Summer Camping

 

 

We love to camp.  The first Christmas Jonathan and I were married, our wish lists were full of camping gear, and our family outfitted us generously.  Although camping with toddlers is not the idyllic forest getaway we each remember from our teenage years, our entire family still enjoys the wonder of the outdoors.

 

 

For Jonathan, the best part is making a tending a fire.  For me, it's the s'mores...hands down.  We are both happy to have a campfire (and s'mores) in the evening, and then do it all again after breakfast. 

 

 

For the kids, it's the hot chocolate.  With marshmallows.  (See a sugar-high theme going on here?)

 But what we really love about camping is spending some time together, with a guarantee of none of our regular interruptions. 

See all that lovely green around our tent?  Poison ivy - every bit of it.  Hannah is old enough to understand that she needs to keep out, but Lydia has no idea.  I only have it in me to run around after a two year old in Poison Ivy Land for about 16 hours, so we're strictly one-night campers...at least until the kids are older.

This trip was in the Smoky Mountains.  We found this lovely stream just off the road and spent a nice morning in the water.

Of course, kids can't play in the water without someone falling in and losing their pants, right?

The next time we planned a trip, Lydia was a little sick...just enough that we didn't want her to sleep outside.  So we pitched the tent in the yard.  Lydia slept inside, and the rest of us (plus baby monitor) stayed outside. 

 

 You'll notice that we still had all the essential elements: fire and s'mores.

And more s'mores.

Two weeks ago, we camped near Cumberland Gap in Virginia.

And look at all that grass!  I was thrilled by the absence of poison ivy.  And wouldn't you know it, I came home with it all over my arm.  Oh well....

Since Jonathan and I both grew up camping, we hope that we can teach our girls to love it as much as we did - and still do.

So far, I think we're starting out on the right foot.

July Fourth Fun

After Hannah's spring dance recital, I decided I needed to start posting pictures on the blog again.  So that night, I diligently sat down and put up the pictures of the recital.  That night, our hard drive crashed, and all of our pictures from January to the end of June are gone.  It makes me so sad!  I've learned two things: BACK UP EVERYTHING!!!!  And to spend less time taking pictures and more time making memories.  I rely on my pictures to be my memories, and I need to imprint our lives more on my mind than in pixels.

All that said, as part of my obsessive back up plan (along with our new computer, we got one of those external hard drives that automatically backs up every time a new file is added), I've rededicated myself to posting pictures on the blog.  It took me a few weeks to be able to take new pictures, and then a few more weeks to download them from my camera. 

And now, at last, here are some for you to see.  These are from July 4th, when we went to the Chicago suburbs to visit Jonathan's family.  Hannah and Lydia were very excited to spend the holiday with their cousin Brady.  We might be a little girly for him, but I think he had fun too.

After the parade, we went back to Jonathan's parents' house, where the kids spent a happy afternoon playing with a bubble gun.  Have you seen those?  It's like a water gun, but it sprays out bubbles, powered by a motor.  Even Lydia could produce amazing amounts of bubbles.  Serious fun!

 

 

I tried to get the kids to pose.  After about 30 shots with variations of this...

...I finally got one where they looked like this.

 

 

And then, this one.  Aren't they the cutest ever?

 

That night, we saw the fireworks...the first time for both girls.  I'm not sure that they loved the whole thing, but it was definitely memorable.

Also over the holiday, after a night of camping in the yard with Opa and Grandma, everyone had a blast in the kiddie pool.

 I gave the kids ice cream and told them to sit still for (yet another) picture.  Guess who said he doesn't like ice cream, but I convinced him to hold one anyway?  "You don't have to eat it, Brady, just hold it for a minute while I take your picture."  Turns out, he's the only one not stuffing his face...oh well!

Family Photo Mishaps at Niagara Falls

Did you think I ran away, ever to return to the blogosphere?  Not quite...I've just been enjoying my summer vacation.  Among other things, we recently took a looooong road trip, which included a stop at Niagara Falls.  We were there for about two hours, which was not quite long enough to really do much except to ride the Maid of the Mist, and snap lots of quick pictures.  You know, the kind you to take to prove that you've actually been there.  The problem is, none of the pictures turned out the way I had visualized them in my internal scrapbook layout. 

First of all, the girls hated the boat.  It was crowded with tourists, many of whom were international (read: have different ideas of personal space than the folks we are used to riding boats with).  Second, it was wet.  "Mist" is a bit of an understatement.  They give you these cute blue rain ponchos, which basically keep your shirt dry, but do very little to help your head, legs, or shoes. 

I negotiated with a Norwegian family for this place by the railing for Hannah, hoping that she would be able to see something.  This is the view over the top of her head, so presumably, she could have watched as we sailed by the falls.  But when I questioned her later, asking what she saw, she simply said, "Water." 

"You mean the waterfalls?" I asked.

"No.  The water under the boat."

"Oh.  Well...what was your favorite part, then?"

"When we got off the boat."

In spite of all this, I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  I thought the view was magnificent.  And in spite of getting wet and having a freaked-out toddler clinging to me for dear life, I did snap one picture of the scenery that I'm quite happy about. 

And the Norwegian family offered to take a group picture, so here we are!

Back on land, I decided we needed another family shot, this one drier - for the scrapbook page I was formulating in my mind.

We started out like this:

Then was the whole "let's find someone to take our picture" conversation.  You know: what about him?  No...he doesn't look like he could take a picture to save his life.  Well, that woman has a camera, do you think she'd do it?  No...she just answered a phone call.  Aha!  There's a guy with a big camera.  I'll bet he knows what he's doing.

So I handed over my camera to yet another international traveler.  But before we knew it, the guy was taking pictures, not of our family, but of us WITH his traveling companions!

