Kate is completely recovered from being sick, but Nicky is a couple days behind. His fever was gone today but his gums are still so sore that he isn’t able to eat anything. I’m afraid his brain is going to rot from all the iPad time he’s gotten before he gets better…
This weekend we went to Emily and Shawn’s beautiful wedding in Denver and we were so happy to be there with them. Auntie Emily was beautiful – Nicky kept calling her “the princess”. The kiddos had so much fun and we stayed until Kate started falling asleep on the dance floor.
With the exception of the wedding, it was a tough weekend made even harder by the fact that we were in a hotel room far away from home. Sadly, the kids were sick the whole weekend and they spent most of their time (36 of the first 40 hours) in the hotel room being miserable. The poor babies had fevers and couldn’t eat a thing – they survived exclusively on Tylenol, Jamba Juice and chocolate milk the ENTIRE weekend. We have lots of pictures of them either looking like zombies or of Kate throwing exhausted tantrums on the floor in various locations (airport, airplane, wedding venue, etc) and not so many pictures of them having fun (pictures here). On Thursday we watched fireworks from the hotel and on Friday we dragged them to the dinosaur museum for an hour before Nicky insisted on going back to the hotel. They started to perk up on Saturday and rallied for the wedding. And on Sunday they felt well enough to make a quick drive by stop to see their second cousins, Oscar and cute, brand new, little baby Nylah.
As tough as our trip was, we were one of the first flights to land on the runway adjacent to the Asiana crash. As we looked out the window at the debris and burned out fuselage we realized our trip could have been much, much worse.
This weekend we took the kids camping for the first time (pictures here). It was mostly a success, despite some small bedtime drama. Neither of the kiddos had napped well and by dinner time they were both falling apart at the seams. We’ve been so consistently trained over the past 3 1/2 years to notice the signs of extreme tiredness and to instinctively react. So, as our little munchkins started to melt down bit by bit, we sped up dinner, quickly ate smores, brushed teeth, put on jammies and read stories as quickly as possible. It wasn’t until we were at the very end of the modified camping bedtime ritual that we even bothered to look at our watches, and then we saw that it was only 6:45pm. A 6:45 bedtime may work fine when the kids are at home, exhausted, have done their normal bedtime ritual, are in their own beds with the black out curtains drawn but let me be the first to tell you…it DOES. NOT. WORK. when you’re camping on the one of the longest days of the year. We almost came back home, but managed to tough it out and we were so glad we did. The weather was perfect and we played for a long time in the stream at the campground, throwing rocks and enjoying the water. The kids loved watching the fire, playing hide and seek in the redwoods and digging in the dirt. They both refused to wear shoes the whole time and were covered in dirt from head to toe. On our way home we visited the goat farm, went on a little hike and played at a really fun beach. After their first experience, I think that the kids are convinced camping is fun. Now I just have to work on convincing Sam!
Hammering a stake into the ground.
Covered in chocolate, dirt, sunscreen and bug off.
Bedtime melt down
They won’t wear hats, but Kate was having fun with Nick’s glasses.
