Camping - Days 3 and 4 (Monongahela National Forest: Summit Lake)

We started out early for about an 8 mile hike, but this was mostly flat and on forest roads.  We discovered tons of these bright orange newts (Eastern Red-spotted Newt), some frogs, butterflies, caterpillars later on as we headed back to camp.  We even saw an assortment of animal scat.  I'm pretty sure some of it was bear poop, or possibly bobcat.  This did nothing to allay my fears, especially because we weren't on a busy trail and saw no other humans.  And other than newts and frogs, very little animal life. 

After our hike we headed to a distant town, bigger than the nearest town in hopes of cheap gas prices, and good cell reception so we could check in with the kids.  When we got back to our car we saw that a small, camouflage tent and a plastic chair were now occupying the campsite next to us that the host was saving for the elderly couple with the wrong date.  That's the only activity we ever saw there.  No one showed up that night either.  In town, we hit a Walmart and a Bob Evans as well as a gas station.  And that's about all the bigger town had.

Back near camp, we decided to check out the trail around Summit Lake.  B had gone out in the morning to see if the trail around the lake was muddy from that night's rain, and it was, so we opted for the forest road hike.  But the trail around the lake that evening looked dry, so we made plans to hike it the next morning.  We also spotted a snake slithering through the bushes.  This is the first time that I can ever remember coming across a snake in the wild (that wasn't crossing a road I was driving on).  The bottom right picture is zoomed in on the snake's head.  The middle left picture is his body slithering through the shrubs.

Caterpillars were everywhere!  This teeny one was on the tent.

Full from dinner at Bob Evans and with damp firewood from the previous night's rain, we decided to skip dinner.  We read and played SkipBo and headed to bed.  After sleeping a couple of hours, thunder and lightning woke me up and we moved to the car for about 30 minutes of the storm.  Then back to the tent and to sleep.  B woke up the next morning and fried up our Kielbasa sausages and onions and potatoes making our tin foil dinner we missed into a breakfast.  We packed everything up, and after the constant rain all night, skipped the trail around the lake and headed to the Cranberry Glades, a bog with a half mile boardwalk trail.
While on the boardwalk we both got spooked and jumped when we surprised a snake and it flipped out.  Luckily it slithered away into the bog.

I held on to B's GPS watch while he used the bathroom.  Comparison.

Camping - Days 1 and 2: Shenandoah NP (Loft Mountain)

Since our ten year anniversary was last month, we wanted to plan some sort of getaway while B's mom was in town for his graduation and could stick around and watch the kids while we did something.  The something ended up being a camping trip.  B's sister's family had reserved a camping spot in Shenandoah that, due to the graduation that they were also going to be attending, they weren't going to use, so they offered it to us.  After Buddy's T-ball game on Saturday, and after the giant hoagie, B and I packed up and headed out.  We got to Shenandoah in enough time to set up camp and walk around the campsite.  We ate leftover giant hoagies for dinner and watched the sun set from our awesome campsite (right next to the Appalachian Trail).  I slept poorly worrying about bears.  I'm terrorized easily by wild animals, and reading on the Shenandoah website that bears have learned to recognize food coolers in parked cars, didn't allay my fears.

Sunday morning, we woke up and after some Ziplock bag omelets and breaking camp, we went on a 3 or so mile hike - Doyles Falls (down to some waterfalls, and then up to the parking lot).  The hike was beautiful and not very long, but the up and down made for some sore muscles.

We finished around lunch time and just snacked in the car as we drove to Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia and the the Summit Lake Campground.

We stopped at a Nature Center to use the bathrooms before we got to the campground and found this on the bear proof trash can.  B thought this was funny.  Common thieves apparently like nature centers and camping.  Maybe it's a West Virginia thing.

This campground was more for trucks hauling camping trailers with long driveways and limited space for tent set-up.  It seems like it attracts a lot of local people who are coming for the fishing.  We found a location that would fit both our tent and our screen house picnic area.  It was empty, but the little pole by our spot had a slip on it.  The slip said May 2 (it was May 22).  We asked the neighboring guy and he said that yes, it was an old slip, so while B set up our tent I drove back to the camp station where I filled out the little envelope, inserted our money and paid for the next two nights.  Then I returned and replaced the old tag with our new tag.  This was about 3PM.  Around 5:30 or 6, after we've been set up for a few hours, have blown up the air mattress and are chopping wood for a camp fire, our camp host runs over.  This was the gist of our conversation:

Host: This spot's reserved.  There were some people here earlier with a picnic and they had a chair and they have it for one night and are coming back.  There was a paper clipped to the pole.

