Day #8 of Vacation and Saturday

I'm a little behind. Friday we went to Zoo Atlanta. There were a few problems with this. First that it was a late start to the morning when we meant to be out the door a lot earlier because it's just been stinkin' hot here lately.We had a few places to run to before we left, and the Zoo is about a half hour away from our house. So we didn't end up getting there until about 11:30am. Second- it was CROWDED. We happened to go on a day where lots of day camps decided to come AND family reunions. Third- because of the time of day we went, it was HOT. HOT HOT HOT. Luckily there's lots of shade... and we bought some $4 Dip'n Dots (good thing they're SO worth it)... but we couldn't last more than a couple hours. Which, is okay I guess with a zoo. We saw lots of animals and Ben had lots of fun. Most of the pictures of us you can see just how hot we were! I think Ben's favorite stop was the Zebra and Giraffe exhibit. We stayed there the longest.Friday night we went to The Terry's house and Martha ("Marfa" according to Ben) came over too. Ben played the drums a little... and he also played a little Wii with Marfa. Cute!When we got home- at 10pm... Ryan noticed that the gutter in front of our house only was filled with water. Turns out, there was a crack in the PVC pipe in the Water Meter hole. Too bad that the County guy came out and said it was our responsibility because it was on OUR side of the water meter. SO... we placed a call with our Home Insurance peeps and they sent someone out. He told us it wasn't covered but that it would cost $500 to fix it + the $60 service fee for just coming out to look at it. RIDICULOUS. Ryan was NOT happy and the guy said he'd do it for $200 if Ryan dug the hole to get to the pipe himself. So... Ryan dug and saved us $300. $260 later we have a very expensive 6 inches of pipe replacing the cracked pipe. Ugh... We really hate those out of the blue expenses that come with owning a house. I'm grateful it wasn't worse and didn't cost more. And the guy was a very nice man and was super friendly.

So that started our day today. Kind of put Ryan in a funk. He wasn't happy about that, and neither was I really- but I tried to make the best of it. I built a "fort" for Ben and turned on a movie for him. While he played in it I made him some lunch and then let him sit in his fort while he ate. He ate dinner in there too! Ryan even has passed up the comfy couch for the fort twice today to play his video games in it! My boys are two of a kind. :)

After nap time, (don't worry I didn't let the blanket stay like that for long...) we also went swimming to get out of the house. This time we went to the condo the Terry's own that Ashley used to live in. We had fun.

(this picture of Ben cracks me up. He's so leeeeeetle!!!)

I got super depressed tonight though realizing that after tomorrow it's back to reality. My stomach sinks thinking of having to go back to work... I don't wanna! We had a WONDERFUL and relaxing vacation though. Lots of fun at the pool and resting and doing whatever. I'm grateful for it.
On a separate note- the garden is doing great. Our first tomato is ALMOST ready to be picked! And the first green pepper I give about 2-3 days before we can pick it too! I've got lots of Snap Peas that are almost ready, and the cucumber is going wild so I suspect we'll see something from it soon too! I love it! I love how good it feels to grow food of our own and tend to it and watch it and what a miracle and blessing it is! I'm pretty proud of us too, and can't wait until next year to have an even BIGGER garden! Also, I found a rouge garlic clove in the fridge that started to "root", so Ryan decided to put it in water to see what happened. Well that little sucker has grown and fast! So we might plant it, but for now- it'll stay in the jar. It's fun to watch that grow too!Well, I better get to bed. Got Nursery to sub for tomorrow at Church. I'm glad I get to hang out with my dude and his little buddies! Hope I can handle them all! Eek!
I'm going to miss being with this dude all day everyday... Look at this face.

