Long Camping Weekend

We've been camping lately! Two weekends in a row, actually! Nebraska City had their annual Apple Jack festival last weekend and it sounded like all the camping spots were full but they had some cancellations and we got in so off we went! The festival had some craft booths and special events all weekend long. We went to a pumpkin farm as well as a couple of apple orchards and an outlet mall, the downtown area, all sorts of places around the city. The campgrounds has a little playground and Kaelyn LOVED the slide. She giggled everytime she went down it. But we didn't spend TOO much time there, we were busy seeing everything else. Sean's parents came for a few hours Sunday to go to an apple orchard with us too. It was a fun camping weekend. Though Kaelyn had a little cold and she wasn't the best camper-sleeper that time. I was worried that she no longer liked her camper tent bed! She took a long time to go to sleep at night AND during her nap. But she had a cold so I was hoping that was it. She acted pretty normal during the day, at least, and seemed to enjoy our outings.

Then, this last weekend, Sean took Friday and Monday off and we took a long weekend trip to Mahoney State Park. We left Thursday when Sean got home from work. It was pouring rain so camping wasn't the greatest idea, but what do you do. Kaelyn and I hung out in the lodge while Sean got the camper set up. She found this "puppy" to pet. Okay, so it was really a wolf. And it was stone, but she loved it! I was relieved when Kaelyn went RIGHT to sleep that night. Very easily. And we didn't hear much from her all night. The weekend before must have been cold-related.

On Friday we went to Ashland to stroll their downtown and see some of the shops. We went in an antique shop and a pharmacy (that I think only had two shelves of medications and the rest was toys and cards and other items!) Then we found a really neat art gallery. It had a waterfall display and a bridge that Kaelyn LOVED running up and down which gave Sean actual time to look around. The art was really nice, a local guy to that area. We realized we actually have one of the prints! Sean's parents gave it to us for one of our anniversaries. And we recognized several other prints as ones that Sean's parents have in their house. We were in there a long time so after that it was lunchtime and we headed back to the camper to grill hot dogs. After we ate Kaelyn played at the small closeby park for a little while before her nap. Which she took easily and quietly which I again was thrilled by!! Sean had to go to the lodge to do some work and use their internet so I napped and read. My favorite things. :) When Kaelyn got up we went to the big park and played there. She had a great time. She even tried some of the merry-go-rounds. Some bigger slides. Plenty of steps. We did it all. We grilled hamburgers that night at the camper, played at the smaller park again, and off to bed Kaelyn went. Sean and I watched Sherlock Holmes which I thought was boring. I intentionally fell asleep to get away from it. Sean watched it and thought it was slow but he wanted to see what would happen.

It started to rain Saturday at midnight and didn't stop for quite some time. We came up with some indoor plans for the rainy day. After we got ready we headed to the Strategic Air and Space Museum. Kaelyn LOVES watching planes fly over so I thought she MIGHT like seeing them upclose. Or at least like running around the big open spaces in the building. But unfortunately, she wasn't really interested in either. She seemed tired, though I THOUGHT she slept pretty well. She kept wanting me to carry her. She didn't want to run around much. But she did find a kid sized plane and she enjoyed climbing around on that quite a bit. The rest, should could probably didn't much care. Oh well, we were dry! :) We ate lunch at the museum and it was only slightly misting out so we played a little while in the closeby smaller park before she napped. And she really WAS tired because she slept almost 2 hours. After she got up we went to the huge indoor play center they have on the park grounds. It was really busy so at first I wasn't optimistic that it would be much fun. Okay, so I'm a little overprotective and there were a lot of bigger really wild kids running around with no thought to little babies playing nearby that get knocked around easily! But once I found a few spots that had less kids and Kaelyn got into the playing, it was a blast. She enjoyed climbing this foam rainbow ladder thing and on the other side of it was a big purple ramp which she climbed up and ran down, sometimes falling and giggling. There was also this huge yellow triangle foam thing (my descriptions aren't great here, huh!) I would put her on top of the triangle, she would throw her duck down and then slide down after it. I would then have to climb the triangle and slide down after her because I'd have to be on her side to set her back up so she could do it all over again. Why she couldn't just slide down the side I was on was beyond me. But, actually, her favorite part of that whole game was watching ME slide down, I think. That always got a good squeal. At that point I was more worn out than her, I think. We left there at supper time to eat at the lodge. We didn't want to grill out in the rainy weather. I got the buffet which was really good. And boy did I load up! Prime rib, pork chop, red potatoes, several desserts. And then some! But in my defense, I shared a few things with Kaelyn! Sean got some buffalo steak. Kaelyn had had SO much fun in the indoor play center we went back after supper. There were less kids so it was even more fun. She got into the ball pit a bit more. We'd tried it before supper and she didn't care THAT much. She just kept climbing in and out of it. But after supper, with less kids around, we could throw her around in it more and she had it mostly to herself. I was pretty sure she would be worn out and sleep well and boy did she! She slept until almost 9am the next morning! A new record I think. And went to sleep without complaint. Sean and I watched the Hurt Locker, which I found really interesting. I was really tired but I managed to stay awake so that just shows that it was intriguing enough to me to want to stay awake and watch the whole thing.

