a quick beach trip

we got back last night from an overnight trip to charleston, sc. we had a great and eventful time. these little trips have changed quite a lot over the years. bringing a one and three year old to the ocean is definitely not relaxing, but it is such a joy to watch them experience new things.

memories from our little trip...

we visited fort moultrie and viewed fort sumter from afar. it was SO hot.

jobot and i got painful ant bites.

jeremy walked into playground equipment and got a minor but bloody gash on his forehead.

we saw a very interesting beach house.

jeremy and i caught a minnow (after a near-argument and an intense exercise in teamwork - ha!).

we flew our kite on the beach.

we spent sunday afternoon at a wonderful beach with tide pools - perfect for the kiddos!

jeremy, love, and jobot swam in the atlantic for the first time (i already had).

we walked and walked and walked downtown charleston trying to find a place to eat on sunday night. it was all too fancy and expensive. finally, we drove away from downtown and got some food.

we saw an amazingly beautiful sunset that we wouldn't have seen if we hadn't walked for so long looking for a place to eat. (as usual, pictures couldn't capture it).

the kids tried {free} cotton candy for the first time. love happily dove in and jobot was a little timid...until he tasted it.

we all successfully slept in one hotel room overnight. it went pretty well. (also, for some strange reason it looks like jeremy has a tattoo on his upper arm in the photo below. he doesn't.)

the kids watched t.v. in the hotel room. we don't have a t.v. and we learned that love didn't even know what a commercial was! funny!

we spent part of monday morning exploring a beach for sea life. love was thrilled when we found a dead jellyfish on the sand! she had high hopes of seeing a jellyfish on this trip! we found another one later in the day. she was a happy camper!

 we also found a crab. he wasn't too happy that we caught him. we all got a good look at him and then let him go.

jobot showed off his little bum at the beach.

the beach was beautiful.

we went through an entire tube of sunscreen and no one got sunburned.

the kids and their daddy had a blast in the public fountain in downtown charleston. i had a fun time watching them!

we spent a rainy part of the afternoon swinging on the pier.

we walked the public market, visited the animals in the big red barn, marveled at the horse carriages going by, and the kids got ice cream. we loved the cobblestone streets, colorful houses, and beauty of the city.

we hardly took any photos because we were both too busy chasing kids!

our trip home took an extra two hours due to bad traffic and then a torrential downpour/severe thunderstorm that was so bad we had to pull off the road for a bit. the kids cried and screamed...a lot. it was all quite stressful.

when we got home we put the kids in bed, dropped all our stuff in the house, took showers, and collapsed into bed.

this morning was an extra cup of coffee morning. we did laundry, unpacked, and even had time to wash all our shell treasures.

love drew this picture today. apparently the jellyfish left quite the impression.

on the move...

We have internet at the new house, so I can finally post all about our move. I kinda disappeared from blog world in the midst of moving, so I have several posts planned to catch up on the past six weeks or so of our life.

Today found me caring for our little ones in the midst of a stomach bug. It came out of nowhere...I didn't even feel sick until I started eating breakfast and then it hit me. Unfortunately, this was also a really busy day for Jeremy and tonight is his first "on call" night at the hospital. Being on call actually means being at the hospital from 4 pm through the next morning, so it's really just being at work...I don't really know why they call it "on call". Anyway, I had a fever this afternoon, the chills on and off, and just felt pretty miserable. The kids did okay and I somehow got them fed and to bed. I am feeling a bit better, so that's good.

Let's see...writing about the move. Two-and-a-half weeks ago the moving truck was packed and waiting in our driveway and we were sleeping on our mattress on the floor in our empty bedroom.

Loading the truck on a rainy afternoon.

Yes, we will definitely be bringing these two with us!

Our dining room in a state of disaster.

Our last dinner in our house. Dear friends brought over dinner and we had a picnic on the dining room floor in our (mostly) empty house.

Love checking out the "Diesel Truck" (her name for it).

My mom came for those last couple of days to help us with the kids, the packing, and the cleaning, and she was so helpful with it all...even making us delicious meals out of the random odds and ends left in our fridge with only one pan, some olive oil, and salt and pepper (everything else was packed!). We also had an impressive crew of seminary men help load the moving truck, as well as numerous other friends who helped with the kids, cleaning the house, food, etc...

