Wiener Island

Well our camping trip was a complete success. We went up to the Chippewa Flowage with our friends Brian and Terri and their daughter Alexis, and Ben's cousin Jake and his wife Emily and their daughter Sage. We ended up staying on the island called Weiner which inevitably became the most commonly used word of the weekend, and the butt of all the jokes. We let Brian and Ben head up Thursday night after work to find a campsite and get it all set up for us. By the time they got up there, it was pitch black and downpouring rain. Once the rain stopped the packed up the boat to find an island, after searching dozens of islands, they finally found an unoccupied island, which happened to be Weiner Island. By the time we got there with the kids on Friday around noonish, they had set up a nice camp, and to our surprise the island even had a toilet! The kids had tons of fun playing together, and we all spent a ton of time fishing. However, it's a good thing we brought some fish from our freezer that Ben had caught earlier in the summer as the fish weren't biting too much. There were tons of tiny blue gils caught but not enough to feed us all for dinner. However, we did learn that we brought way too much other food so there is no way we would have starved anyways.

I also took the kids out for a couple rides around Weiner Island in the poke boat and they both enjoyed that very much. They got to take turns paddling the boat and splashing the water. However, I thoroughly enjoyed taking it out by myself at sunup while everyone slept for 3 more hours than us. I would take the boat out to the middle of the water where I could see the sun and just sit and read my book. It was the most relaxing thing in my life, I wish I was there right now.

During the weekend, Connor decided that he didn't want to be potty trained, or he was just too lazy, so there was many clothes of his being washed in the water and hung up to dry. He did like to pee into the water however, so once we figured that out, he would at least not pee in his pants.

Now these pictures were taken from Jake and Emily's boat on our way back to the boat landing. We managed to get all of our junk, 4 coolers, two tents, 6 camping chairs, bed mats, clothes, food, sleeping bags, fishing poles and tackle, and everything else we needed for the weekend, all in the boat. And if you look closely in the second picture, we also were towing the poke boat behind us, filled with more of our stuff. I wish we could have got an aerial picture of the boats to show you just how packed it was. I didn't think there was any way we would make it all in one trip, but leave it up to Ben to get it accomplished.

The weekend was absolutely great and we can't wait to go back again.

Brewers vs. Twins

Well I think it has been decided that Connor is going to support his parents by becoming a professional baseball player. He's been showing us his skills lately and it is pretty impressive. He gets so excited when he hits the ball. Then he even runs the bases for a home run. Now it's just a battle over which team he would play for, the Twins and make mommy happy, or the Brewers for daddy?!?

Connor also had to show us how brave he could be in his jeep. He thinks he can drive right through anything and over anything. My plants and flowers take a pretty hard beating from the jeep, especially now that it goes extra fast and he figured out how to steer it. He also decided he was going to drive backwards up the bean bag platforms, I thought for sure he was going to tip over, but he acted like he knew exactly what he was doing. He thought he was pretty tough shit.

Turtle

Ben's friend Todd and his daughter Savannah brought a turtle over to our house the other day and the kids just had a blast with it. At first they both just stood back and watched it and whenever the turtle got close to climbing out of the box, they would scream and run. But after about ten minutes they were both trying to hold the turtle. Connor would try to pick it up with his fat and pudgy fingers that weren't long enough to reach around it and when he would get ahold of it and try to lift it up, he would drop it right back down, sometimes landing smack dab on the rock in the box, or head first into the ground. Then Savannah would try, and the same exact thing would happen. I'm not sure how many times that poor turtle was dropped. The kids then decide they weren't having any luck with their hands so they decided to get a racket and try to scoop it up with the racket, only to end up getting the poor thing higher into the air, to drop/fall back onto the hard rock or ground. After a few minutes of play, the turtle decided it was best just to stay inside his shell and not come out until the abuse was done. Either that or it was already dead. I'm not really sure. However, they both did have such a great time with the turtle. I just hope that he is now swimming with his family/friends in the lake, instead of floating in it.