Family Getaway

Back in the middle of October, we decided to take a family getaway. Our detasseling job this summer took up the entire month of July, daddy coaching football took up the entire month of August, September and most of October so our family time was quite minimal. So we decided to plan a little family getaway to Minnesota the week after football season was over. Pete had a day off of school so we decided it would be a great time to go away for a long weekend.  We asked all kinds of people to give us suggestions on family friendly places to visit..that were within driving distance.
This was one of the places suggested...

 
In Edina, Minnesota.
This is about 4 hours away from our house so we felt that it was within driving distance and manageable. 
One of the main attractions to this hotel was this...

Adventure Peak

The Edinborough Park Playpark is almost one acre of indoor fun, highlighted by Adventure Peak, one of the largest indoor play structures in the country.

Adventure Peak

 This was right out the lobby of our hotel!!!!

With a name like "Indoor Playpark and Adventure Peak" how could we not CHECK IT OUT!
The park cost $6 for Cael, only! Even though they highly encourage parents to climb in the Adventure peak and play in the big gym....parents are FREE! Yeah...you read that right...FREE!! 
How great is that!?

Here is a little bit of the pictures that we captured while we were there!

As difficult as this may look...he really did figure it out!!

  

 

 

This is the gym area that was full of fun things to do!

Another scooter..which he loved!

 

There was even a smaller climbing area restricted to toddlers.

Up in the Adventure Peak there was a helecopter that he found to climb in.

I just love his little grim in this picture!

This is the view from the gym. You can see the climbing area in the distance.

Here is the hotel where we stayed!
We got the Last Minute Weekend deal that they have listed on the side of their website.
Our King Suite is a...must...NEXT TIME! Super great setup...for a family!

The bedroom with sliding doors that separate the rooms.

The "living room" area. You can see the "apartment" size fridge we had too! :)

 The hotel also provided a great complimentary breakfast.
SO...with all that combined how could you not ask for a SUPER GREAT WEEKEND together?!!

SCCCCCRRRRREEEEEEEECCHHH........

Yeah, that is a sound a record scratching...bringing this dreamlike family vacation to a
screeching....HALT! 

Now have I mentioned that we have a  2 year old in the house?!
So you do the equation..

A 2 year old + an upset in routine+ a family "VACATION"=
BEAUTIFUL BLISS, right?!?!?

WRONG...way WRONG!

Our adventure started on a Friday. It was a blustery, cold Friday that nixed our morning plans of going to an apple orchard. So we laid low that AM, working to wear Cael out so he would sit well and sleep for the 4 hours car ride.  I am happy to say...he did just that!
This might be the only thing that went "as planned" this whole trip.
After we arrived at the hotel, we walked around and tried to get an idea of where things were and kind of mapped out our evening. We thought we would swim, play in the hotel room, read some books, eat some supper and go to bed. So we did most of that with very little fight..all except the "going to bed" part.
So we started going to bed around 9pm (which is about an hour past his normal bed time) so we thought for sure he would be tired. Um..nope. After a 2+ hour battle of doing every thing within our power to get him to just lay down and go to sleep...he finally passed out around 11:30pm.
WHEW.
The next morning he woke up around 5:15am.
We told him it was not time to wake up yet so after another almost hour battle he finally fell back to sleep.
He didn't wake up until 9:45am! And we practically WOKE him up.
So Saturday morning plans: THROWN OUT THE WINDOW.
Plan B...go to the Mall of American and walk around.
We decided to not battle him with taking a nap that day because we knew it would only give us more headache. We thought the mall would keep him awake, and it did!
We went against our rule of "no blankie and binkie except in your bed rule"...only out of ..SHEAR NECESSITY and SURVIVAL (on our part). Since he had those two forbidden items all afternoon he actually did pretty well in the stroller.
We walked passed the Build a Bear store and thought it would be fun for him to do that as a birthday gift!
The store was overflowing with people and it was chaotic. I tried really hard to keep him in the stroller while we waited in line but no such luck.
We let him out and he ran...ALL. OVER. THE. STORE!
 I mean, everywhere.
The line was so long and it was taking forever.
I was losing my patience by this time and I just wanted to leave.
But finally it was our turn.
I'm so glad we stayed. What a fun experience for him!

 

 

 

 

 

Look at that 'angelic' grin, he has! No..I'm talking about the little boy!

Meet BEN!