Day #7 of Vacation

Basically, we've mastered the "not doing much" part of our vacation. The "working days" have not really happened... maybe hours more than days. Today was simply the same as the past. Spent at the pool. I have NO regrets, well except for the lack of sunscreen today. :)

This time we headed up a few exits to Cumming at our friend Noelle's neighborhood pool. And I'm telling you, if EVERY neighborhood had a pool like this one- that would be awesome! (notice my lack of something witty to say there...) There was a HUGE kiddie pool with the raining mushroom umbrella thing and slides and stairs and buckets of water... of course, Ben didn't want that pool. (It's like he's saying "I declare!" This is him and Little Aubrey) He wanted the big people pool and all 3 kids (Ben, Noelle's little one Spencer and Kaela's little one Aubrey) wanted to go down the... dun dun dun... WATER SLIDE! YES! I know! A water slide! At a neighborhood pool!!! It was A LOT of fun. We all must've gone down it a million times. We had a lot of fun... and now Ryan and I are paying for it because well- we didn't apply the sunscreen like we should have. Ben's good though- don't worry. He had his water shirt on and I applied sunscreen on him. Anyway- we had fun in the sun and water... we hope to go again soon! The company was great too. It's funny because either Ben could care less about the Kiddie pool stuff or it scares him or both- but he's not even scared of the things we think he should be scared of. He even went down the slide by himself! About 2 hours in, literally all at the same time, all 3 kids (who are all 2 years old) started to have little melt downs. It was lunch/nap time. I tried to get a picture of the three of them together, and well... one would cry- then the other and it was just a domino affect. So I gave up. Ben and Spencer had the same cute trunks... so just imagine a very cute tan MUCH taller 2 year old with the same swimming trunks as Ben. Ha! That's really it for today. We all rested after that... mostly because I'm a lobster. Ryan and Ben burned their feet a little... and you know how men are, Big Babies! We did our Thursday chat with Grandma and Grandpa. I sure miss them. A lot. I miss all of my family. :(
Tomorrow, we're off to the Zoo! Yay! Ben's already really excited. He can't wait to see the "monkey, elfant, panda bear..." etc. Then... even though we still have the weekend, our week of vacation comes to an end. *Sigh* *sad face*.... *crying face*.... Oh well. We have 4th of July weekend to look forward to AND the weekend after that Ben's gonna stay with Nana & Poppy and I've got a Wedding to do and we'll be gone for 2 nights! Our first like "Big Kid" trip away! EEK! I'm excited.

Day #... which is it? Oh 6!

Much to Ryan's chagrin, we did not leave the house today. Well... we went out to the yard. Does that count? No... okay. We cleaned some today- mostly our bedroom which is always a disaster. But just like that, it will and can get messed up again. We did manage to make the bed though! I don't really know what we did this morning to be honest. I made pancakes.... uh... Ryan made a "fan page" for me on Facebook for my photography... uh... hmm. Yah... not much.
After his nap, Ben colored in his highchair and played with play-dough for like 2 hours. I know it sounds horrible or rather that we're horrible parents- but I kept trying to get him out and he didn't want to! He wanted to play with the play-dough! Plus we were cooking and he likes to hang out in the kitchen with us while we do that. He likes to show us all the things he creates with his play-dough like "pancakes" and "flowers". He says "look Mommy! A flower!" or "look Mommy! A 'pider!" He could have probably played with it all night, I actually had to take it away from him to feed him and he didn't like that.
After dinner we took him out to the driveway and played in the water. I mostly sprayed him and Ryan and that was good enough. Tomorrow we go to the pool with some friends, I heard there's a slide! So that should be fun. We plan on hopefully going to the Zoo on Friday too.
On the side... I can't get over just how smart our little guy is. He's learning his colors really well. He sings the alphabet in his muddled way all the time, oh and "Happy Birthday to ___ (fill in the blank)" too. He counts a lot, even if it's not in chronological order all the time. Once he gets past 5 or 6 he mixes numbers up and stuff- but he knows them! Tonight, when I asked Ryan what time it was- Ben was on my lap and got in my face to answer me "two tweddy" or something to that affect. But he knew what I was asking! He almost always answers "ya" to everything. Even when he throws stuff and he knows he's not supposed to and I ask if that was nice. And lately... in order for us to give him something or in the case of this week, go "swimmin'" he says to me "Mommy, I wanna be nice... I be nice." Ha ha! So cute. If he's in time out in his bedroom he'll say "All finished" when he feels like he's learned his lesson. It's hard not to let him just be finished! Ryan sent me a picture yesterday while I was at the dentist of Ben stacking books on top of another to make a tower. Ryan kept saying "This kid's a genius!" Well, of course we think he is. Maybe he'll grow up to make lots of money so he can support us. :) He already has $40.20 in his piggy bank... so hey! Anything is possible! (I swear the house looks messier than it really was...)
He's definitely becoming a handful... very 2 years old. Love the tantrums. Mmm-hmm, sure do. (can you sense the sarcasm in my tone?) He fortunately knows my "looks" when he has pushed me too far, but he's also becoming smart about figuring out how to change the subject or something... kinda like his dad. Hmmm... interesting! He also is starting to tell on people, like Ally (the dog) for one! "Mommy, Ally's kicking me..." "Mommy Ally hittin' me". He is so fun though. He plays really well for the most part but gets bored pretty easy if he's not doing something to keep his mind going. (Hence the 2 hour stint in the high chair today!) He watches a lot... and you can see the little wheels turning in his head. He's very observant that little one. I just love him to pieces!
Okay, it's past my bedtime... even for vacation. Night all!

