Gaver Farms is a big deal in our area in the fall. I had no idea. I didn’t even know this place existed. But one of my sisters suggested we take all the kids for a day out and now I get it. It is a big deal.
There’s a “pillow” bounce, hay rides, pumpkin picking, 2 huge slides, a corn maze, games, animal petting and feedings and more… it is a wonderland for kids and this needs to happen again.
We have taken plenty of trip and vacations since Joel and I have been married. But all of them have been with our extended family or with friends. This weekend we made our very first family vacation happen for us and our kids. The weather was still really nice so we decided to pack it all up and go camping. The park we chose was attached to a children’s amusement park, Dutch Wonderland. It wasn’t as “rough” as Joel would’ve liked but that will have to wait until the kids are older. For their age it was perfect. Everyone slept and we had a great time. I think this trip will have to happen again.
At the end of the summer we took a trip to the beach with Joel’s family. This year was pretty eventful. A couple days before we were supposed to leave I had to go to the ER for a pain in my side… what I thought was maybe bad gas soon turned into black-out, keel over pain. Turns out I had a kidney stone. And I couldn’t pass it. SO our trip looked like this…
Spend days before departure at doctors visits and on pain meds. Drive to beach with the kids for two days. Leave the kids with grandparents and drive back to get a Sonic Wave to break up this pain-in-my-side stone. Return to the beach for some R&R and try to put it all behind us.
This past beach trip wasn’t what I had been expecting. They think dehydration (maybe from nursing) brought it on. And now I’m going to have to have regular check ups because they saw other stones and they are part of my medical history now. But I am so aware of how God cushioned everything to help me deal with a bad situation a little easier. I couldn’t have been taken care of without all of my family stepping up to watch my kids and drive me to so many doctors visits. Thank God they all live so close and are so so willing to help. Joel works for himself/with his dad so he could take time off to help me. I couldn’t have gotten to rest with my toes in the sand without picking a beach so close to home (which Joel and I were not origonally thrilled with). God saw it coming… yes I had to still deal with the pleasure of a kidney stone but I saw how He lined everything up for me to be taken care of. I felt His care and that of everyone around me. Anyway… I don’t have many pictures but here are a few. The majority are pictures from Frontier Town… that was probably the highlight of O’s trip.
This summer flew by and fortunately I was able to snap a couple of pictures to show you our highlights…
And the ever popular first laughs…
As you know I’ve been baby sitting this summer. The boys I watch were going away to the beach last week so I was expecting some time off but their mom asked that I come on Monday and Tuesday. Turns out that the oldest had soccer tryouts that he couldn’t miss. He was not happy about missing beach time. No one thought he would make the team. Those days didn’t look like they would be a lot of fun.
So to try to lighten his mood I took him to the fair. We had a blast! I told him to ride on as many rides as he wanted. And he did such a good job of including O. It was a great day.
I got a text from their dad that night telling me that I didn’t need to come in on Tuesday. Turns out that someone actually made the soccer team on his first night of tryouts! A perfect end to such a great day =)
Okay so I know I promised to fill you in on the 30 miles MS bike race that I did. I’ll make it brief because no matter how guilty I’m feeling about making promises and not fulfilling them, I am also feeling very uninspired. It went like this:
I was talking to my older sister Laurin and she asked me to train for a 30 mile bike race with her. Neither of us are in shape. Both of us are overweight. We were far from ready. AND on top of that she informed me that we would have to raise $300 to participate! But Laurin was diagnosed with MS this past year and that made it worth all the pain and discomfort of training to raise money to find a cure. So we set out to train.
We should have trained more… a lot more. But we only had a couple months worth of Saturdays to fit it in so we did what we could. The longest bike ride we had done prior to the race was 22 miles I think. So when the time came for us to pack up my car and head to the eastern shore for this shindig, we were a little nervous. We kept coming up with excuses as to why we could hitchhike back to the start-finish line. Laurin’s was simple “I have MS, someone take pity!” mine was too “I have morning sickness and I might spew” (did I forget to mention that? 30 miles in 95 degree weather on the verge of throwing up is my least favorite memory from this trip). But despite wanting to back out at the last minute we knew there was no turning back. We had raised the money. We had trained (kinda). Laurin had told family and friends that she’d been diagnosed. My parents were riding a longer version of the race. And our two younger sisters we driving down to volunteer. We had to do this.
The race actually went pretty well. There were a lot of things that could have gone better. It ended up being hot, really really hot. And the course was not as flat as we had been hoping- I swear we spent half the race climbing/crawling up mountains. And while both of our bikes were hybrids, it became clear that we should have just been using road bikes. But don’t let the bad stuff fool you. We still had mostly a good time. We had our sisters there to hand us water, food, hugs and encouragement at two pit stops. We met our parents at the other pit stop and had lunch and shade and loads of water. We also had one another to talk with, cry with, laugh with and commiserate. I really could not have done this race without Laurin and I wouldn’t have wanted to do it with anyone else.
All in all it was hot and miserable at times. But I had a blast with my family and I’m so proud of myself doing something that tough!
Thank you to everyone who gave money to make this possible- I think I was most worried about asking for money and raising the funds. Thanks for making it so easy. And thanks for giving us to chance to take more control of MS to do something proactive instead of just reactive.
For once I’m on time with a post =) I finished babysitting this weekend. It was a busy, fun summer and I’m glad I got my “J Team” fix. The boys were asking me if O and I would watch them when they have school breaks. The answer is no but it’s nice to know that they liked the summer this much (or maybe they just liked the DVD player in my car).
There are so many highlights from the summer so I’ll list a few so I won’t forget… J1 Making huge slides out of cardboard and a painters ladder. O learning to climb that ladder. O sliding down his own slide by himself. Watching J2 on his dirt bike. O running to Marlana to be picked up. J2 playing hide and seek with O. J1 playing on the play set with O. O saying both boys names! Trips to 7-11, the neighbors pools, Jimmy Cone and my house. The J’s telling me that O is kind of their little brother.
I’ve been watching “The J Team” this summer. For those of you who don’t know- I used to nanny for a family with two boys. My last summer working for them was two years back when I was pregnant with my little guy. Months ago I got an email asking me if I would be interested in watching the boys again this summer. It’s been busy but it’s been a blast. I’ve missed those two guys and O loves his surrogate big brothers. I’ve also had time to do some fun warm weather activities with my little man so I’ll try to post pictures before the summers gone.
My sister Tessa suggested a trip to the zoo this past week and it was a perfect day to do it. Not too hot, not too sunny, good company, happy babies, free admission… the list could go on. Honestly it was a blast. I can’t wait until the little boys are older and can tell us which animal they would like to see but from all the squeals and “WOW”s I think they had a blast themselves. And thank you Tessa for propossing these kinds of trips- you get me out of my comfort zone =)
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