Sunday we drove through the wildlife safari that has connections to the Omaha zoo. As a zoo member we got a dollar discount on getting in. Big whoop. But at least it was something. The safari was pretty neat, but, no offense to Kaelyn, it would have been a lot more fun without her. It was like a 7 mile drive and there's one place to get out and hike about halfway through. But you drive through really slow so the 7 miles takes probably an hour to drive. Kaelyn liked the elk that were right inside the gate and after that she was ready to get out of the car. And when we went on the hike we just walked to the real close things. Sean and I would have liked to talk the whole trail but with the stroller and gear and with lunchtime looming, it wasn't possible. Maybe some other time. We saw elk and bison and bears and owls and weird birds. We saw where the wolves were supposed to be but we never saw any. We went back to the camper and grilled some hot dogs again. The little park called us to play for a little bit and then Kaelyn napped. Sean and I played Scrabble which we agree that neither of us are good at. Though, I feel like I SHOULD be good at it because I LOVE to read and words are my thing. But I'm just not good at identifying words in a scramble much less thinking up words from fragments. I don't know, no excuse I guess! Sean pretty much always beats me the few times we've played. But at least I got some reading in while we played when it was his turn! After Kaelyn got up we went mini-golfing. I wasn't optimistic about this venture because Kaelyn LOVES golf balls so I was pretty sure it would be a fight. She would always be stealing our balls, etc! I got an extra one for her to play with and that helped. Sometimes Sean and I shared one ball and she played with two. Along with her duck, of course. She had her hands full! But she did pretty well and had a decent time. Except when she tripped and fell and scraped her nose which panicked me a bit because she had a bloody nose! I didn't know where it was coming from at first but then we saw the scrap. It was just an external thing and no big deal. But no mama likes seeing her baby bleed for any reason! And I HEARD her hit, it was a hard hit. Her cheek is still extra pink on that side the poor thing. What do you do! Mini golf didn't take all that long so we went to the bigger outdoor park after that and worked it over good. Kaelyn finally discovered crawling through some of the tunnels so that was something different for her. I took way more video than pictures on this trip. When I looked through it all to put pictures on here I only found the few above but I have lots of video! We grilled burgers at the camper that night and played a little longer at the smaller close park. Sean's parents stopped by on their way through for 20 minutes right before bed time. They brought popcorn for a bedtime snack, I guess!

Monday we tried to go to Ashland again to look at more stores since we only got through 3 stores on our first trip. But it was Monday, after all, and all the stores were closed. I guess Monday is their weekend. So we went back to the campground and went to the tower. Kaelyn climbed almost all the stairs on that lookout tower! We checked out the craft building (which she will LOVE in the future) and wondered where the tobogan run will be in the winter. Then we played at the bigger park where there was a film crew doing something there. It looked like some kind of boy scout video or something. There was a man talking in an australian accent, I never could hear what he said, and a young boy searching the ground behind him with a microscope. We played there for an hour or so then moved to the smaller park near our camper. More hot dogs for lunch (it'll be awhile before we want another!) and we played in the camper a short time before packing it in for the weekend. I had my car there separately from the camper so I drove Kaelyn home during her nap. We sure are sad to see the weekend go, it was a great time. Kaelyn had a blast and a half and she slept really well and was a great kid all weekend long.

I like camping. Can we go again next weekend? Oh wait, we're busy next weekend. And the weekend after that. But the one after THAT.... you never know!

