Monday, July 30, 2007

Not-So-Happy Camper

Ha! Reading my post from Thursday is very comical to me now! More like I could hear the drunk idiots splashing in the river til 3:30am...birds?! No, the birds were scared shitless and nowhere to be seen or heard, but I could hear the lovely sounds of guys puking, people yelling, car alarms going off, and coolers being drug on the ground as above mentioned idiots went by my tent several times all night long. Fire crackling, yes, I did get that, thank goodness.

If you can't tell, our weekend didn't exactly have majestic relaxing qualities that I had hoped for. LOL

Six Flags on Friday was fun...hot, but fun. We actually weren't there all that long, maybe 3-4 hours. We rode the Scooby Doo ride first, there was a big line but we were afraid it would only get longer, and Brendan loves to watch Scooby Doo, so we thought he'd love it. We got in line and the sign said it was a 30min wait from there. An hour later we finally made it on the ride. About 45 minutes into the line Brendan decided he was scared and didn't want to ride. I'm thinking "we've waited this long in the beating down hot sun, you're gonna ride!". lol Luckily after a few minutes of him saying he was scared, the boy behind us told Brendan that he had been on it before and it wasn't scary. That helped. Then we rode a few other rides, had a pretzel & beer break for Mommy and Daddy, let the kids play in the play area, rode the huge ferris wheel, took a couple pics with Sylvester and Scooby Doo and then Brendan wanted to leave.





So, we headed down to the river for the camping part of our trip. It was so dang hot and humid, I had sweat pouring all weekend. Overall it was fun, but there were definitely many frustrating times. And the campground was very crowded. We ended up in the middle of several big groups, and one in particular was obnoxious! They were so loud, and partied until at least 3:30am. They were across from us, and the river was behind us, so they had to walk through our campsite to get to the river. And they did all night long, dragging their coolers, making lots of noise, splashing in the river and yelling in the middle of the night. They would once in awhile give a really loud yell and it set off a car alarm (which they then cheered loudly). I laid there awake until 3:30am. Joe was awake most of that time, but then he fell asleep and I had to listen to him snoring too on top of everything else. lol Then our boys were awake by 6am.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for hanging out around the fire drinking and such with friends, we've done it many times, but this group was beyond obnoxious and didn't even pretend to care that anyone else was there but them. And, this particular campground calls itself a "family resort" and has a "strict" quiet policy and signs posted saying to please be extremely quiet after 11pm.

The next day was fun playing in the river though. We have a 2-person raft that we put the boys in and we pulled them upstream, floated down, swam, splashed, and watched (laughed at) all the hilarious drunk people who couldn't manuever their canoes right, and were tipping over and running into each other. heehee. Oh, and then there was the large guy who decided to just lay on his back and roll down the shallow stretch of the river...yes, a log roll on the rocks in the water like he was a 4 year old rolling down a grassy hill...only he was more like a 44 year old and rolling big belly and all on rocks. I'm guessing he was feeling that one the next day! LOL






We also went by Johnson's Shut Ins, to see what it looks like now, after the dam break and all. Last time we were there was right before it happened (we were there in Sept '05 and the dam broke in Dec '05). I was really impressed with their clean-up efforts! We could tell the park looked different, and there are a lot less shut-ins, and the deep swimming area where people used to jump off the cliffs is no longer water, but a big pile of gravel, but they did have it open and you could get in the shut-ins that were left. They have a display of photos in the office with before and after pics of all the destruction and mess. They still have a big part of the park fenced off with restricted and caution signs and such, but the parts they have cleaned up look great.
Here are a few pics I took while we were there:











I took all the pics of playing in the river with a disposable waterproof camera, so I don't have those to share yet.

All in all it was a fairly good weekend, but we've decided it will be a long time before we take the boys tent camping again. Or, at least we will not go on the weekend. A cabin seems to be the better choice until Adam is older.

So now we're back...tired, and sunburnt. It's one of those weekends where you need a weekend to recover from the weekend.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Happy Camper :)




I most likely won't be at my blog again before we leave tomorrow morning, so I'll say "See ya later!" now. Hope everyone has a great weekend!




We'll be HERE Friday,
followed by a weekend of playing in the river,
sleeping in this:


and sitting around this:



AAhhh, yes. I can almost hear the river flowing, the birds singing, and the campfire crackling.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Monday, July 23, 2007

How Many More Days 'til we Go Camping, Mommy?!