After a week of packing, cleaning, and saying goodbyes, we finally loaded the last few things into the moving truck and the van and then locked the door for the last time and drove away. I expected more sentimental feelings with leaving our house, but the reality was that by the time we left, I was so ready to be done packing and cleaning that I couldn't wait to get out of the house. (By the way, our house never did sell, so we are renting it, in case you are wondering.)

We drove for about three hours and spent the night with my Great Aunt in Indiana. A good time, good food, and good conversation were had by all. Friday morning we hit the road for a long day of driving. Jeremy drove the truck all day (there was no way I was going to drive that thing!). I spent about 8 hours total by myself in the car with the kids. It was quite possibly my most challenging day of parenting yet, and it will be a hard one to beat. We all survived and finally arrived at our hotel in Knoxville, TN for the night, where we found that the one bedroom suite we were expecting was actually just a normal hotel room. (Our entire family sleeping in one room = terrible night of sleep for everyone). Jeremy had not yet arrived at the hotel at that point, and I had just taken our kids out for dinner and then hauled all our stuff and our whiny kids up to our room by myself and I was in no mood for arriving to our room to find that it wasn't the suite we were expecting. In my state of exhaustion, I may or may not have kind of lost it on the phone with Jeremy at that point. Thankfully, he arrived at the hotel shortly after and we were moved to a different room that was a suite and was handicap accessible, which meant it had a huge bathroom. Love slept in the living room, Jeremy and I slept in the bedroom, and Jobot slept in the gigantic bathroom. {At this point, I should add that Jobot had developed hives at some point during the day...possibly from the stress of moving, or from the fact that I fed him strawberry baby crackers pretty much all day because that was the only way to get him to stop crying while we were traveling. Seriously...if he wasn't sleeping or eating in the car, that kid was crying. He is not a good traveler. I had new-to-us toys for him to play with and new books to look at, but he would not have any of it.}

We all collapsed into bed shortly after 10 and everyone slept all night long.

Saturday morning we had breakfast at the hotel, cleaned out the van (which was a disaster from the day before), filled up on gas, and headed out for a shorter day of driving. The kids handled the drive about the same as the day before...lots of crying, whining, and misery. Lots of me trying to ignore them because safety on the road was more important than their latest demand, and lots of me passing back snacks, books, and toys to the backseat when I could. And, again, lots of a crying Jobot with hives. Taking a long road trip alone with two kids ages 3 and 1? Not such a great idea. And with kids who are all stressed out because you have just loaded up their entire home onto a moving truck? It makes is even worse. We didn't have any other options though, so we did it and survived.

We drove through the Smoky Mountains on Saturday and arrived at our new (rental) house around 5. A hired crew of three really nice guys helped us move in, we met some of our neighbors, and one of our neighbors even ordered dinner for us and ate with us after the moving truck was unpacked. It was a nice welcome.

Jeremy had the first week off, so we spent that week unpacking, setting up the house, and cleaning (the house was filthy). It was exhausting, challenging, disorienting, and honestly, just pretty terrible.

Things are a bit happier these days. The boxes are unpacked, the house is mostly clean, and we sort-of know our way around. This moving thing, though...not easy.

Jeremy is really enjoying his program and is excited about what he is doing, so that is great. He is working at the Children's Hospital, which is what he was really hoping for.

We are looking for a church, and for friends. The days are long and boring for me because I don't have anyone to hang out with. Not boring in the sense that I don't have anything to do, because these two little people take quite the energy these days...they are both at such busy stages. Just, bored because I don't have any other Moms or friends to interact with. I think I am going to go to a Mom's group on Friday, and a relative of someone Jeremy works with called today to "meet" me over the phone, so hopefully soon we will have some friends.

A few photos from our days here...

Fun with the hose in the backyard.

