The Weekend at Brunner's Lodge/Camping

This was Josh's first camping trip ever, and our first trip with 2 kids in our trailer. On the way to Leavenworth, Caleb lovingly shared his shirt with Josh, offered him some grapes and crackers, even his juice. The cutest was when Caleb fell asleep with his hand on Josh.
Josh did well as far as camping; he slept well except for needing to eat, he stayed warm, he liked to look around the trailer especially at the ceiling vent/skylight. As far as camping with 2 kids, I thought that it went ok... I could have done it with less dogs under feet. But Caleb had a good time too; it was his first time sleeping in a sleeping bag. I also got him his own flashlight. Caleb, Josh, and I AND Zuma shared the back bed. It was almost like at home, night time feedings and middle of the night Juice requests and everything.

As far as the rest of the weekend....

Caleb make no secret of his affection for Nick. He followed Nick around, ate his french fries, and crawled up on the his lap or the same chair frequently. It was nice to see the cousins get to know each other and genuinely like each other. All the boys played well, especially on the foosball table and air hockey. And by the end of the weekend, all the adults' supply of quarters were exhausted by the machines that held special prizes that the boys went to over and over. It was nice to share some activities with the kids like reading "look and find" books, painting, playing with Play-doh, and coloring.

A funny story: I was painting with Tessa and Caleb walked up to us. I asked him "Do you want to paint Buddy-bud?" and Tessa said "Yeah, Buddy-Butt, do you want to paint?" I laughed out loud for that.

Caleb enjoyed running around with out apparel when I was trying to get him dressed in pajamas. He seemed freer and to put on a show for any audience that he could find. It was fun to see what he thought was impressive behaviour.

Josh was off schedule because of the drive all the way up there, the difference in routine, and constant activities; he became short on sleep and I think, like me, has come down with some kind of flu/cold. He has never been the crier that he was this last weekend... I'm hoping that it is illness/schedules being off rather than a new side of his personality that I will have to adapt to. Regardless, if his crying was irritating, my apologies. I was glad that everyone did seem to get a chance to hold Josh, including Gi-Gi as you can see.

Another highlight for the weekend for Caleb was going to the Smallwoods Harvest fruit stand on Sunday afternoon. Fruit stand doesn't begin to describe this place. They have swings, tricycles, hay pyramids, a tee-pee village, a pumpkin patch, a farm with countless animals, and food of course. But Caleb really liked the tractor pulled "cow carts" and the animals the best. It was such a joy to have Caleb experience such a place, and even better to have shared it with Peter, Lynda and the Surface Family. Caleb and Tessa chased a bunny quite efficiently, I thought. Caleb had such a good time, he didn't want to go. Pictures really do say more than I can....

Well, that was our weekend. As I remember, I'll write more stories.