Vacation for Nana

This week Nana continues her time off work with adventures. Thanks to some kindness from Licia and grandma and grandpa Scearce and to my taking some vacation days myself, she has been able to strike out on mini trips.

On Monday she took Kiernan to the building museum. He had a great time working with magnets and drainpipes and golf balls from what I gather. He spent a lot of time designing large structure of various pvc like materials and he made a friend whose name may have been Dominic.When they were leaving home he was crying and didn't want to leave and then about 5 minutes later he was happy as a clam and excited to ride a train.

Megan got to spend the day with aunt Licia. They hung out at home and looked at flowers and went to see the cows and played princess and Megan was very happy when I got home from work.

We had a confusing T-Ball game this week. It was the Sluggers vs. the lil' Red Sox. A team of small red children faced another team of small red children. 

You know in those nature documentaries where in mother seal or penguins pick their children out of seemingly identical flocks?

It was that.

It was the week for team pictures. Kiernan looked very serious. I think he was doing his game face. I wonder how these picture will turn out.

On Wednesday we went to the 'beach' at Sandy Point. The kids loved it and so did Nana. Even though it is the closest beach park, she had never been before. We brought snacks and boogie boards and sunblock. We got there early in the morning and stayed until Megan hit her warranty at nap time. We then beat a hasty tearful retreat.

The piece de resistance of this vacation time though, was Nana's rental of a cabin in Catcotin Mountain Park. This was the kids official introduction to camping.

On Thursday evening after a fun day at Scearce's we brought the kids up to the cabin. Nana went up earlier in the day to set everything up and I texted her as we left so that when the kids got there dinner was ready. They were very happy and kept talking about how much they loved camping. They ate too many marshmallows.

Early the next morning Kiernan started throwing up. 

He threw up for a long long time. The convenient proximity of the cabin really came in handy here. In half an hour or so we were home and he was in his own bed. He was ridiculously sick until around noon and then, in the way of 5 year old's everywhere, he was completely fine. 

We played with Megan and let picked more roses and ate pudding.

When Kiernan got up he said he felt shaky but didn't want to go camping anymore because it made him sick.

I was worried that he would evermore associate the cabin with feeling horrid so that evening we went back up for dinner and swimming and seeing Nana.

They loved the pool (freezing cold!). They loved dinner in the woods and when we went home they weren't entirely sold on not staying in the woods. So far so good. Then next morning we had T-Ball and visitors.

Uncle Chris and Aunt Pammy and Cousin Kaleb with bonus Aunt Ruthie came up to see Kiernan play ball.

It was so much fun!

I was the snack bringer for the team and the snacks went over well.

It was a pretty lopsided game. We played the lil' Yankees. At the beginning of the game there were 9 of 10 sluggers and 3 of 10 Yankees. A few more turned up after the game started but it was a pretty funny looking field of play with a scattered few dots of navy in the outfield and a huge line of red waiting to bat.

Then we went home.

We had a cookout of veggie burgers and corn on the cob and skewered pineapple/red onion/veggie ham. We had about 7 bags of various chip flavors.

We splashed in the kiddie pool and Kaleb and Megan both got good naps and woke up smiling.

Look at this sweet boy!

Afterward we headed back up to the cabin for a swim and a hike and dinner with obligatory kumbaya on the ukulele.

David was baffled by my desire for the kumbaya. Also appalled he was appalled to be playing it. 

Both kids worked on their junior Ranger workbooks before dinner. They identified trail signs and did leaf rubbings (yay crayons in the diaper bag).

After that the kids roasted marshmallows again and feel to sleep easily while the grown ups hung out by the fire.

In the morning we packed up and cleaned the dishes and the cabin and checked out before going to a nice .5 mile loop trail in the woods.

We stopped at the rangers station and turned in the paperwork for the official Junior Ranger swearing in. Both kids got a pin from the Park Rangers and promised to take care of the woods.

We drove home and washed the smoke smell out of our clothes and I made a strawberry pie from fresh garden strawberries (thanks to Scearce's).

The pie was delicious and it was great to be home.