I will take photos of our house and do a little tour post at some point, and also tell the story of how this came to be our house (pretty amazing). Anyway, that's all for now.

campers

mid-summer came and i got the camping bug. it happens every year. i longed for the musty smell of the tent, the coziness of sleeping bags, the fun of roasting hot dogs, the smell of the campfire, and the atmosphere of a campground.

i knew that camping with a two-year-old and two-month-old wouldn't be relaxing. (and it wasn't.)

but we wanted our kids to experience the joy of camping. so...we packed up and headed out. we originally planned to be gone one night, but after all the work involved in packing and setting up, we decided to stretch it to two. that was a good decision.

we camped at our favorite spot - ludington state park. we ate hot dogs. we introduced our girl to smores. we walked around the campground and went for a swim in lake michigan. jeremy finally conceded and agreed that swimming in lake michigan is better than swimming in the ocean.

we set up for meals and then cleaned up. we found that one of our tent poles had snapped sometime since our last camping trip and creatively made due without it. i forgot our sweatshirts (oops), so we made a stop at the gift shop. we slept on a bed that was covered in sand. we found out that our air mattress has a hole in it, and our lantern needs a new rechargeable battery. we went for drives both nights in a last ditch attempt to get love to finally fall asleep. we put up with her night terrors at 4 am the first night (and so did all of our campground neighbors!). we laughed in shock and sighed with relief when in the midst of her night terror, she suddenly plopped her head down on her pillow and fell asleep. we endured early morning thunderstorms complete with rolling thunder and constant lightning. we sopped up the puddles in our tent in the morning. we packed up a soaking wet tent and set it all up again to dry after we got home.

love touched her first fish. we enjoyed snuggling up with two cozy kids in the cool of the morning. we admired the 18 pound fish our neighbors caught on their fishing expedition. we marveled at our other neighbors who had a flat screen tv set up on their picnic table. we watched our girl sit in her little green chair and wave at cars, bikers, and walkers who passed our campsite. i snuggled with jobot and nursed him by the campfire. we scoped out other people's camping gear. we laughed together the first night after we put love to bed with a glow stick and then saw the light moving all around the tent as she walked around inside. we played games at the picnic table.

early morning in the tent. love these two little snugglers!

special cereals when we go camping!

enjoying some hot chocolate...

tired out from a late night and then some wave jumping in lake michigan.

 

nursing by the fire. something so cozy about that!

  

first smore...haha.

yummy!

a walk around the campground.

and a kind kid who happened to catch a fish right when we walked by. he showed love and let her touch it and then we watched the fish swim away!

we are pretty sure that was our last tent camping experience for a while. it's just really challenging with kids! but...we both agreed that it was worth it and it was definitely a memory maker.

real food on the road

it being my anniversary, you would think i would be out on a romantic date with my love tonight. (my sweet husband who hacked into my blog to leave the romantic message in the last post. what a guy). instead, he is at church helping with vacation bible school, and i am at home with our little one who is already in bed for the night. he won't be home until close to 9, and vacation bible school is every night this week, so we decided we will leave the celebrating for saturday. maybe we will go to the ocean. we are only twenty minutes away.

i haven't been feeling well for the past six days or so. some days worse than others, but i must have caught some kind of nasty bug somewhere. due to my being sick, we still haven't celebrated my birthday, which was on thursday (and yes, i did cry because i was sick on my birthday). we are a bit behind on the celebrating over here, so we will have a lot to catch up on this weekend. i am feeling a bit better today, so things are looking up.

while i have a bit of quiet time tonight (except for the neighbor's dog that barks all night long), i thought i would write a post about real food on the road.

on our recent eight day cross-country trek, we learned a bit about balancing our desire to eat real, whole, healthy food with the reality of being on the road for eight days, not having access to a kitchen, and traveling with a one-year old. we ate meals in all kinds of different places, and by the time we finally arrived at our destination, i concluded that we did a pretty good job of eating real food on the road.

i would have loved to make all kinds of things to take on the road with us...crackers, yogurt, bread, etc...but flying home from our trip to california and leaving for our road trip left two weeks to get our house ready to be put on the market and pack up our family of three for a summer away from home. i did what i could and called it good.

breakfast:
most of the hotels we stayed in had a free continental breakfast available in the mornings. as we were on a tight budget for this trip, we appreciated this but it was challenging for us as we are used to eating eggs, smoothies, quiche, or soaked oatmeal for breakfast. we compromised. a couple of times we brought our own bread (ezekial bread) and jam (raspberry) to the dining area and made toast. one morning i decided i was going to have a waffle (you know, the kind that you make in the little waffle maker?). i didn't feel very well after that and didn't do that again. our little one ate instant oatmeal - i chose the one with the least amount of things added to it and decided i had to be okay with that.