Us: This paper.  It says May 2.  We asked the next camper and he said this was old.  And there wasn't anything here.  Not a chair or anything.

Host: That guy [motioning to the next camper] he's been here for a week.*  Well, the couple was here around 2:30 and they had a picnic with their grandkids and they're coming back.

Us: We've been here since at least 3 or 3:30.  We didn't see them.  The site was empty.  And we've set everything up [motioning toward our tent and screen house (which is about as difficult to put up as a tent)].

Host: Well it's been reserved (while lighting a cigarette).

Us: But they put the wrong date, so it wasn't really reserved.

Host: They're old, in their seventies.**  I can't believe she'd put the wrong date.(Sort of shaking his head in disgust at her).  I watched her write it.  She's a retired school teacher.

Us: We'd really rather not take everything down when we're already all set up and we did nothing wrong.

Host: [starts coming around to our side of things] I guess I'll pull my car into this spot next to here and save it for them when they show up.  

*Which should give him more credibility for knowing our spot was vacant, not less.
**He's probably in his mid-60s.

Then he proceeds to tell us to keep our food in the car because the bears have been real active here every night.  And he tells us that if there's a thunderstorm with lightning to be sure to get in our car because our spot has been hit by lightning four times in the last two years.  It blew up a guys' trailer.  It blew up a guys' generator and threw him into the trees, he's lucky to be alive.  I asked if there was a thunderstorm in the forecast and he said yes, with 60 mph winds.  Great.

B's reading Plato's Republic.  I'm reading Toni Morrison's Beloved (only chapter 1).

We built a fire, roasted hot dogs and marshmallows.  Played cards and read in our screen house (beautiful invention... why do people have just the shade ones when this kept us 97% bug free!!)  Every time a truck drove past we had to worry about some old couple confronting us.  They never came.  Right around when we'd go to bed there was lightning so we played Phase 10 in the car for about 45 minutes before going to bed. 

I slept horribly because I was paranoid about lightning and bears.  I heard some sort of weird wild animal noise in the night, probably a night bird, that I convinced myself was a bear.  And finally morning arrived.

T-ball Game

After Thursday Graduation, which was just B's College, not the entire University, he decided to blow off the giant Saturday morning graduation where they wouldn't even say his name, and we probably wouldn't be able to spot him.  The cousins headed home for a service project they were involved in and decided not to skip out on since the graduation wasn't happening.  And Buddy was thrilled that this meant Grandma and Grandpa were coming to his t-ball game.

Buddy as pitcher

Getting the ball to throw to first.

(video uploading problems)

Then we came home and enjoyed a giant hoagie that the Richmond relatives bought as our after Graduation feast before we decided to skip out on that graduation.  Thanks!

 

Manassas Battlefield

Friday, after the Thursday night graduation, we went to the Manassas Battlefield with the cousins and the grandparents. First we had a picnic, then Grandpa took a ranger led tour while the rest of us just walked around and the kids climbed on canons and ran through the grass.

I tried to get some good close up pictures of my kids.  Little Guy refused to cooperate.

After the Battlefield, we took them to the new bike/scooter trail we discovered and this time we explored the tunnel that Buddy spotted last time.  Then home for pizza and out for ice cream.

Master

Last Thursday (5/19) night, B received his Masters degree!  

His parents, our little family, and his sister and her family were in attendance.

Then we went for ice cream.

Buddy and cousin S

And we stood on a compass rose because some of us have names that start with the first letters NESW.

Stream

Another bike ride, but this time the dry stream bed had water in it and B, the little 3 1/2 year old son of our friends LOVES puddles so we spent a lot of time in the stream.

Kids

"Remember [Princess Sparkley], lots of Grandma's books don't make sense because they are missing pages because they are like thousands of years old."  Buddy to Princess Sparkley while she reads them a Star Wars book from B's childhood.

Game 3

 Today was Buddy's 3rd T-ball game of the season.  Red Sox vs. Orioles.  And we played against two boys from church, a boy from last year's T-ball team, and a girl from his soccer team (and the coach was Buddy's old soccer coach).

 

After the game.

After high fiving the other team.

Newsies

We've been working our way through some of the older, non-cartoon movies that we think our kids would enjoy.  A friend loaned us Newsies, which the kids were unsure of, but it turns out they love.  Buddy has already made his own newspaper (more than one) and I often hear him in his room shooting/singing "I'm the king of New York!"  The other day, Little Guy sang and danced for B, who sent him downstairs to find me and I had him do it again on film... for your viewing pleasure.

(The kid singing it the first time is Buddy, off camera.)

Bike Trail

We found a fun bike/walk trail in town and invited some friends to join us on our first adventure on it.