Weekend and Mops

Kaelyn had a way fun weekend. Saturday there was a harvest festival going on in Plattsmouth so we checked that out in the morning. There wasn't much going on yet but we walked through a garage sale in one of the stores and a book sale as well. We also went through the quilt and flower show at the church. Kaelyn wasn't impressed by that, but Sean was! :)

After nap time we went to a co-workers of Sean's for a work party. They live on a beach at a lake. You walk down their deck stairs and you're on the beach! I think that would be a great place
to go for a weekend but I would NOT want to live there. Their house must be full of sand ALL the time! They used to even have a dog, which had to make it all that much worse! It was a nice house, though, and Kaelyn LOVED the beach. She was a little leary at first with all the people she didn't know but once Sean got her into the water, she had a ball. She had her duck with her (of course) which made for a GREAT water toy since it floated. I also grabbed a big yellow wiffle ball from the car that she could toss. She'd throw it into the water, go in, get it, run up the beach to me, then back to the water to repeat the process. It wasn't long
before she sat in the water and from then on she was completely soaked. Oh well, what do you expect! It WAS a beach, afterall! The water was pretty cold, though! She didn't care. After we ate we went for a golf cart ride around the lake. Kaelyn giggled at that when we first took off. Then sat comfortably for the rest of the ride. What a big day for her! Her first beach party! She'd been to one other beach but she didn't like that experience. She's bigger now and more into water games, I guess.

Today was our first Mops meeting, as I mentioned before. The bigger kids were in the basement so Kaelyn and I hung out with them for a few minutes before the meeting. She just watched from my lap. The real little kids went upstairs to the nursery. There were only three others besides Kaelyn. There was an older lady in there as well as a high school aged girl. I took Kaelyn in hoping for the best. I set her down and she got pretty interested in the see n say toy the lady was playing with and she went right over. She didn't seem to care that I was there so I left! I
enjoyed 10 minutes of the meeting alone and then went back to peek in the window and check on her. She was just SOBBING. The older lady was holding her and she was just SOBBING. I felt awful! So I went in and got her at which point she uttered her full force "you're killing me" scream! :) Has to ramp it up when she sees mama, you know. So I know what I put her through! :) I took her back to the meeting with me. I brought our church bag of toys in anyways so we played on the floor. I heard MOST of the speaker and got to participate in the meeting somewhat. I just didn't want the poor lady in the nursery to have to hold Kaelyn the whole time when there were other kids that needed attention. And I can't stand to see my baby upset. I know someday (preschool!) I'll have to walk away and let her be upset if she's upset. But that day hasn't come yet and when she's sobbing for me, I go to her!

But we survived the mops meeting and even enjoyed it quite a bit. I'm sad we can't go next month because we'll be out of town. At least I know when November rolls around it IS possible to enjoy the meeting AND entertain Kaelyn! We'll REALLY want things to do once that time of year rolls around!

Trains Planes Etc

This picture is from my parents house. That's me mom's cat in the background. Kaelyn likes the cats a lot more than her face shows in this picture! :) She pets my moms cats a lot more than ours. But she does like to help me brush Ollie on occasion. She generally prefers to step on him, which he does not appreciate.

We have some train tracks near our neighborhood entrance. You can hear the trains honk at our house. No matter what we're doing, whenever a train honks, Kaelyn throws one of her arms up in the air and looks at me. I then have to say "TRAIN!!!" in a very excited manner. She also does this trick when holding thing. A toy, a food, whatever. If she throws it up in the air in her hand like that I have to tell her what it is. This gets giggles, so of course I do it! :)

Kaelyn also has a fascination with planes. We must live on the track from the air force base because planes often fly over. Though they're high enough up we can't always see them. But we hear them and that's enough! Anytime we hear a plane, Kaelyn waves her little hand off. Do you think she thinks the pilot and passengers etc can see her? And are waving back? Perhaps!

All of these are cute little nuances that make me love her all the more.

Today is our first mops meeting of the year (mothers of pre-schoolers). I was hoping to TRY putting Kaelyn in with the free childcare but after she screamed bloody murder when I tried to leave the room to go to the bathroom over the weekend I'm now thinking that probably is not going to be possible. I arranged for the first speaker so I really want to be there. I'm taking in the bag of church toys (quiet things we can play with!) and I'm hoping for the best. I guess we'll see how this meeting goes before I can say how anxious I will be to go to the meetings yet to come! If only there were a train track nearby that building...or at least a plane flying over!!

