Monday: home

We're home!  We got home late last night...I blogged during the vacation but couldn't add pictures, so they'll slowly be coming through.

In the meantime, Isaac and Joshua came home this morning.  Oh, it was wonderful to see them.  It was wonderful to be kid-free too, but I did miss them.  Joshua told me tonight that seeing me again was the best part of his day.

We all talked for a while and then went to Urban Air with one of Joshua's friends.  On the way in Joshua called me "Grandma."  Oops!  It was silly.

The rest of the day we relaxed and did some work.  Slowly getting back to normal.

Last Saturday: travel

Today we left for our cruise.  The flight wasn't until the evening, which gave us plenty of time during the day...for better or worse.

Ben and I got our rapid COVID tests done; they both quickly came back negative.  Phew.  One less thing to worry about.

The rest of the day we finished packing, enjoyed crazy children, and pretended not to be too anxious. 

Isaac gave Ben a tiny, folded up note that said "open on plane".  To be fair, it was hard to read.  So Ben starts asking...what plane?  Flat, parallel to the floor?  Perpendicular?  At that point I took the note (because I had the pockets at the time) and said something like, "I'll carry it until we're there."  Ben quickly realized his error, but I thought it was hilarious.  We finally dropped the kids of at Larry and Cheryl's and headed to the airport.

Of course, our plane was late.  They did a terrible job of updating the status, since at 7pm we still hadn't boarded but the status board said we were leaving at 7pm.  We had an hour and a half layover in Chicago, and weren't sure we were going to make it...and a lot of people were in the same boat.  Anyway, we finally get to Chicago, taxi forever, and join about half the plane in running for our connections.  As we were deplanning we had 3 minutes before boarding was supposed to end at our connection.  We had to do a U from concourse C to B and it turns out I'm terrible at running.  I'll blame it on the backpack.  I ran almost all the way to the bottom of the U and had to stop...but was at least able to keep fast walking.  After we did the bottom of the U I took all the luggage and Ben ran the last leg to try and hold the plane.  It worked, although they might have held it even if we were a minute slower as once we were on the plane I saw a text that said they were holding it for us.  (There was at least one other couple also going to Seattle.  I think they did the same thing we did and split up.)

In exciting news, our luggage made it on too!  It got to take a shortcut.  I'm often surprised at how fast luggage goes from plane to plane.  We were able to see that it was on the plane right after sitting down thanks to technology, so it was nice to have that worry removed right away.

The rest of the trip was rather uneventful and we ended up at our hotel just fine.

Last Weekend: CranHill

 The kids and I went up Friday morning to CranHill.  We were camping with people from our church, but were kind of secluded.  There was one group up a nearby hill, one group in a field, and then us (and another family for a short while).  While I wish we had been closer, we were also in the shade and it made a huge difference.  Everyone else was complaining about the heat, but I was rather comfortable most of the time.  We did all have a fire together in the evenings though.  

We started getting set up only to realize there was no power on the site.  It didn't effect us much since we have no camping gear, but I had brought a fan and some extension cords.  Our neighbors were also surprised by this, so the documentation may have been a bit lacking.  After getting set up and having lunch, one of the first things we did was the AquaPark.  There was a slide and a dome in the middle of their lake.  It was actually run pretty nicely...you had about 20 minutes of play time before the next group came.  After that the kids played two games of chess.  Well, I coached Joshua a lot.  They each won one, but the first game was a good amount of time and the second game was rather long.

There was also this crazy sand hill near our campsite.  The kids didn't play in it a ton, but it was played in enough to be a nice diversion.

After a poor night sleep, Saturday morning was activity morning.  (There was a dog next to us that barked every 15 minutes for what felt like an hour between 12-1am.) We did it all!  But first we started with a breakfast of champions.

It started with rock climbing.  Isaac got the bell on the hardest course.  It was funny to watch him take breaks, because half the time one of his feet would be higher than his waist.

Joshua enjoyed it too, although he often stopped when he felt he was getting too high.

Next up, pony rides for Joshua and then a zip line for Isaac.  (Unpictured because it was too high)

Ben showed up at that point and we did slingshots.  There were some cool metal things to aim at, so there was a nice ding if you hit them.  Joshua was a bit too weak for them, but if I helped we could hit something about 20% of the time.

We rested after lunch but realized it was rather hot out, so we went to get ice cream.  The ice cream store had a/c, and we cooled off in there.  There was a game room nearby too (still with a/c), so we played some carpet ball.  By that time it was late afternoon and still hot, but we had reset.  The kids wanted to do the aqua park again, so we did that.

There was a wagon ride and we left the kids sit by the fire until it was dark.

After a good nights' sleep with no rain (phew) we packed up Sunday morning.  I was on the fence...do we stay for the church service or just go home?  We started with a small orienteering course which only used the four cardinal directions.  Then we had about an hour before the service, so I asked the boys what they wanted to do.  The weather was beautiful, so they elected to stay.  They played another game of chess, we went to the service (Joshua was so tired), and then we went home.  It was another lovely trip.

Thursday: games

Isaac and I played Dominion.  He tried to make a boring game (without +action, +cards, and few +buys).  It turned out pretty fun and we both had huge decks at the end.

We also recently played a recommended set-up and managed to get the platinums (the highest currency) down to a cost of zero and then Isaac bought a whole bunch at once.  He probably was able to get about 6-8, but there weren't that many left in the pile so we didn't actually count to see how many he could get.  It was a really fun game too.

Wednesday: empty day

Surprisingly, nothing was on the calendar for today.  After asking the boys what they wanted to do, and rejecting/retiming a few of the suggestions, we settled on mini golf.  Since mini golf is right next to ice cream, we of course did that too.

I had them recreate an old picture.  The old one is from 2019...they've changed a lot in three years!!

Nostalgia: cran hill

 We went camping at Cran Hill this weekend with church.  I had gone one other time when I was about five.  I don't remember it other than the pictures, but I had a pony ride with Mom leading the horse just like I did with Joshua.  I think a lot has changed at the camp, but a few things still looked the same.

Wednesday: blueberries and movie

We went to pick blueberries this morning.  It was a beautiful day to do this; it was cloudy with a wind.  Furthermore, there were so many blueberries on the bushes!  We filled up our buckets within about twenty feet.

We went to see Rise of Gru with Cheryl.  It was pretty funny...the boys giggled a ton and even Cheryl and I laughed aloud several times.