camping

So Brennan's internship ended at the end of the first full week in August and he had two weeks before classes started. He could have continued to work part time during those two weeks, like he will be doing during the semester, but we decided he would be working for the rest of his life so we would just enjoy two mostly carefree weeks! We talked a lot about taking a little trip somewhere but that never ended up happening. I think we still did a good job of finding fun things to do around here.

During those two weeks we:

-went camping

-painted our bedroom

-went to the zoo

-went bowling

-went to the pool

-painted our dresser

-toured the hospital

-visited several splash pads
-went to a Kernels game

-went to the apple orchard

And probably some other things I am forgetting, but I'd say that's not too shabby for a staycation in the middle of Iowa. :)

Our camping trip was a huge success, I'd say. We went to a park about 45 minutes from home that we had never been to before. The weather was pretty much perfect (I would have been happy for it to not get quite as warm during the day, but I am a pansy about the heat these days.) and the park was great. My mom and dad came with us and the Eskelsens came up for dinner, but couldn't spend the night. After we set up the tent we headed down the beach. I'm not huge on lake swimming but I definitely regretted not bringing my suit. Tatum LOVED the water and the beach.

She was in heaven. :)

Showing Grandma the shell she found.

For their wedding anniversary, mom got dad an inflatable kayak so after the beach we decided to take that out. It was a blast! And mom was even able to get a little kids life jacket for Tatum so she got to try it out too.

 Brennan and Dad taking it out for its maiden voyage.

Tatum wasn't too sure what she thought of it, so her trip was a short one.

Now I'm making this picture extra big, because this, my friends, is a miracle. We got mom in the kayak! She is not a fan of water but we couldn't believe she wasn't even going to try out her anniversary gift to dad on the eve of their anniversary! That's right, she gave him his gift early so we would be able to try it out on this camping trip and she wasn't even going to join him. I'm pretty sure it wasn't until she was convinced that Brennan would, in fact, carry her to the boat that she finally decided to go on her own. And I daresay she even enjoyed it! :)

And there's the happy couple riding into the sunset. Okay, so maybe the sun wasn't quite setting, but it sounds better that way. Forty years these two crazies have been married! Holy moly that's a long time. I tried to glean some wisdom from them around the fire that night, but they always try to say they have none.

After we all had our turn on the boat we headed back to our campsite to get dinner started. Foil dinners are the best and these ones did not disappoint.

Tatum loved playing in the tent. When I heard her squealing and giggling I looked in the window and found this. Silly goose.

 After dinner we took the boat out with the Eskelsens, then went back to camp for Brennan's dutch oven peach cobbler, banana boats, and smores. That's a lot of dessert!

Tatum did surprisingly well around the fire. We didn't have any problems with her getting too close or being too interested in it, thank goodness. And Grandma, miracle worker that she is, got her to fall asleep on her lap before it got too late.

All zonked out in the tent.

 We didn't bring the pack n play for Tatum, she just slept by us and she did fine. I slept horribly and my tossing and turning woke her up, unfortunately. She was awake, but happy, for awhile but eventually she fell back asleep. I, however, will not be camping again until we buy some mats. My parents were sleeping on mats and when my mom got up I rolled over on hers and it felt a million times better! I've never been bothered by it before but then again I've never been camping when I was this pregnant before either.

We had some yummy breakfast burritos in the morning, made by Brennan. Next time we will definitely make them in advance, wrap them in tin foil and just heat them up over the fire. Making everything with one pan just took far too long. But they were still delicious. We played several games of Kubb, and Brennan and I creamed the anniversary couple. 40 years?! Psssh, they got nothin' on us. :) Then we cleaned up camp and headed to the beach and to take the boat out again.

Tatum was a bit of a grump in the morning, but nothing a little whispering from Grandma couldn't cure.

Stealing the king pin.

Back at the beach. Her grumpiness greatly subsided at this point. When were at the campsite she was just so anxious to go, go go, she insisted on sitting in the van and yelling to us "iwannago".

Just hanging out while Grandma and Papa took the boat out.

So funny story about taking the boat out that second day. Brennan and I took it out first with Tatum. It was short and sweet again as she gets antsy quickly. After we turned around I felt my bum start to get wet so I said something to Tatum about how daddy splashed me (the oars really do splash a lot) but Brennan said "I don't think so. You should see how much water I'm sitting in back here." So when we handed Tatum off to my dad I asked him if he thought there could be a hole or something. He was sure the water was just from Brennan splashing with the oar. So we headed back out. We are in the middle of the lake and Brennan starts chuckling and says "There has to be a hole, I mean look at this!" I didn't look and I didn't think it was funny. (I'm not quite as afraid of water as my mom is but it does make me nervous.) I told him to take me back and he said he was sure we would be fine. But I insisted that he steer us back to the dock. He did and I got out and let him and dad figure it out. Turns out the boat was taking on water, someone had pulled the rain plug or something like that which was letting on water. Once that was all sorted out I did go back out and so did mom. Then we packed up the boat and headed home.

Someone was asleep before we left the campground. :)

And that night we found a sliver in Tatum's toe. She must have gotten it on the beach, I forgot to bring her water shoes. We were able to get one out but the other one was a bit more difficult. After we felt like we had sufficiently traumatized Tatum we gave up. The next day we borrowed some epsom salt from my dad and put a paste of epsom salt and water on it every day with a bandaid, it came out after a few days.

Here's Tatum insisting on trying to do it herself. The next morning when we asked her if we could look at her toe she immediately went in the bathroom and found the tweezers, it was kind of cute.