at a respectable time. The food is always my favorite part of the reunion. The fact that some of Grandma’s rhubarb dessert was still left at dinner was a crime against humanity that I did my best to rectify. Our fresh salsa (also made at Grandma’s the night before) seemed to be a hit. We finally broke our string of dishes-to-pass that nobody wanted! It was tasty though, and used a lot of tomatoes up from the garden.

Evie enjoyed the horse-wagon ride, but I think more than that, she just enjoyed playing with her cousins and stuff. She enjoyed playing in the sand and playing the “big dice” life-size board game. Many raffle gifts that were won would turn up again as birthday presents for Evie. Oliver was happy to be passed around to everybody, and everybody seemed pretty happy to have him passed.

We stayed in a hotel by the reunion, and Evie thought it was fantastic to sleep in a bed with daddy (Sara and Oliver shared the other bed). At least 3 times I woke up at night to her smooching me. We also took advantage of their swimming pool, to the point that Evie had purple lips, but still didn’t want to come out. They have a weird thing where the pool doesn’t have chemicals, but it has salt water instead. It’s supposed to be better for you, but all I know is that it tastes like crap!

Finally, we were off to Waupaca. We go to Waupaca every year and Evie just loves it. She said, “When I grow up, I’m gonna be a person in charge of Waupaca!” She loves the swimming pool, the playground, visiting with people, pretty much everything.

This time in particular, a few of the highlights were: drawing with the sidewalk chalk (which mostly meant forcing other people to draw what she wanted drawn), using her hands to walk all the way around the edge of the swimming pool (it was either that or cling to the ladder), her birthday party (of course), and playing with her 2nd cousins.

The birthday party was a big hit. We usually have a big potluck type dinner at Waupaca, but usually it is towards the end of the week. So we situated it on Monday to coincide with her birthday. Evie was happy to have so many people there and such good food to eat. She made everyone laugh by proclaiming all of the money she got in her cards was, “for college”. I’d say one of the best presents she got, or at least the one that she played with the most for the rest of the trip, was a Barbie from Uncle Marty (it’s funny because I know he won it in the raffle, but she really liked it!).

Evie: “Barbie has hearing aides!”
Me: “Do you mean earrings?”
Evie: “No, hearing aides! Like Grandma!”

Evie had a lot of fun playing with Braelynn and Jaysen. I was surprised she enjoyed Jaysen’s company so much, since Jaysen is so much older. The two things she’s mentioned the most is playing Pretty Pretty Princess with Jaysen, and a game invented by Jaames known as “hamster in, hamster out”. As far as I can tell, the game is played by saying “Hamster in!” or “Hamster out!” until Jaames says, “Hamster go bye-bye!” Evie thinks this is about the funniest thing she has ever heard in her life.

This time we stayed in a cabin instead of our tent, which was pretty nice. This was especially true because the cabin came equipped with air conditioning. The first night we didn’t use it because it felt like cheating, but the second night we broke down. It was about 7 million degrees in the little back room where Evie and I were sleeping on the bunk beds. The door had to stay open to get some air back there, which meant that my bunk was something like a cave, with only a tiny opening. The cabin also came equipped with a wasp trap, which was handy, due to all the wasps. The door had two screens on it, one with large holes, one with small holes. So the wasps would climb in the large holes and get stuck between the layers. We probably had 8 or so die this way by the end of the 3 days.

We took one side trip, to the Dairy State Cheese Company. Evie enjoyed watching them make cheese, but the real draw here was buying lots and lots of cheese on the cheap. We bought ~$30 of cheese (which probably translates to ~$60 of cheese anywhere else) including the best (and squeekiest!) cheese curds I have ever eaten. We bought some regular cheese as well as some delicacies, such as Buffalo Wing cheese and some 11 year cheddar. Everything was quite tasty (we haven’t eaten it all yet).

