Claustrophobic Mona

On the drive home from camping in the Upper Peninsula...

I can't stop laughing.

Upper Peninsula

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan
(Photos by Tyler)

Jude Discovers a Waterfall

"Whoooaaa...."

We Heart Washington

The River Took My Pants Off

We went up to Cadillac for the weekend recently. Jono's parents are Boat People, in a paddleboat/canoe/kayak sort of way, and we get to enjoy their little water crafts whenever we go up there. Perks!

I used to work at an outdoor sporting store, and besides getting to hear Gear Heads talk about all their camping and hiking doo-dads, I also got to take some of the rental kayaks out on the river for free. Our river of choice - The Grand - is about as wide and tame as a four-lane highway, so I basically learned how to paddle a kayak forward, but would've had no idea what to do if I'd actually been required to paddle around a stationery object. My main memory of the old Grand involves chilling with some river people on a sand bar sipping some very bad beer with one of my co-workers.

So anyway... the other day Jono's step-mom offered to watch Jude while Jono, Dad K. and I kayaked down the Little Manistee River. For the first few minutes things seemed peaceful, but then the river got a little fast. I usually had a half-second to think about what to do before being propelled into every other mess of branches we came across. By the end I had flipped my boat three times. I had a cloud of smoke over my head like in the comics. (See "me on the slip n' slide at age 10" -- physical challenges tend to tick me off).

One of those times was because four guys with a canoe were blocking a three-foot area that was the only route around a fallen tree. I fell out (of course) and got dragged under the tree trunk by the current. I grabbed a branch and kept my head above water, but meanwhile the river was pulling my pants off. The four guys were standing on the shore watching. Jono had to come over and pull me out. My pants were still on about halfway, so at least my dignity was preserved. Ha.


There were also spiders in my boat with me. This was not okay. I tried to multi-task by keeping track of where each one of them was while also avoiding the fallen trees and such, but I'm not really so good at multi-tasking, especially when I'm terrified.

I wish I was more of a hard-ass with eight-legged creatures, but no. I flip out. It goes back to watching Kingdom of the Spiders at my grandma's house when I was five, which was a made-for-TV movie about thousands of tarantulas overtaking a small midwest town and killing everyone in it with their poison. After that I was never afraid of monsters under the bed. Just spiders. I ended up going aground early on and made Jono get them out for me. Wimp. (I don't care. Just get them away from me.)

But... finally, about halfway through I started feeling like I knew what I was doing. Kind of. I learned to "reverse paddle" when I needed to, and to predict what a certain kind of current would do to my kayak, and how I should paddle accordingly. I started the trip out annoyed at my lack of skill, but then it got fun. I noticed how pretty it was out there, and I could take a deep breath and admire the huge salmon the fishermen were catching as we passed. It was great. And I felt rather accomplished when we reached the take-out point. And also soggy.

Thanks Dad and Jan. I look forward to many more rivers to come. But maybe once in awhile we can just do a peaceful one. Right?

We're about to leave on vacation to Washington, and this includes a hiatus from the bloggy. See you on the other side :)

We Bust Out the Family Tent

This past weekend we took Jude on his first camping trip. We found a secluded place next to a small lake with lots of trees. Jude liked it. He loves to be outside. And Mona actually stuck around. We didn't even need to tie her up. Judging by her behavior around Jude at the site, we think it might be because of him. She was very protective and kept checking on him while he was napping, etc.

I rarely (okay, never) plug products on this blog, but KidCo Pea Pod tops my list of baby gear, especially if you like to haul your little one out into the woods and to the beach. We call it his "baby tent", and it comes with a tiny, thin blow-up mattress. Jono's step-mom found it for $5 at a garage sale. We just plopped it under a nearby tree and let him nap in it. Didn't have to worry about mosquitoes or ants, and it provided adequate shade for him without being too stuffy. He even spent half the night in it. (Yes, half. But we'll get to that later.)

Above: Mona is "guarding" Jude while he sleeps in his baby tent.

All was well until night fell. It was still hot as the dickens, so we stripped Jude down to a onesie and tried to put him down alone in the tent. He cried. It was too hot. There were a bunch of bullfrogs around making an ungodly racket. After about ten more tries in various settings, we gave up and I held him in my arms until he fell asleep. Jono said, "Camping isn't as relaxing as it used to be."

Fifteen minutes after we put Jude down again, Mona got up from her spot in the dirt, sidled up to the tent entrance and whined. Apparently she knew her pillow was in there and was begging to go to bed. We joked that we were putting our two kids down in the tent together while we stayed up by the fire. What a dog.

After we turned in, Jude lasted an hour or two longer in his baby tent, but then fussed and had to be put in my sleeping bag with me for the rest of the night since it had now become quite chilly. So we laid there and shivered, then eventually sweated, all the while listening to the frogs croak all night louder than I knew was possible. A restful evening was had by all.

The next morning we woke up and it was Father's Day. Happy first year of being a daddy Jono. You're about as good as it gets :)

Here are the rest of them, plus a video where Jude tells Mona "no":

P.S. If you click on the album, you can see the photos nice and big, with captions.