there were a couple of hotels that didn't offer breakfast, so i brought boiled eggs and yogurt and granola along for those mornings and that worked out great. we all liked it, and it was easy. one morning near the end of our trip, we went to the hotel lobby for breakfast and there was nowhere to sit. we were staying in a historic little town at the time, so we decided to try a local place for breakfast and we were really glad we did. we were able to get eggs, and we also treated ourselves to bacon, hash-browns, and toast. we met some locals, sipped some hot coffee, and enjoyed a breakfast out.

yogurt and granola in our hotel room before we hit the road.

suggestions for next time: bring some instant oatmeal to eat for breakfast, definitely bring the yogurt and granola again

lunch:
we decided before we left that we wanted to do picnic lunches. we figured it would be a good way to break up the day, it would save us money because we wouldn't be going out, and we could decide what we wanted to eat. for the most part, our picnic lunches worked out great.

on day 1, we were getting ready to stop for lunch just as a massive thunderstorm was moving in. we had a big breakfast that morning and we weren't that hungry anyway, so we just snacked in the car. we had our picnic for supper that day instead. on day 2, we spent the entire day driving through 40 mph winds and decided not to attempt a picnic. we stopped for lunch somewhere that day, but i don't remember where. another day, we were driving through the desert and could not find anywhere to stop and have our picnic. we finally came upon a little desert town but couldn't find a park (or shade!) anywhere, so we ended up eating at a sonic. there was another day when it was very windy, so i quickly threw together some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in a parking lot and we ate them in the car.

what did we have for our picnic lunches?

sandwiches made with sprouted ezekial bread (until it got moldy and then we bought the best bread we could find at a grocery store along the way), lunchmeat (nitrate and sugar free), tomato, hummus, and mustard

carrots, celery, and hummus

raisins

for a break from sandwiches one day, we had salmon on kashi crackers

we also had bananas and oranges along, so we had a nice variety of options for lunch.

suggestions for next time: consider making sandwiches in the morning, especially if it is going to be a windy day

supper:
there were a couple of days when we had sandwiches for dinner in our hotel room, but we usually ate at a restaurant for dinner. it was nice to go out for dinner after a long day of driving. we chose local restaurants and enjoyed the experience! because we were on a budget, and because we couldn't really keep leftovers anyway, we almost always shared a dinner. it worked out really well. one night we shared a buffalo burger, one night a grilled chicken dinner, one night a steak, and the rest i don't remember. our little one ended up eating macaroni and cheese or spaghetti for dinner most nights.

fort collins, co. coppersmith's brewery. beer bread. yum!

suggestions for next time: rack my brain to try to come up with something we can bring along for baby to eat for dinner (she is very picky these days!)

snacks:
we took quite a few snack breaks during our trip. when baby needed a break (or we needed a break) or when it was taking longer to get to our destination than we thought and we needed something to tide us over...out came the snacks!

pecans

pistachios

granola bars

annie's cheddar bunnies (for baby!)

homemade trail mix (peanuts, sunflower seeds, and raisins)

and of course, fruits and veggies.

treats:

what is a road trip without treats? we got a couple of treats along the way. actually, we kept saying, "today we are going to stop for ice cream"...and then we wouldn't be able to find an ice cream place, or we would see one but the little one would be sleeping and we wouldn't want to stop, and we would get to the end of the day and we wouldn't have gotten ice cream! we did finally stop for ice cream.

no...we didn't buy her two ice cream cones. when we stopped for ice cream, the only time she wasn't crying was when she was holding both of our ice cream cones! we ended up leaving the restaurant and eating the ice cream in the car while we drove.

and of course we got sarsaparilla floats. and they tasted so good in the middle of the desert!

we also brought several treats along with us. we figured that this stopped us from buying more unhealthy sweet things along the way. here's what we brought:

newman's own licorice. i bought this at the health food store before we left because i thought it would be a good treat to bring along. this is the tangerine flavor, which i didn't like, but we also tried the raspberry flavor and that one was really good.

chocolate chip cookies

dried organic apricots.

sugarless peanut butter fudge brownies i made a while back and took out of the freezer before we left.

so...that's what we ate! i am pretty happy with how it all went. of course, there are always unexpected things that come up when traveling, but i think we did pretty well overall. we will be doing it again in two months when we drive home, and it's nice to have more of an idea of what to expect after doing it on the way out here.