On most of our vacations, when we are spending an extraordinary amount of time in the car, Evie usually latches onto a particular CD and wants to hear it over and over again. This time I didn’t mind so much, because the CD she wanted to hear a million times was the Wicked soundtrack. I suspected she would like it, and it turns out I was right. When I was little, we used to listen to Jesus Christ Superstar endlessly. It occurred to me the other day that perhaps Wicked would be Evie’s Jesus Christ Superstar. Anyway, she’s getting some of the words down, but it’s proving a little more difficult than The Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast.

Me: “What’s the most swankified place in town?!”
Evie: “Target!”
Me: “Ha ha! I was going for the Ozdust Ballroom.”

Finally, after 3 nights in Waupaca, we moved on to a hotel (and another pool) in Iron Mountain. We had a lot of laundry to do, but the real highlight of this part of the trip was the Badwater Ski-Ters. Apparently, every little town having its own water ski team is something unique to Wisconsin. Growing up we always went to see the local team whenever we got a chance. It was just what you did on like a Wednesday night if you weren’t doing anything else. Anyway, Sara had never seen a water ski show, so she was really excited to see one. It absolutely lived up to the hype. Not only were the Ski-Ters pretty dang good (I liked the jumps, but Sara liked the pyramids), but it was such a little slice of Americana. There were probably 150 people there on a Wednesday night. We had our little picnic. There was a boy scout troop. There was a lady who was having her 100th birthday. We took a million pictures.

There was one unpleasant part about the show though. Oliver basically hadn’t pooped since we started the vacation. So we knew it was coming, and come it did…right in the middle of the ski show. So Oliver gave everyone a show of his own while we tried to clean everything up. We more or less survived the incident without casualties. Side note, he just didn’t like pooping in disposable diapers! He pooped the *second* we got home and put him in cloth diapers!

So that was it for the first part of the trip. Next up, the U.P.!

Rounding the Lake Part 1: Break Dance

/ Shane / 5 Comments

So, for those of you who didn’t know, we were on vacation for about a week and a half, rounding lake Michigan. We camped our way from Chicago up through Wisconsin to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, across the Mackinac Bridge, and then down through Michigan and back to Chicago.

Normally I would recount the trip in chronological order, however, the end of the trip sort of overshadowed what came before. So I’m going to start there, and then start back at the beginning for the rest of the trip.

So here is the story, as best I was able to piece together. We were camping in more or less the middle of the Upper Peninsula, and had been staying at the same place for a couple of nights. This was Saturday night. We were planning to leave the campground on Sunday and travel part way home, finishing up the trip on Monday.

We had been having the camp fires by our cabin, since they mostly took place after Oliver and Evie were in bed. Around 11 or so, everybody decided to pack it in, but Sara and I stayed up for a little bit with the fire. We had been sitting and talking for a little bit when we suddenly heard screaming coming from the other end of the campground.

There were many other people with campfires up on our end of the campground, and they all went silent, listening. We thought someone had played a prank on someone else. “There were some young kids down there,” said Sara. My first thought was that maybe someone had put something in someone else’s bed, or perhaps jumped out in the dark and scared them. But the screaming went on and on for quite a while, prompting one of the guys next to us to say, “Okay, it’s not funny anymore. It’s not funny.” So I knew they also were thinking it was some sort of prank. (More on these guys later, in the other post)

After a while, the screaming stopped, and everyone eventually went back to their conversations. Shortly after that, I realized I had to go to the bathroom, so I took my stuff to get ready for bed and left Sara to stay at the cabin.

When I was in the bathroom I ran into my father-in-law Tom, and we joked around a little bit before he left. When I left the bathroom a few minutes later, I noticed that someone had pulled their truck around and turned the headlights on, shining them on a tight group of people. I saw Tom over by the group, so I decided to go down there and check it out, thinking I could ask him what was going on.