Day #5 of Vacation

Well, today was just another day. We had a good breakfast and then I made an appointment to go see the dentist today since I was off and could take as much time as I needed. I HATE THE DENTIST. HATE. BUT... I really liked this one and all the nurses and staff there! It makes me actually want to go back! And well, I have to, because I'm going to need 2 crowns on some teeth in the back where I munch accidentally on a ROCK in my black beans at Willy's Mexican. Ugh... expensive rock. And it's not even a diamond. Anyway, whilst I was away (sounds so magical) Ryan and Ben hung out and cleaned the garage up a bit. When I got home it looked MUCH better and Ryan had also done some laundry too. Good man. But I did some dishes this morning! Does that count? We went to the pool again today. (It smelled like poop. I think because a dog did near by, but man was that stinky! Kinda ruined it for us...)
When we got home, we barbecued some chicken which was delicious. Then after Ben's bath- he was pretty much done with us. He kept saying "Night-night Daddy!" and asked if he could get in his bed! No arguments here kid! Shortly before he was going to bed, we started hearing thunder and then it got stronger and stronger and lightning was hitting. The dog was more scared then he was, luckily, and he still went to sleep just fine. He's such a dang good sleeper. After the storm blew over, Ryan noticed across the street that there were hundreds of little fireflies in the neighbors yard and I just love those little buggers, so I went and videoed them. That's an awesome part of living in the South! I'm so glad my kids get to grow up with those! You can see lightning in this clip and hear the thunder! I busted a move inside after that because it was pretty close!

Our garden is still doing well, although it's been pretty dry and hot the last few days. Today was the first time in a while we've had an evening pop-up storm. Which is good, because the whole yard needed a drink and I just can't foot the bill to give it to it! We've got green peppers growing like champs, the snap peas are podding (is that what you say?) and of course any day now we'll have a red tomato! Although, I'm almost tempted to pick the HUGE green one we have and attempt to make some Fried Green Tomatoes... but I've never had them before, so I'd better leave that to someone else to do. Well, that's it for our Tuesday!

Day #4 of Vacation

I know... you're bored with me... but this is for our family journal really. I guess in the scheme of things it doesn't REALLY matter what we did everyday, but I want to remember for some reason.
Before we started this vacation here at home... we decide since we WOULD be home we'd get some things done around the house. Well, the lack of motivation to do such things is overwhelming. It just feels good to do... NOTHING. Today we woke up and got ready and waited for Geoffy to come over and well, quickly realized I didn't have a suitable swimsuit to wear to our outing swimming. So right when he arrived I left to go venture out to find a suit. I did, and as soon as I got back home we left to go swimming. I tell you what, that kid of ours has NO fear of the pool! He just will run in with out any thought. All the while someone is rushing to catch him when he jumps in! He doesn't even care about going underwater, but it sure scares the crap out of us! We are SO glad he loves the water but feel we need to teach him some important RULES of swimming and being in the pool. He talks about swimming all day when he's NOT swimming. Walks around with his swim diapers and swim trunks saying "mommy/daddy, I want to go swimmin'" repeatedly.
After the pool we all relaxed. Ate some pizza (there's nothing quite like pizza after swimming huh?) Ben went down willingly for a nap and the grownups watched a little of the World Cup, Spain vs. Honduras. Those Spaniards sure are cute! Pretty boys! Then pretty much I worked on pictures this afternoon, checked on the vegetable garden and then we ate a yummy dinner. We went for a walk at like 8 and it was still 90 degrees... ugh... it's so hot. I really would rather it be Spring or Fall all the time weather wise. It's just too darn hot in the Summer. Time for bed!