Best in All the Land...

Posts to this blog have been sparse lately - sorry. I'll make up for it. One of my excuses is that Jude and I were whisked away to Iowa for four days in my mom's white Geo for a Dieken Chick Reunion of sorts. We busied ourselves hanging out with our parents, grandparents, sisters, aunts, nieces and cousins, most of whom had never met Jude. We had *awesome* weather and spent a lot of time sittin' and spittin' on my grandparents' back deck and watching sunsets over the corn fields.

Jude was a gentleman despite being out of his usual eating, napping and night-time routine. You can say you'll keep them on a schedule while traveling, but you just won't, so forget about it. He was up partying with the rest of us until 11 pm most nights.

He also got to spend time with other babies; a novelty for him since he has no siblings or cousins and only occasionally gets to see the neighbor baby. He stared open-mouthed at little Asher and Eden like, "Excuse me, but I'm usually the only small-bodied creature in the area. Can you tell me where you get off?" He had a perplexed look on his face much of the time, which I coined Cheerio Mouth because his tiny lips form an "o" to go along with a knitted brow and flared nostrils. It's unique, or maybe special, that look. We got much amusement out of it.

I guess I could write more, but you can just look at these pictures instead:

I'll leave you with the lyrics of the song my mom insists on singing whenever we cross the Iowa border. (Part of this tradition is to call someone -- the likely victims being Jono or my dad -- so that they can hear us singing it and know where we are.)

We're from I-o-wa... I-O-WA!

Best in all the land

Joy on every hand

We're from I-o-wa...I-O-WA!

That's where the tall corn groooowwws.

New Ride

Oh yeah. Don't act like this isn't the coolest car you've ever seen.

It's a 2001 Subaru Forester, 93,000 miles. Which for a Subaru is like, 70,000 miles ;) Radio, tape deck, sunglasses holder...the works. Many a family vacay will be taken in this beauty. We could fit a carseat, booster seat, and ten-year-old in the back seat, along with camp gear and a husky in the wagon part.

No mini-van or SUV for us -- the wagon is back. Just roll with it.

Chi-town

We actually went on a trip last weekend: a trip out of Michigan. It's been a good long while with the move and the whole childbirth and newborn thing we've been engaging ourselves in lately. It was Jude's first time out of the state. We went to see our friend Sarah for her birthday (she turned 30, and I'm almost 29...whoa...) and our other friends Jan and Becky. I didn't take many pictures, but here are a few:

Rising, shining in Sarah's apartment...

I have no idea why this picture is popping in here upside down, but I'm posting it anyway because it's funny. Sarah's cat Bolyn was really into Jude. He sat right next to him and curled his skinny tail gently around Jude's ear.

This is me with Bolyn, sporting my new 'do. I tried cutting it myself to save money - it was a disaster - so I had it fixed at an actual hair place, which I would now recommend to any cheap Dutch person, regardless of how broke they are. Now I have bangs for the first time since 7th grade. (Here's a post about girls with bangs on one of my fave blogs, SWPL. It's funny.)

On Saturday we went to Heartland Cafe for breakfast. Great place, but it really should be called Heartland Cafe for Pinkos. A local radio station was interviewing this chick near our table who was talking about Bush and Obama being co-conspirators for The Empire. At the attached gift shop next door they were selling Che Guevara t-shirts for toddlers, and the tags had pictures of a two-year-old with his fist raised for revolution - ha ha! (Never mind that Che executed hundreds of people. Not to mention he was against selling t-shirts and other capitalist schemes- ha.) 

 

They were a little too uptight for the flavor of our morning -- a good friend, a cute baby, and a giant breakfast burrito :)

Jan and Becky took us to Fat Willie's, a great BBQ joint, where I had my first beer in over a year. Paaaaartyyyyy!!!! Don't get too excited: it was a Pabst Blue Ribbon for $1.50. But the brisket was divine.

Having a kiddie in tow kind of changes things -- you can still go out, but not as spontaneously, and when you do people have completely different reactions to your presence. As we went into the BBQ place, two burly guys in urban-chic graffiti t-shirts stumbled all over themselves to get the door for me, and then bashfully peeked into Jude's carseat to get a look at him. As we waited in line, two twenty-something girls slobbered over him and talked about being jealous of their brother's pregnant girlfriend. Anyone will talk to you when you have a baby, and it's kind of endearing.

So that was our trip. Many more of those to come I hope. I don't want to stop having adventures because of our new life with Jude...I want to continue doing most of the stuff we used to do with Jude included. It'll make for a better childhood anyway. Come on Spring :)

Winter Camping

I consider myself fairly outdoorsy, but I draw the line at Winter camping. Jono's blood runs much warmer than mine, and he goes every year -- usually with friends Jan and Johan. Johan is teaching in Korea, so this year it was Jono, Jan and Jan's dog Haylee. (Mona didn't go because she has the unfortunate habit of taking off without telling anyone where she's going.) They had to dig out a campsite in about two feet of snow, but they had fun.

Nice.

The campsite.

Waves breaking in frozen Lake Michigan

Jono squinting because it's bright and windy

Jan and Haylee