My first thought was that maybe someone had hit a dog (there were a lot of dogs at the campground). I thought maybe the screaming had been from someone who had seen or found their dog after being hit. As I got closer to the group, I noticed that almost all of the people in the group were from our family. “Huh, that’s weird,” I thought, but not so crazy. After all, their cabin was close by, so if they heard screaming they would obviously come out to see what was going on. It still had not occurred to me at this point that these events could in any way be connected to our family.

When I finally got to where the people were, there was this surreal moment where they parted before me like the Red Sea, and I saw that my sister-in-law Anna was the object of all the attention. She was lying on the ground with her head in my brother-in-law Ben’s lap. My eyes traveled quickly down and I got a good eyeful of her ankle. The foot was clearly twisted at an unnatural ankle. It didn’t take a doctor to see that it was pretty seriously broken.

Anna and Ben had been walking back from the fire at our cabin and had just about made it back to their cabin. There was just a small hole or uneven place in the ground, and that was enough for Anna to trip and break both of her legs.

I should mention that Anna and Tom both have a genetic condition known as Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI). This condition causes their bones to be brittle (think Mr. Glass from Unbreakable). Therefore, a small trip or bump that normally wouldn’t mean much of anything to a normal person, could be a serious injury to someone with OI.

When Anna first fell, Ben dropped what he was carrying and ran to her. “I just broke both of my legs!” she gasped, and Ben turned and ran for the cabin. The second his back was turned, Anna began screaming, which was what we heard up at our end, by the fire. Ben ran the length of the cabin pounding on the wall, rounded the corner, threw open the door and yelled, “Anna just broke both of her legs.” Before anyone could even stumble out of bed, he was off again, running back to Anna. Anna continued screaming until Ben got back to her, where he stayed until she was loaded into the ambulance.

So, by the time I got down there, I was one of the last people to the party. The ambulance had already been called and things were more or less under control. “Go tell Lisa,” someone said and I went right away, happy to have something to do. On the way over to their motor home, I called Sara.

“Remember all that screaming we heard?” I said, “That was your sister.” Okay, in retrospect I probably could have broken that to her a little more gently. In any event, by the time I told the other members of the family, I decided I better head back up to the cabin, because I figured Sara would have gone down to the other end immediately.

Sure enough, when I got up there, Sara was gone and she had given the baby monitor to the random people camping next to us. “That screaming was my sister,” she said, “Our kids are in the cabin. Can you watch them?” “Are they sleeping??” they asked. So they were fairly relieved when I got back up there, not only to take back the responsibility of the kids, but also to give them some information about what was going on.

Around this time the first responders had arrived, followed shortly by an ambulance. This clued everyone at the campsite into the fact that something was going on, and that screaming they heard was more than just kids messing around. I kept thinking to myself, “Why didn’t I go down there right away? The screaming was so obviously painful. Even if it hadn’t been someone in the family, I should have at least gone down to check it out.”

Lisa showed up to the cabin to sit with the kids, and I went back down to see what was going on. Anna wanted Sara to ride with her in the ambulance, and she didn’t want either of her parents to drive (their car, not the ambulance)(she probably didn’t want them to drive the ambulance either), in case they were too upset. In retrospect, I don’t think they were, but it was kind of hectic at the time and it was sort of hard to get everything sorted out. So the plan was that I would go bundle up Oliver and drive him and Tom and Barb to the hospital. Orlan would follow after to take me back to the campsite.

Of course I was stumbling around in the dark in the cabin trying to put together a bag for Oliver and Sara (diapers, change of clothes, toothbrush, etc.) and Evie woke up. She wanted a drink and wanted to know what was going on. “Nothing,” I blithely lied, “Just getting some stuff that mommy wanted.” I knew she couldn’t see me take Oliver out, or she would know there was something up. So I managed to sneak him out without her noticing, which I think was a major feat. Oliver obliged me by being a good little kidnap victim, rather than crying out.

We got to the hospital quite a while after that. Not only was the hospital pretty far away (we were in the middle of nowhere after all), but the last thing I wanted to do was hit a deer or moose on the way to the hospital. So we were going fairly slow.