Hopefully, tomorrow we'll find that motivation somewhere and get some things down around this place. BUT... we'll see. We know that a trip to the pool is in order again!

Day #3 of Vacation

Yesterday, we slept in (on accident). It was Father's day but we had already given Ryan a gift with his birthday presents so we went to his parent's house to give his dad his gift. (We also had his mom's birthday present as her birthday is two days before Ryan's... as well as his sister Kelly's.) We promised his dad a trip for the boys (Ryan, Poppy and Ben) to a Brave's game. He showed us his 400ft tall tomato plants... okay they're not really that tall, but they sure looked like someone gave him some magic beans like those from Jack and the Beanstalk! We spent some time there with Nana and Poppy and ate lunch and Ben played with his new toys the spoiled him with.
In the meantime we were supposed to be taking dinner to the Elton's but they called to tell us earlier in the day not to worry about it because they weren't coming home because little baby H had jaundice. We were going to postpone until Monday night. Well, after Ben's nap at home we were about ready to head out the door when Mark called and said because they were staying one more night in the hospital they would appreciate if we could bring them some dinner because they were WAY sick of hospital food. We quickly whipped up some yummies and rushed it to the hospital and then spent the rest of the evening over at the Terry's house.
It was somewhat of a taxing day because Ben not only has hit his terrible 2's but he's also STILL TEEEEEETHING!!! AH! I had NO idea it would last this long! Just as I thought we were all done for a while, his canines all just came in...there's more. He was acting like he was teething but I thought "surely he's going to get a break from his 2 year molars... surely..." nope. I had him open his mouth and right there... in the back right is a molar that's almost all the way cut through. Poor kid. He even said "momma, my mouth hurts" last night and this morning when he woke up. I just pray they'll come quick so we can be done with it all. It's so strange how every kid is different. I think my mom thought I was using teething as an excuse for his occasional yucky behavior because she didn't think it could/would last this long either. But seriously... I guess he just has to take his time with a few things! Like potty training... ugh... I don't want to talk about it.
Anyway... day #3 was good... but now that means only 7 left. :( Sad Face.

Day #2 Vacation

Woke up and made breakfast. Watched Alice in Wonderland. Got ready and went and visited Hillary and Mark Elton and their brand new baby, Ryan's new birthday buddy. Went to the mall to eat. Came home and quickly realized that our son had not had a nap and that he was restless and tired and needed something to do because it was too late for a nap. We went to the Elton's pool and Ryan and Ben swam... well, Ben just mostly jumped to Ryan the entire time. That kid has no fear! I wanted to swim but my swimsuit is broken- BOOOOOO! (Thumbs down!) Ben just LOVES the water! And we're grateful for that! After swimming, they went down the slides a couple of times at the playground there. We came home and did a bath and ate dinner. Put Ben down to bed, and he fell asleep in less than 10 mins and Ryan and I watched Invictus. GREAT movie. BED TIME!

Day #1 of Vacation

This year for our Summer vacation, we made the decision to stay home. A "Staycation". Well, at first I was kind of a little bummed... but the more I thought about it, the more I grew to LOVE the idea. We have a whole 10 days at home! To do... whatever! Our goal, which may or may not happen, is to get some housework done. But it sure is relaxing to do nothing... so we'll see how that works out.

Day #1 was spent today, Friday, as first and foremost- Ryan's 29th birthday! Yay! We all woke up and gave Daddy some cool presents. He ruined his flip flops during the rain storm camping so I got him some new ones. And he's been wanting a map of the United States to hang up somewhere, probably the garage, to pin all the places where we've been/visited. After that we did the not-so-fun part of the day and went to register the cars/motorcycle. Luckily it didn't take long, other than the fact we had to go downtown Atlanta to do it, which I just really dislike.