This is Jonathan trying to tell the guy to get out of our shot.  

This is Lydia and Hannah trying to figure out who these random guys are.  Notice that the falls are framed (relatively nicely) in the background.

Finally, the man took a picture of just us.  But he did not get the falls in the picture.  We might as well have been standing by the railing at the upstairs of the mall.

So we took back our camera, said thank you, and asked an American for a retake.  Jonathan explained that we wanted a family shot with both sides of the falls visible behind us.  

Well, as you can see, we struck out again.  The kids were frazzled, our parking meter was about to run out, and we just decided to call it a day.  It's times like these when I have to remind myself that I don't need a perfect picture to create a good memory. 

A GPS Serendipity

Do you have a GPS?  I seriously cannot live without mine.  When I turned 16, my grandpa called my mom and told her that we was worried about me driving. 

"But Siobhan's really responsible," mom said.  "She'll be safe."

"I know she'll be safe," replied my grandpa.  "But she is so bad at directions.  She's going to go somewhere and not be able to find he way home."

Sadly, there is still some truth to this.  Before the GPS, I drove around with a stack of MapQuest maps in the car.  One one side were directions from home to places where I frequented (grocery store, mall, movie theatre), and on the other side were directions on how to get home again.  But now all that is over, because I do have a GPS, and it tells me, in a nice, soothing voice, exactly where I should go.  And if I get lost, it recalculates and tells me again.  (And if necessary, again.)

Laugh all you want, but finding my way around is just not a skill that I have.  I'm hopeful that I make up for it in other areas.  In fact, one of my favorite quotes is from C.S. Lewis' Prince Caspian, when Edmond is grumbling that his sisters don't know where they're going. 

"That's the worst of girls," said Edmund to Peter and the Dwarf. "They can never carry a map in their heads." 

"That's because our heads have something inside them," said Lucy.

Exactly!

Well, this morning, we decided to take a family drive.  We needed a Saturday morning outing, but one that was very low-key, after a late Friday night.  After rejecting several scenic destinations that were too far away, we settled on a short trip: to nearby Norris Dam.  We figured that we'd drive for about 40 minutes, get out and look at the dam from the paved overlook, then drive back again before lunch. 

As we left our neighborhood, Jonathan wondered if there was a more scenic way to get there than the highway.  We typed "Norris Dam State Park" into the GPS, then started off along a road Jonathan knew about that went in that general direction (but was not the highway.)  After several miles of meandering through residential neighborhoods, we ended up driving down a steep mountain road.  We had obviously left civilization behind us.  Then the pavement ended.

"Turn around!" I cried.  "The stupid GPS always does this.  It takes us down the most obscure roads.  I am not going to go on this dirt road!"

"It might be obscure," Jonathan pointed out, "but the GPS never gets us lost.  We always get there."

I pouted for a few minutes while Jonathan, the Chicago suburbanite, went on about how he didn't even know there were dirt roads in America until I took him down a "shortcut" in my hometown.  And then we saw that there was a stream running along the road.  It was beautiful.  We passed an especially architectural water tower, that Hannah thought was a lighthouse.

And then we came to the end of the dirt road, the place where the pavement started again.  We were just off the "real" road that we knew.  But what we could see from our vantage point, and what is hidden from the pavement, is a really beautiful old grist mill.  We happily piled out of the car to check it out.

The stream was so clear, we could see to the bottom.

The mill house was an intriguing mix of stone and weathered wood. 

I look at those stair-steps.  I wonder why it was constructed like that?

The wheel was huge.  (No water, obviously.)

In spite of it being the dead of winter, we found lots of plant life.  This was growing in the cracks of the rock wall.

And here is yet another picture of "we did something, and Lydia slept through it."  I tried to park the stroller in front of a cool wagon wheel...see?  She didn't open her eyes until we walked through the door of our house.  At least we have one kid who sleeps in the car, right?

Ballerina

Hannah has been taking ballet lessons this fall.  She's mighty cute, in the way that only three-year-olds in leotards and tiny ballet slippers can be.  And this afternoon, she performed in her first recital: The Nutcracker.

A few weeks ago, it occurred to me and Jonathan that Hannah didn't know the story of The Nutcracker, so we got a copy of the picture book, and went to a local community ballet company's showing of it.  The result?  A little girl who is absolutely obsessed.

Hannah wants to read the book at least twice or three times a day.  Driving in the car, she begins a monologue about Naughty Fritz or Godfather Drosselmeyer.  (Yes, a child who can't pronounce "school" or "forgot" can say "Godfather Drosselmeyer," and quite clearly, too.) 

And then she decided that she should have her own nutcracker doll.  She even asked Santa for one.  But I'm getting ahead of myself...

In the recital, Hannah's class was the little girls at the party - the ones who admire Clara's new doll.  And in this version, they all sit around the Christmas tree and rock their own dolls. 

Due to the realities of life (read: crying baby and full memory card), even with two doting parents each armed with at least one camera, Jonathan and I didn't get as many pictures of the actual performance as we hoped.

But we got lots of good shots after the show.  Is this not the most excited kid you have ever seen?!

And guess who didn't have to wait for Santa to deliver the much-desired nutcracker doll?  Grandma made good a full two weeks early! 

We were a little worried that Hannah would want a bouquet of roses like the other girls.  But she only had eyes for one thing.

She even ventured onto the stage after the performance to show off her prize to her dance teacher.

So here is our own little ballerina, ready to take the dance world by storm.  I tried to tell Hannah that I was proud of her for remembering her dance (she's practiced quite a lot) and doing it in front of an audience.  Her response?  "I got my own nutcracker!"