We were trying to guess about what was going on based on what we could see going in and out of the emergency room. The doctor came out and told us he had put her on morphine. Shortly thereafter we saw them wheeling in a portable x-ray machine. It seemed like maybe they were getting ready to set it, but it seemed too soon for something like that. Later we found out that the break was bad enough, and unstable enough, that they wanted to set it as soon as possible.

This part was a little hard to take out in the waiting room. There was a lot of screaming. I was surprised at how much screaming there was, given that they had told us they were putting her on morphine and versed. It was just that painful. In fact, Sara later told us that they had given her a considerable amount. The doctor kept saying, “Give me one more of morphine. Another two of versed. Another one of morphine.” etc. The versed is specifically to get rid of the memory of setting it, so she actually doesn’t remember this part, which is probably for the better, at least considering what it sounded like out in the waiting room.

I didn’t see the x-rays, but Sara said that the foot was dislocated quite a ways from the leg bone. They had to set it and then when they x-rayed it to see if it was right, the realized it needed to move still further. So it must have been pretty far off.

Finally, they let Tom and Barb go back to see her. “Write down all the silly stuff she says on morphine, for my blog!” I said. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to report, other than when she very first got the morphine and she said, “Ollie ollie oxen free, and all that stuff.”

We finally left the hospital and got back to the campsite at about 3:15. The plan was to get some sleep and then pack up in the morning. Tom and Barb would probably check into a hotel by the hospital, and we would continue on our trip as originally planned. However, this was not the way it went down.

First off, Evie was up before 6, which was a little rough. Second off, I got a call at about 6:45 which changed everything. The hospital there in the U.P. wasn’t equipped to handle the surgery Anna needed, so she had been discharged at about 3:30. Rather than have her transferred to a different hospital nearby, they propped her up in the car and started out immediately for the hospital at home.

We were a little worried about this, because we now had one less car than we came with. However, everything worked out well, and we left by about 10 or so. Tom rode with Evie and I (because I have tendency to fall asleep, even when I have more than 2 1/2 hours of sleep) and we followed Ben. Evie fell asleep and totally missed the Mackinac Bridge, but other than that it was a wildly successful trip. Evie colored in her coloring book for like 2 hours.

Anna had surgery to put some plates and screws in the one ankle. Evie might not have been completely clear on this part, because after Anna got back from surgery Evie asked, “Can I see your plates and forks?” The break in the other ankle was much more minor, and in fact, she has a walking cast and can put weight on it.

There was some trouble finding the right medication (the initial mix of vicodin and oxycodone wasn’t cutting the mustard), but the current mix seems to be working good. She can get up with a walker / wheelchair combo, although it is enough of a pain (literally and figuratively) that it’s not worth moving very much.

The one upside to all this (if it can be called that) was that, while at the hospital, we bumped into an old friend of mine who was doing a rotation at the hospital. We managed to catch dinner one night and discussed the magnificent yogurt parfaits they had in the hospital cafeteria. Reid has been doing these rotations away from his wife and kids and living in the hospital, so I think he appreciated seeing us as much as I appreciated seeing him. At least he thanked Anna for falling and breaking her leg and creating an opportunity for us to get together. 🙂

Anyway, that’s the story. Luckily (?) it happened at the end of vacation, so it actually didn’t change much about the rest of the vacation, other than extending it by a few days (although they were a little stressful for “vacation” days, if you know what I mean).

Here’s hoping Anna’s recovery is swift and the lingering effects are minimal!

The Big Trip, Part II – 4th of July, Now with More Daddy!

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Finally, I came up to meet everyone in Michigan on Friday. I didn’t arrive until after Evie was in bed, so I think she was a little surprised to see me sleeping next to her when she woke up in the morning! (Even though she was told I would be there)

We were staying with Sara’s cousins and Evie had a blast there. By the end Evie was begging to “stay here forever and ever” and even offered to stay there without us. She particularly liked playing with 2nd cousins Kaycee and later Randi (and all of their old toys).