After Ben's nap, he and Ryan got in the kiddie pool to cool down and play for a little bit. My boys both love the water!We cleaned up the house when they were done, and headed to dinner at Taco Mac with Nana & Poppy (man it's hard not to type Poopy when I spell that out) and our friends; The Terry's, the Kranendonk's, The Burkes, Clint and Geoff. It was so much fun to be with all of our loved ones.

We had Ryan's favorite cake and ice cream at our house afterward- yellow cake with chocolate icing and Cookies n' Cream ice cream. This was the first year in a while we've been in town for his birthday so it was fun to have a celebration ON his birthday with all our peeps!.

Our Yard for 2010, Mothers Day and projects

We decided to "freshen up" the landscaping in the yard out front this Spring and also decided to give a vegetable/fruit garden a try this year. It was nice to be out in the yard in the cool Spring air to do the front. And it was nice to make things look better too. My dad sent us home with some good stuff for the front lawn when we went out to UT, and so far the lawn looks great this year. Also, we decided to do a small (not so small anymore) food garden in the backyard. Everything is growing pretty well! We found a cute little 4x4 Garden "kit" so to speak at Home Depot and planted WAY too much in it. But it's our first garden, together and of our own, AND it was more or less of a test to see if we could even do it. And apparently we can! Our tomato plant is HUGE! Taller than Ryan, and everything else is big and spread out. We lost one strawberry, but the other survived. We might need to expand- but we plan to take a look at doing that during our time off work next week. We got our first strawberry last weekend, (pictured below in collage) but it was tiny and not super strawberry-ish... it was kind of mushy and tart. But it was from OUR garden! Our first born tomato is hopefully going to ripen soon, although now it has LOTS of brothers and sisters to keep it company. The green peppers are starting to grow little peppers... it's all so very exciting for us! We're so proud!Here is it's progress... somehow the 2 week photo got left out... but ah oh well. You get the point. Mother's Day this year we had Ryan's parents over for a nice dinner. They were super sweet and brought us a beautiful Hydrangea plant that we unfortunately failed to plant in time and is pathetically reminding us of that every day dead in the yard! We hope to find a replacement for it soon! Ryan got me a cute little lamp and a sweet card. We also painted the back bedroom finally and that was an awesome gift! Although, Ryan wasn't so in to it- so did the majority of it. But painting doesn't completely suck to me so it was fine. We did it in preparation for my brother Greg who came to visit that weekend for Delinda's graduation (post for that separately)... but also because it was the last room in the house to be painted and really needed it. Here are some before and afters.

From One End of the World to Another

Well, I found these two articles today on the internet. One makes me happy and is very encouraging. The other is sad to me, both having some sort of impact on my history or past- both from different parts of the world!

Uplifting article first about the 2010 World Cup Soccer tournament being hosted by my mom's birth country South Africa! So positive and exciting! Read article HERE. Some of the comments are really neat too, like this one:
June 9th, 2010 1:47 pm ET
I don’t think that the image portrayed by the media of our country is always necessarily correct. We are not a bunch of tyre burning demonstrators or white supremacist farmers. In fact, the colour lines have very much blurred in recent years. From an ordinary “woman on the street” point of view, if we win this Soccer Wold Cup, it will only be a bonus. There is a buzz and an underlying current of pride and joy that is tangible. You see it in the black men teaching white woman how to properly make noise on a vuvuzela and white men dancing next to black woman and everyone singing Shosholoza and Nkosi Sikilela together. The issue of race is alive and well because it is given attention. The moment it is ignored, like a child tantruming for sweeties, it will stop. I personally am sick and tired of the uncertainty and fear unnecessarily created. Yes we have issues and problems with crime, we also have one of the most liberal and progressive constitutions in the world. Come and visit our incredible beautiful country, come and listen to 11 different languages, come and eat food from more cultures packed into one restaurant menu than you thought possible, come and see our beautiful children, the Cradle of Human Kind, Table Bay, the surfers in Durban, the breathtaking desolation of the Karoo and the majestic Drankensberg mountains. Thank you to Madiba and Mr. Danny Jordaan and their team. Thank you for working tirelessly to bring this event to our beloved country with such poise and class. It has united us all like nothing ever has before! Go Bafana go. We are so incredibly proud of you no matter if you win or lose. You already are our heroes. And we will not be successful in hosting this World Cup, we already are successful!