After that great experience we decided it was time we venture back to the hotel and think about supper.
So on the way back to the hotel, we thought we would find a great place to stop and eat.
FAIL.
Yeah, we drove around for over an hour and found very little options for us to sit down to eat.
Until we found
APPLEBEE'S.
But wait..isn't this vacation?! We have an Applebees in our town...we can eat there anytime.
Oh well...its getting late..our son is hungry..and SUPER tired.
Applebee's..it is.
We prepped him before we walked in. How we are going to sit and eat.
We get in.
Sit down.
And it takes nearly 10 minutes for our waitress to come take our drink order.
Oh brother...why didn't we leave at that moment..I don't know.
We finally ordered our food.
We tried all that we could to keep him playing...happy..content..and quiet.
Oh..did I mention he hadn't had a nap.
Yeah.
One word: MELTDOWN.
Nothing, I mean nothing was getting this child under control.
Daddy took him to the car. Gave him a very stern talking to.
I asked for to-go containers for all of our food.
And we LEFT!
Yep.
5 minutes into our dinner...we leave the restaurant that we drove around for over an hour to find. 
We drove back to the hotel with a screaming child in the backseat.
We walked through the hotel with him still crying.
We changed him into his pajamas....at 6:30pm and tried to read some books.
Finally got him to stop crying.
We put him in his pack-n-play, shut the sliding doors...and let him fuss until he finally gave in to sleep around 7:00pm.
SIGH
Wow.
What just happened?
This is.....a...VACATION?!
Um..not what we had in mind.
I am very happy to report that Sunday he slept in until at least 7:30 and our ride home went smoothly.
On the ride home I started getting a major headache. One that was making me sick to my stomach. I thought for sure I was going to put a "cherry on top" of this weekend by tossing my cookies...but I didn't.
PTL.

Now...
I wrote out all of those details in this post so that we will never forget this beautiful "vacation" that we had together with our 2 year old!
At one point on Saturday, Pete and I looked at each other and said
"You know what.......We prayed for this"
....that was followed by a lot of laughter on our part!

Even though the entire weekend went hardly as planned, we were TOGETHER...and that is what we wanted to be.
I love my family.
I love my helpful, peacemaking husband.
I love my stubborn, adorable 2 year old.
I love the idea of making memories as a little family.
This will definitely be a vacation that will go down in history for us!

The life with a 2 year old...

Trick or Treat!

Some might call this a "Mr. Fixit Man"
but in our house it's...




BOB THE BUILDER!

Can you see a resemblance?

I'd like to say that he was "posing" just like Bob, but he was actually just hitting himself on the hard hat! Silly kid! 

Since we live in the country and don't have a whole lot of neighbors we chose to do some "Trick or Treat" events during the day!  Our first stop was the library.  We go to a Toddler time every Tuesday and on this day the kids were encouraged to wear their costume to the play time.  When we arrived at the library that day we saw a doctor, a kitten, a cow, and The Lorax...to name a few! We had a great time singing songs, listening to a few pumpkin stories, and getting a few treats to top off the morning. 

 

Then the next day, Halloween day, we met my sister Lisa and two of her kids in Ames. Every year, this town does a special trick or treat up and down their Main Street in their local shops. As we walked by each store front if there was a sign that said "Trick or Treat" we were able to walk in and pick out a piece of candy. It was really chilly that morning so we tried to make our trip as efficient as possible. However with a 2 year old...is any task ever done "efficiently"?? Um...well it isn't in our house and this morning was no different. He wanted to unwrap and eat every piece of candy he picked up and he really didn't want to be told anything different. So we made lots of "scenes"...but oh well.  We made it through the entire main street with about 3 tootstie rolls, a bag of popcorn and smarties eaten from the bucket! But we made it!

 

Mallory (4) as Elmo and Bob the Builder (2)  walking down Main Street.

Bob the Builder (2), Madden as Mickey Mouse (1) and Mallory (4)

 Since we only did events during the day this year, daddy wasn't able to go Trick or Treating with us. I was able to take lots of pictures so he felt like he was there, though!

October was such a crazy, busy month! A halloween costume nearly slipped my mind! I was pretty proud of the outfit we came up with and it suited him so well!
I'd say that Halloween 2012 was a success!!

Little Boy's Birthday Party!

 

 John Deere Green...That is what we saw a lot of for this little boy's birthday party!! 

I think to say that he likes tractors, is a bit of an understatement!  So we thought what better way to sum up his 2nd birthday but with....TRACTORS!!!

Here is his SWEET TRACTOR cake!!  

"John Deere"

 Pete's Aunt Nancy made this beautiful cake!  About a month ago, I asked her if she could make a tractor cake. Of course she didn't hesitate, and said "I'll see what I can come up with".  I left it completely up to her as to how she wanted to make it. I told her that I was not going to be picky and we would take ANYTHING! Well, this exceeded my expectations, by far! And Cael LOVED it! He couldn't stop looking at it!


Of course, we had to sing "Happy To You"!
He loves candles and whenever he sees a candle burning he feels the need to break out into "Happy to you"! We had to sing it to him twice!

 

 

 

 

"Isn't this cake great! I've had like 5 pieces!"

What a sweet 'statche' son!!

A BIG tractor!

Baler and a tractor! "Bale comes out..bang"  (one of his favorite things to say while 'farming')

 

Reading all of his cards!

 

 Here is an "I spy" quilt, my sister made for him. What a super fun gift! He will lay there and just look intently at all of the piece. He really enjoys finding Bob the Builder, John Deere tractors and the tootsie rolls. 

Here is our attempt at trying to get a pleasant family picture!

 

 We had such a great time celebrating this silly boy's 2nd birthday! 

Of course he was in constant movement the entire day so I couldn't capture the shirt I made very well. I wanted to have at least one picture of him wearing it....AND smiling! This was one difficult task, let me tell you!! Oh well, the pictures above are some of my favorite, even if they are blurring! 

 

"Oh the life..with a 2 year old....."  

 

Happy 2nd Birthday Buddy!

We can't wait to see what this next year has in store for us!