Yes, this is the question I've been hearing every day for the last several weeks. Followed by Adam's reply of "I go camp too". And now, finally, it is almost here. "Only 4 more days, Brendan, 4 more days" was my response this morning. What's interesting to me, is that we are going to Six Flags on Friday before we go camping, yet all he asks about is the camping part. That's our boy for ya. Definitely inherited his mommy and daddy's genes on that one! We love camping. Joe and I used to go camping and canoeing several weekends a year when I was in high school and college, and up until we had kids. That was our favorite thing to do together. And we're going to our favorite river this weekend again too. The boys have been there with us, (those who have been around awhile know that we baptized both boys in the river too) when Brendan was a baby and then again a couple years ago when Adam was 10 months and Brendan was 4. We didn't attempt the tent that time, with Adam being so young. But this year, we are going back to the tent camping, because that's what we enjoy...and now the boys are 2-1/2 and 6-1/2, so we're thinking they can handle it now. Our site is on the river, and I can't wait to be sitting in front of that campfire again. I have missed it greatly!


Thursday, July 19, 2007

He Passed!!!!

He passed! He passed! Yes! Brendan finally passed Level 2 in swim lessons this time, woohoo! Now it's on to Level 3...after a break...because I'm very tired of taking him every night after work. I need time to catch up at home. And we have some conflicts in the next couple weeks anyway. So, next session (Fall) we'll rejoin and in the meantime, he can practice in our 12ft x 3 ft inflatable pool at home. lol

Monday, July 16, 2007

Swimming Lessons...AGAIN

The next session of swimming lessons has started again already. So once again we are going crazy with these things every night last week and this week. It is so hard to get anything else done on these weeks when we're at work all day and then swimming lessons every night. *sigh* But, the boys have fun, and it's definitely something they need to learn.

Adam is even in swimming lessons this session...in the parent-child class...


Brendan is still working hard to try to pass Level 2...


Brendan is still having a blast at day camp during the day too. I hope we can get some pictures of that soon. There is a family night next Thursday, so I guess I get to take pics then.

Hard to believe his school starts up again in about 4-1/2 weeks! Yikes!

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Photos from 4th of July

I'm finally posting a few photos from our 4th of July celebrations. These first few are from when we went to the city's fireworks display at the stadium. It looks empty, but it wasn't. There were tons of people there, we just happened to be at the far end where there weren't as many. And after I took the pictures, more people filled in around us too.
(In true "Brendan" fashion, you'll notice he is flipping off the camera. I didn't notice this until I was uploading just now. This is a pattern with him, ever since he was a baby! He somehow always manages to accidentally be flipping off the camera in SO many photos we have. Sometime I'll have to gather all the photos through the years of him doing this and post a collection- from a few days old until the present time. lol)

The next day we had a BBQ at our house and shot off fireworks:

(My nephew and Adam at the little table)


(Brendan and my other nephew at the picnic table)


(Joe, my boys, my brother-in-law, and my mom's boyfriend getting fireworks ready on our driveway)


(one of the many fireworks we shot off at home).


Monday, July 09, 2007

Well, a no go on both the waterpark again and South Dakota. They ended up not sending Joe. And he had had an exhausting week and didn't want to go anywhere so we didn't go to the waterpark either.

Brendan's summer school is over now, and today he started day camp. He'll attend day camp for the next 5 weeks. Tonight starts the next round of swimming lessons too. So I'm in for another crazy 2 weeks of taking him to that every night after work again. Hopefully he will have a good instructor and learn a lot and pass Level 2 this time!

We found out that a spot is opening up for Adam at the day care center we've been on the waiting list for. So he will start there Aug 20. He will greatly miss his babysitter that has been watching him in her home for a long time. But now that he's 2-1/2 (almost 3 by the time he starts there) we really feel he needs more structure, discipline and learning activities and such. It will be a huge increase in price, unfortunately, so Joe is starting to freak out and go into one of his anal-about-money-moods. *sigh*

I still need to post some pics from 4th of July, I keep forgetting whenever I'm near my digital camera.

Okay, for some reason Blogger is not letting me give this post a title. Very strange. Anyone else had this problem?

Friday, July 06, 2007

Waterpark, South Dakota, etc

Well, we didn't end up going to the waterpark this past weekend afterall. It ended up being kinda chilly and stormy all weekend. So, we will try again this Saturday (tomorrow) instead. His free ticket expired last Saturday, but it is still good for 50% off until August so at least that's something. Tomorrow is supposed to be very humid and in the 90's so it should be perfect waterpark weather. The only problem now is that Joe might have to drive to South Dakota this weekend for work, and if that happens then we might have to cancel the waterpark trip again. We'll see. I was thinking maybe we could go with him to SD, but it is such a quick turn-around (going there one day and coming home the next!) that it really isn't worth it to put the boys through all that driving for less than a day's worth of doing things. So, most likely that won't happen.

We had a good holiday. I'll post again later with pictures from our celebrations :)