 Buddy and Little Guy were on bikes and Princess Sparkley was on her scooter.  It was a great trail with ponds and playgrounds every once in awhile to give us a break from bike riding.

And we saw some geese and goslings as well as a great blue heron (bottom left corner picture). 

1.64 miles

Owls

These are Little Guy's first attempts at drawings.  He scribbles stuff and tells us what it is, but it's just a scribble.  Or he'll scribble something and then decide what it is based on what it now looks like.  But for Mother's Day, we were coloring cards for the Grandmas and he asked me to help him draw an owl.  I just pointed at the paper and told him where to draw circles and then a big triangle around the eyes and then a big circle for the body.  And feet.  He did the drawing all on his own (left-handed). 

He was thrilled with his drawings and insisted on drawing more owls.  This one below he declared a baby owl and did all on his own without me telling him what to draw where.

 

Several hours after drawing these pictures for the Grandmas and mailing them of, he came and told me he wanted to draw some more owls.  I told him he could draw other things too, not just owls.  He had me help him draw a cat and a bird and then he drew a few more owls on his own.  

Luckily I scanned these in before he finished, because at least one Grandma's owl got completely colored in so you couldn't see any of the drawing underneath.

Happy Mother's Day

Little Guy and I went grocery shopping yesterday and all on his own he was super interested in everyone with flowers and wanted to buy some white ones. So he picked out a bundle of white carnations for me for Mother's Day. Princess Sparkley made me a felt corsage and a candy flower bucket (at Activity Days). Buddy created a Lego corsage, and some giant Lego flowers for me. And I baked myself this cake.

Post Bath Time

After a bath, Buddy is typically blue and freezing so he huddles on the floor like this (green towel).  Little Guy just does everything his big brother does.  So here is one green burrito and one stripey burrito.

T-ball: Game 2

This morning's game was against the Washington Nationals.  And their uniforms arrived in time for the game!  Buddy picked # 7 because he's 7 years old.

 

Books

This is the load of library books we had to return today.  And we kept about a dozen at home to finish reading.

Healthy Heart Check-up

Little Guy went to his pediatric cardiologist for his yearly check up today.  When he was a newborn, my paranoia was that he wouldn't cooperate.  His very first echocardiogram ever, when he was 3 weeks old, had to be delayed because he was hungry and I had to feed him, it was all very uncomfortable and stressful for me.  Plus, in Kansas, there were appointments that took 3 hours with waiting and all they have to do.  Here, the appointments are still pretty long (we arrived half an hour early to an 11AM appointment today and didn't leave until 12:30, but were busy most of that time).  As he's gotten older, my concern has been getting a toddler to lay still for long periods of time while they attach all the stickers and wires for his EKG and for a really long time while they do the echo.  Today was the same doctor he saw last year, but at a new office.  And this office was playing Finding Nemo and had a giant fish tank, complete with Nemo and Dory.  Little Guy loved it.

They started off weighing him and measuring how tall he is.  She even told it to me in inches and pounds instead of the metric measurements, and I forgot.  I *think* he was 33 lbs. and 40.5 inches.  He was hesitant to step on the scale but finally did.

Then a nurse had him take his shirt off.  He asked us before the appointment if he'd have to take all his clothes off and if the doctor would give him a shot.  This is the first time he didn't have to strip down to a diaper, he got to keep his shorts on.  The nurse attached all the stickers and wires for his EKG.  The hardest part was convincing him to lay down on the paper covered exam table.  He did NOT like this.  Once all the stickers and wires are properly attached, it only takes 10 seconds for a reading. 

Then into a new room (sports themed) to wait.  After 5-10 minutes the echo lady came and got us and took us to her exam room.  She put on Sesame Street (a huge improvement from SpongeBob, which is usually what we get stuck watching, and who Little Guy is clueless about and not interested in).  Again, he freaked out about laying down, even though this exam table has a pillow.  This is basically like an ultrasound when you are pregnant.  She puts a little pit of gel on and then runs the little (I told him it was a camera) all over his chest, neck and tummy getting good pictures of his heart.  This takes 20-30 minutes (I don't know exactly).  About halfway through it he relaxed a little and started talking to me more about Sesame Street and what the echo lady was doing.  I told him he could look on her computer and see the pictures she was taking of his heart, and he glanced at it but that was all.  After the echo he was rewarded with a ball and a lollipop.  And off to a new room (animal themed) where we waited to talk to to doctor.  This wait was maybe 15-20 minutes.