Here is an article I found via Facebook from some friends I grew up with and went to high school with, this is the sad news. My high school, Sinagua High in Flagstaff, AZ is being closed as of this Fall. No more SHS Mustangs and that saddens me. Read article HERE.I had some really good memories there- like all of my wonderful friends and going to Major Lingo with them and Choir and Yearbook; some not so good- like tripping up the stairs between classes (embarrassing!) and the Math Teach that said "n-kay" like literally a thousand times in 5 mins. And while I'd like to pontificate more, I will now post. (*Reminder to self for book- copy and paste the WHOLE article for journaling purposes!)

Delinda, the PhD!

So on May 10th my older sister Delinda graduated from Emory University with her PhD in Art History and African Studies (with Honors I might add!)! This is such exciting news for us as a family because Delinda is the first one in our family (of the kids, no you don't count mom) to get a degree let alone a PhD! We can call her Doctor DJ now! It's also exciting for me personally because I've been along for much of the ride with her. She convinced me to move out to GA with her when she made the move to get this degree here at Emory. Boy am I glad I did, even though I sometimes miss the West coast... there has been many wonderful things that have happened out here. ANYWAY, she and Jen made the trip out here as well our brother Greg. Greg stayed with us and it was wonderful to see him, be with him, bond with him, watch he and Ben bond... it was just good. The ceremony was quick and painless... unlike most graduations. I teared up so much. I haven't seen her THAT HAPPY in ages and I think she was super proud of herself and relieved it was over!!! She's been through MUCH through these last 5 years to get this done. Crazy trips to Angola, moving here and there, lots of late nights of writing, crazy advisers, losing files/half the papers she wrote... but a lot of good has happened for her too. Namely her landing a PRIME job as a professor at the Art Institute of Chicago already and has been teaching there for a little while already. Anyway, before the graduation took place we sat in our seats next to Delinda's friends Liz and Dan and waited but I got up for a minute to call Ryan. Delinda was previously attending the graduate school's commencement, where Arnold Schwarzenegger was speaking. While I was on the phone with Ryan I was at the windows looking out at the street when a parade of motorcycle cops and black SUV's drove by and there he was, with his window down smoking a HUGE cigar!!! I was on the phone still with Ryan and "said, oh... look Arnold Schwarzenegger just drove by!"

She invited Greg and I (who were the only ones that could attend) to go with her and Jen to a Department Luncheon afterward. Unfortunately Greg and I couldn't stay long because Greg's still pretty weak from being sick and also, Ben was at the daycare and they had found some spots on him that turned out to be nothing... but that night we went to dinner and got Indian food. And it was DEE-LISH. MMMMMM, I love me some Tikka Masala. Seriously.
And I am also very grateful for the siblings I have. I missed John and of course Shauna- but was so glad at least Greg and I were able to attend. My parents of course were heart broken- but the funds weren't available but they were there in Spirit! Yay for Delinda!

Memorial Day Weekend 2010

Well, we had a fun weekend. The weekend started off with a party at Ben's school. My boss let people off early, so I was able to leave at 2:30 and go spend time with him while he ate goodies and played in the water with his classmates. It was lots of fun, he was pretty clingy and didn't want to let me out of his site (heartbreaking)- but he got a little wet. Mostly because all the bigger kids than him were hogging the little water things (I don't know what they're called) and took at the water balloons before he could. But we left and then I brought him home and sprayed him down with the hose. That was a lot more fun to be honest! Also Friday was Ashley's birthday and so to celebrate we went to dinner with her and some of our other friends at On the Border. Of course it was delicious and we all enjoyed it, but the best part of the night was going to her house to see her open up her surprise present that Jacob got a bunch of us all together to go in on. A new camera! A nice one too! She was so happy and excited and it was fun to see her reaction. I sure love that chick. She is a great BFF.

