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!