Get Er Done at the Zoo

Let me remind you that Kaelyn doesn't appreciate having her hair done. It's so long now, though, that to keep it out of her eyes and off her pretty face I HAVE to do something to it. Normally that's one little ponytail in the middle of her head. Sean kept wanting me to do two and I would give him a look like...YOU do two! I'm lucky to get ONE in! :) However, over the weekend when he was home he watched me do her hair in the bath tub and the miracle of the event was that when he was watching, she didn't mind! So the next day I attempted two...WITH him watching. She didn't mind so much AND it was really cute! Today, though, we're back to one! :)

Sean went with us to the zoo over the weekend. His second full fledged trip of the year. Our 34th, if my tally is correct. It might be more than that. He went once on Kaelyn's birthday and has met us for lunch over there a few times. It's fun to take "new" people to the zoo because I get to see things like they're new through them. And Kaelyn has someone different to show around and show off for! She enjoyed petting the polar bear as he swam by on one of our four trips last week. When we don't have anything to do, we go to the zoo. And I guess we didn't have much to do last week!

Speaking of the zoo...we didn't have anything going on today so we went. Kaelyn was running through the aquarium and got to the end of the tunnel with all the fish. At the end there were a bunch of bright lights and cameras and I thought, huh, they must be doing a news cast or something weird like that. Kaelyn ran RIGHT for it so I followed. Then out of the lights comes Larry the Cable Guy! A lady was talking to him telling him how much she loves his movies etc. It looked like they had just got done filming whatever they were filming. Kaelyn was definitely on a mission to walk into the light or something, she was headed right for the action, surprisingly. A zoo security guy took a step forward like he was going to guard the big star from the little 16 month old! :) I caught her in time and Larry the cable guy and his fan headed down the tunnel the way we had come. Along with the crew who began turning off their lights. I wish we'd been a few minutes earlier so we could have seen what was going on! If you ever see Larry the Cable guy in anything that involves the zoo, let me know! We were ALMOST in that! :)

That was our big adventure of the day. Kaelyn is napping now and after that, I think a walmart run is in store. Right now burgers are calling to be patted out so I must answer their yell. That's weird, I know.

Molars Stink

I'm not a fan of molars. Sure, they help you chew wonderful food and all but they are just SUCH a pain for a kid! Literally. And I have to say, they've been a pain for me too!

Kaelyn started getting her molars almost a week ago. It was a Saturday and the screaming began at 12:15pm. Of course, 15 minutes AFTER my husband left for a work golf outing, not to return until evening. She very obviously didn't know what she wanted. She wouldn't eat. She wouldn't play nicely. She wouldn't do anything but yell at me, apparently. She'd often come running over to me with her arms up sobbing like pick me up pick me up! So I'd try to pick her up and she'd push me away. Okay... I wanted to help, I really did! But what can you do?! So that day pretty much stank. That was the worst day, but most of the following week she barely ate. Which meant she was cranky. She got bored really easily and yelled at me often for no apparent reason. I could tell her gums were swollen and you could see something (a tooth) pushing up through them but they didn't break through until late in the week. I think the right one is finally most of the way through. One day I could see two of the little prongs and the skin around it looked red and almost a little bloody, the poor thing. No wonder she's out of sorts! I still don't appreciate being yelled at, though. I'm just trying to help! :)

Yesterday we were supposed to meet a friend at the zoo at 9:30. And we DID make it, but just barely. Kaelyn woke up at 8 and proceeded to scream at me until 8:45. She wouldn't eat she wouldn't get down and play she wouldn't do anything but yell. Occasionally cuddle into me and let me rock her, but mostly just scream. Once I finally got a little yogurt on her lips she licked it off and realized that might taste good so she ate the whole container and must have felt better because she had a good time in her (short!) bath and then was really good at the zoo. When we got home she slept for over THREE hours which is unheard of for her! I even went into her room after three hours and put away clothes from the laundry and she didn't stir at all. I never do that because I don't want to wake her but I figured, it'd been THREE hours so if she wakes up oh well! She didn't! And she still went to bed that night at 8 like normal.

Today was much better. Kaelyn ate pretty continuously so I'm hoping she's back on track now. She didn't yell at me much at all without reason so that was nice! She still slept over 2 hours so that was VERY nice. But mostly we just had fun and enjoyed each others company. So I'm hoping that these first two molars were the hard, practice molars and the rest will slide in easily. Because I'm not real sure I want to sign up for another week like this one has been! Can't the rest of them come in overnight unnoticed? Please?