The one part she didn’t like about the whole thing was their dogs. It was kind of funny because they were three tiny long haired dachshunds, much, much smaller than Evie. Even still, she did NOT like them licking her or really being around her at all. She demanded to be picked up and carried any time they came close to her at all. She would say things to them which really cracked me up like, “calm down boys, shhh! shhh!” She also described one of the dogs as “sitting solemnly”. Anyway, this isn’t a Mouth of Babes post, so I won’t get side tracked.

Some of the other highlights:

  • Watching the Little Mermaid – She loves all of the songs, but as soon as the movie started she got very nervous about seeing the sea witch. She started yelling, “Turn it off! Turn it off!” and then eventually just ran away screaming, “I’m going upstairs!” So we ended up just watching a few scenes to see the songs. She did like that though, at one point she said with wonder, “I’m hearing it with my ears and I’m seeing it with my eyes!”
  • Going swimming, and cooking hot dogs and smores – she was quite the daredevil in the pool; she kept asking me to let go of her so she could swim by herself.
  • Playing in the tree house with Kaycee and making Bean Pudding – There was real, actual food in there to play with. Evie was a little confused if we were just playing, or if we were really going to eat the food. Bean Pudding is mostly cold, uncooked beans, crushed up chicken-in-a-biscuit crackers, cut up apples, and a lot of seasoning including lemon zest, pepper, and Louisiana hot sauce.
  • Laying in a hammock for the first time

For the 4th of July, we went to Sara’s Aunt and Uncle’s house, which is on a lake. It was a really hot day, but there was a breeze and it wasn’t too bad in the shade. Good food, family, swimming, boat rides (we didn’t do any tubing)…basically, everything the 4th of July is for!

Once again Evie was very adventurous with the swimming. My favorite part of the whole week was seeing her jump in the water from the dock. (She was wearing a life jacket) When she was standing on the edge, I think my heart was pounding faster than hers! Ultimately she cried and didn’t like it much, because the water went in her ears. I’m sure this was quite a surprise, because on the 3 or 4 practice jumps, Uncle Ben held her and her head didn’t go under.

I think her favorite part was the boat rides. Orlan even let her drive! She liked sitting in the very front of the boat, where it goes up out of the water, with the wind blowing her hair.

She also enjoyed playing with her 2nd cousins Justin and Trevor. I was very impressed that they seemed to enjoy her company. I figured a couple of boys their age wouldn’t want to hang out with a “baby” but they actually seemed to enjoy playing with her (this was mostly the next day at Lisa and Orlan’s, though they did interact a little bit at the lake).

Oliver again enjoyed the great outdoors. He was somehow the only one not to get a little “color” from the sun. He enjoyed rocking in the porch swing and laying on a blanket looking up at the trees. He was a little young for the boat and we didn’t take him swimming. I think pretty much everybody got a chance to hold him.

Unfortunately, the kids had to be in bed pretty early, so we didn’t catch any fireworks or anything. Maybe someday. I’m hopeful, because I really like fireworks!

So, it was a great trip, a great 4th, and a great vacation overall. Evie had a lot of fun. She will be talking about it for a long, long time.

Be sure to tune in tomorrow for the exciting conclusion!

The Big Trip, Part I – No Daddies Allowed

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Last week Sara and the kids tooled around Michigan while I stayed home for work. Normally when we go to Michigan, we mostly just visit with people. This time they kept pretty busy with all sorts of things going on. So here’s a sampling of some of the stuff they did:

  • Went to see the West Michigan Whitecaps play baseball. Well, that’s what they tried to do at least, but mostly it just rained. Attending the game was Super Why, a character from one of Evie’s favorite shows.