Saturday we woke up bright and early to prepare for our first family/friend camp-out! This was the first time Ben had ever camped, and first time I'd ever camped with Ryan OR Ben, AND the first time we have ever taken Ally (our dog) anywhere besides Nana's house or the groomer/vet! We were bound and determined to go this time, because EVERY SINGLE TIME we plan a camping trip, it RAINS. The weather reports didn't seem to promising either, but we'd already paid for our campsites and we weren't going to let it stop us. So we got all of our stuff together (TOO much stuff) and met up at the Terry's and headed to Carter's Lake in North Georgia for a two night camping trip. Our friend Martha chose the sites, we had two, and it was awesome! It was so good to be back in the nature again, I've missed it so. We set up our tent, we cooked burgers and hot dogs on the grills at the campsites and Martha and I made DELICIOUS tinfoil dinners. Ally and Bowser met each other and pretty much stayed out of each others way- mostly because Bowser is still a puppy and wants to play and Ally is a crotchety old woman who doesn't like to play with strangers. SO after being overly frustrated with my adorable 2 year old- we FINALLY got him to go to sleep at around 10pm- Ryan had to lay in the tent with him until he fell asleep. We all gathered round the old lantern and talked, all while being attacked by NASTY Palmetto bugs. Eck, those things are nasty. There were millions of "biders" as Ben calls them, mostly just weird looking Daddy Long Legs... but they were EVERYWHERE. We went to bed, and of course slept like poop. The ground is not comfortable anymore. Time to purchase an air mattress or two! Plus Ben was a floppy little fish the whole night and I kept having to put him back on his pillow for fear of kicking him in the face or something! We had a good breakfast the next morning, and then basically chilled out the rest of the day. The Terry's had to leave early, so it was us, the Burke's and Geoff. We went to the "beach" at the lake and saw the most WT I've ever seen in one place in my life. Wow. Ben had lots of fun in the water though, he wasn't scared at all. He had his little floaties on and sunglasses and he had a good ol' time. After we got back we started preparing and making dinner, Dutch Oven Chicken (thank you Tiffany Reed) and clouds started gathering and it started to pour. The chicken had started to boil believe it or not, and we thought while sitting in our tent that the rain was going to put out the fire and ruin the chance for our chicken to survive. But after not too long, the rain stopped the fire reignited itself and we were back in business. We made our sides and dished up and.... the rain started threatening again. So we ate quickly covered everything up again and got in the tent just as it started to pour again, this time with lightning and thunder. This scared Ally, and Ally being scared concerned Ben. While in the tent he grabbed my cheeks and intently looked at me as if to REALLY get my attention and said "Mama, Mama... go home". NOW, we would've stayed and just gone to bed... but the darn P.O.C. tent we (I) had started to LEAK. UGH... Geoff's did too. The Burke's tent wasn't though. We made the decision (at about 7pm) to pack up and head home, the weather reports weren't promising and we just didn't want to drown in our sleep in a tent! Ryan and Geoff were the best, and got everything in the car in the pouring rain while me, Ben and Ally hung out in our empty tent and watched Sesame Street podcasts and sang songs together. Well, me and Ben anyway- Ally can't sing very well! As soon as we got in the car, Ben fell asleep and we got home safely and went straight to bed. We were POOPED. Yesterday was spent basically vegging out. The house was/is in shambles but yesterday, there was NO desire to even touch it. It'll be clean by the end of the week though... I hope! We all took naps... I believe though, that mine was the most glorious of all of them. Holy Moly (is that how you even spell it?) that bed was comfortable. The pillows were great, the sheet was perfect the wind from the fan... all worked in harmony to woo me in to a beautiful MUCH needed rest. I do have to say that Ben won for the amount of time slept out of the 3 of us. He slept for a whopping three hours, but he obviously needed it. Anyway, we had a really fun time- plan to do it again. Ben was a natural which makes his momma proud. Ally did great, better than I expected. And Ryan loved it too. We plan to purchase a new BIGGER tent (especially now because when setting it up to dry it out the poles all broke... ), some air mattresses and pack less next time and just go when we want. I really have missed my outdoorsy side... we got along really well, and when we were together- I felt a lot less stressed. SO, we plan on getting together more often. :) Believe it or not, I didn't take any pictures with my camera- just my phone, so this is what we get. Oh well.