The doctor came and listened to his heart.  Again he didn't want to lay down on the table, although when I asked him to pose for a picture on my camera phone when there was no doctor in the room, he wanted to lay down on the table and I told him he could stay sitting up.  She listened to his heart and had him take big breaths.  Then she talked to me.  She said everything is the same as last time.  There is still a slight leak which is common after a balloon valvuloplasty.  She said kids with leaks like this have to be careful with weight lifting types of sports and heavy contact sports (ie: football), but to still expose him to a variety of sports.  She made it sound like to test his bodies ability to cope and also so he's got a variety of sports he's tried in case later on he's limited to what he can actually do.  So, don't just introduce him to baseball, because maybe it will be outlawed later.  Introduce him to baseball and swimming and soccer and golf, etc.  She asked him if he wanted to play T-ball.  He told her (me) "[Buddy] plays T-ball."  She told me that he's probably going to stay steady like he has been until he's an adolescent.  And even then he may steady out even more to where she'll only have to see him every two years.  She asked him if he'd come back and see her in a year.  And she told him she'll never give him a shot, she doesn't even have the stuff to give shots anywhere in her office.  Then she gave him a stack of stickers.

When we got back to the car and I was buckling him in his car seat he said, "that was fun.  And scary.  The fish tank was fun."

Dress

 I've always seen the pre-shirred fabric in the store and wanted to try making Princess Sparkley a summer dress out of it.  She had a few when she was a tiny girl that I loved.  I saw this fabric the other day and bought 24 inches hoping that would be enough.  It worked, but next time I think I'd buy 30 to be safe, this top is a little tight on her.  My seam is about 1 1/2 because it's hard to straighten/flatten out the top part to get it right.  All I did was sew it together in a tube and add straps (from leftover bias tape from her Easter skirt) and the green bias tape border at the bottom.

T-ball

Last year, Buddy showed up to his first day of t-ball practice dressed in Red Sox shorts, jersey and hat, only to find out he was going to be a Yankee.  This year, he showed up in his Yankee shirt and hat from last season, only to find out he's a Red Sox this year!  Too funny.  He's thrilled though since deep down, he's a bigger Red Sox fan.  They're uniforms hadn't come in yet by game one on Saturday, but he had enough Red Sox stuff to make it work.

Locks for Love

Princess Sparkley has been growing her hair out since last time we got it chopped, July 4, 2008.  She's gotten maybe two haircuts since then, but just trims (and one was a horrible trim by me).  While she would LOVE to have hair like Rapunzel, it's been driving B and I crazy because she doesn't remember to brush is every morning, it's always getting into her food while she eats, and it's taking over our house.  We find hair every where!  We talked her into getting her hair cut thinking it was probably long enough to donate to Locks for Love.  And it was! 

Before                       After

Sorry, I don't have a very good before picture.  I didn't think to take one and a lot of her recent pictures have her hair up in a bun/ponytail/braid to control it.  She's a little creeped out in the second picture by the ponytail.

Star Wars Birthday

We did a friend party for Buddy last year, so this year we just did a family party.  Star Wars themed.  It was either going to be Lego, Star Wars, Star Wars Lego, army, race track or construction.  He has a lot of interests.

I sewed a felt "Happy Birthday" bunting to use for all of our birthdays, and a plain one for the "arch" into the dining area.  We decorated with random Star Wars guys and pictures of Buddy.  I called our one bookshelf the Buddy shrine and put a bunch of framed pictures of him as a baby and as a little kid up.  Then I hung a piece of yarn and using tiny clothespins, hung pictures of Buddy in chronological order.  I thought that was pretty fun.

Buddy spent all yesterday trying to convince me that it was his birthday. Or that "birthday eve" should be celebrated by opening all presents that involve Legos.  The kids woke up earlier than they have been all week (8AM) and Buddy was beyond excited to open presents.  We broke down and let him open them even before breakfast.


He got: 
A Washington Capitals t-shirt with Ovechkin's #8 on the back.
A Lego city block (including a bus, three story pizza parlor, bus top and bike shop)
A Lego Star Wars storm trooper thing
A Lego firetruck
Star Wars cookie cutters
some extra spending money

He spent most of the day building Legos.

Dinner was double sided light saber hot dogs and Yoda Soda to drink (ideas from here).  We ran out of time (and energy) to make the Princess Leia cupcakes.  Another day.  We had light saber cupcakes for the cake (idea from here).  And of course, Star Wars sugar cookies (using this recipe).

Egg War 2011

 Egg Wars.

Easter Bunny Training

 Little Guy got bored while I was making dinner, found the empty Easter eggs, and started refilling them with his Easter candy.

At the Park

It was such a nice day, and the kids wanted to be outside, so we broke down and let them go play at a park in town.