    Unfortunately, Super Why apparently doesn’t come out in the rain. When they finally did see him, Evie was a little frightened. He doesn’t look seven feet tall on tv.

  • Playing at the mall with mommy’s friends
  • Playing with her 2nd cousins, Kurt and Kyle
  • Going with Grandma Lois to a Lois club meeting
  • Celebrating Grandpa’s birthday and Kurt’s birthday
  • Going on a train ride (a real train, not like the ones in Chicago!)
  • Getting a hair cut
  • Riding the tractor at Linda and Juniors
  • Eating pancakes 3 times! (Evie said this was her favorite part of the week)

That was a lot packed into a week! Plus there were other things that I didn’t even mention. Evie also managed to fall out of bed two different nights, so I guess the bed rail on her bed at home is doing its job!

As for Oliver, this was the first big trip away from the house for any length of time, and the first trip to Michigan. I don’t think he really cares much one way or the other. I’d say the biggest thing for him was just spending so much time outside, which he really likes.

Stay tuned for Part II of the Big Trip!

Pittsburgh

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Last weekend we took a few days off and took a road trip to beautiful, sunny Pittsburgh. What’s in Pittsburgh you ask? Well lots of things, but in particular, friends. I had some serious flashbacks to the trip Sara and I took to Pittsburgh about 10 years ago (seriously? 10 years?), before we were even dating. However, there was something a little different this time: kids.

We had the first “are we there yet?” exactly 19 minutes into the 9 hour trip. All in all though, she was actually really good in the car. We made plenty of potty stops and even planned a picnic / park stop for lunch, so we broke things up as much as possible.

Since we took so long getting there and going home, that we only had 2 days in Pittsburgh. So it was mostly a low key trip. We did manage to hit up Primanti Brothers, ride the Incline, and the National Aviary, as well as do some shopping. Evie enjoyed the Aviary, but she was a little panicked about the birds flying around free in the walk-through areas.

Evie, crying: “I don’t want to see real birds, I want to see pretend birds!”

According to Evie, the best part of the trip was “playing with the bath toys”, which I definitely believe. For her (for all of us) the trip wasn’t really about what we did in Pittsburgh, but about visiting friends. She had SO MUCH FUN playing with Ayla and Jackson (who she found quite hilarious). She had been looking forward to taking a bath with them ever since she took a bath with them when they visited us. I would have to agree as well, my favorite parts of the trip were when we were just joking around at night about whatever; minute to win it, baby names, Step Up 2: The Streets, anything.

There was one part of the trip that was particularly memorable. I was taking a shower, when I heard the door open and 3 year old footsteps enter.
“Mommy?”
“No.”
“Daddy?”
::getting nervous due to the rustling at the shower curtain:: “No…It’s Shane.”
::ripping open the shower curtain:: “Hi Shane!”

I’m not the first person to learn that 3 year olds aren’t so great at privacy.

The way home was roughly the same as the way out. It was raining in the morning, but it finally cleared up in the afternoon, so we took a side trip to South Bend to hit up a park. This little side trip ended up being pretty interesting. First off, I got to passively pump gas and watch the police try to rouse a homeless guy who was…well, let’s just say he was never going to be roused by a policeman again. Afterwards, we took a delicious detour to the South Bend Chocolate Company. The food was awesome, but the place was bizarrely empty. It worked out well for us, however, since the place had a big indoor playground and we were the only ones using it. The structure was pretty awesome, except for the stuffed demon monkey statue thing perched on top of one of the tubes. The thing freaked Evie out so much that she wouldn’t go inside without me. I can’t say I blame her. Who puts a stuffed demon monkey statue, complete with sharp teeth in it’s screaming mouth, on top of a kid’s playground? Brilliant design decision.

So anyway, all it all a great trip. Being forced to make stops and take the trip there and back slowly ended up being something of a blessing in disguise. It was kind of nice to be able to stop whenever and feel no stress. Evie is already asking when we can go back, and making plans for what we will do when we go.