[2010 Alaska]

Day 6: Tuesday, June 8th: Rain, rain….

The beautiful sunrise from yesterday morning is hiding behind gigantic storm clouds today.  Everyone, including Cody, fell asleep shortly before ten last night.  At least Cody postponed his official wake up until 6:45.  Scott took Cody into the van this morning while Brooke woke up.  Yesterday this worked beautifully.  Brooke and Scott didn’t emerge from the tent until 8:15.  It took them a little while to wrap up the tent mats and sleeping bags, but they basically had three hours extra sleep past Cody’s 5 am wake up call.

[2010 Alaska]

Lunch at Ft Snelling

We stumbled upon this great old fort while traversing the ole miss. It turned out to be a great park with a rich military history. I’d love to tell you more but Brooke wouldn’t let me stop to read any of the signage. I hear she did a great guided tour with mama after though.

[2010 Alaska]

Day 5: Monday, June 7th St. Croix (Again?)

5am

I am typing without my glasses, so please excuse any gigantic errors.  We are trying something different today.  At home when Cody would wake up I would play with him in the living room or my room quietly until the rest of the house would wake up.  Scott decided this would be a good idea again.  Thus Cody and I are hanging out in the van while Brooke hopefully catches some more shuteye.  Cody is much more of a climber than Brooke was at this age and he is happily climbing on the bins, strollers (recognize the stroller Carla?  It works fabulously! Thank you!), and the booster seat.  We were treated to a beautiful sunrise while we were hanging out too.

[2010 Alaska]

Day 4: Sunday, June 6th

It is a beautiful seventy-degree sunny Sunday.  Yesterday I was delirious from lack of sleep.  Today I am just cranky.  It doesn’t help that I am also dealing with an over-tired toddler and baby too.  I was so tired last night that while feeding Cody I fell asleep.  When I awoke I had trouble remembering where I was and where I was supposed to be putting Cody.  I try not to fall asleep feeding Cody because both Scott and Brooke roll while they sleep.  Although I have to say Scott has been staying in one spot a lot better than Brooke.  Brooke keeps rotating off of her sleep mat and the ground is not only hard, but also very cold at night.  We are going to try to put two  mats under her tonight in an attempt to keep her warmer.  Last night was the first night we put a sleeping bag in Cody’s play yard.  I was nervous he was going to get wrapped up in it and stuck.  He definitely seemed to stay warmer with the sleeping bag.  He woke up only twice before 5:30.  The first time was at 11:30 due to the amazing guitarist in the site next to us getting a little too loud.

[2010 Alaska]

Day 4: Sunday, June 6th: Secret Info

“You’re Going the WRONG Way!!!”  We love to visualize and chuckle at this scene from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.

[2010 Alaska]

The Great River Road Visitors & Learning Center

We stopped at The Great River Road Visitors & Learning Center at Freedom Park in Prescott, WI around 4:30 yesterday.  It was raining so we were having trouble deciding how to go about dinner and setting up camp.  I am so glad we stopped here.  We met an amazing volunteer named Janet.  She spent a lot of time helping us.  There were a lot of hands-on exhibits.  Cody was able to stand and crawl around and Brooke read her first word on her own.  Brooke and I were on our way to the bathroom to get some paper towels to clean up some water she spilled.  While in the bathroom she asked why a sign above the stairs said Exit.  The sign actually said Not an Exit, but I was so excited that she read a word.  It was completely random, and caught me by surprise.  She “reads” me stories all the time, but I can’t wait until she can actually read to me.

[2010 Alaska]

Day 2: Continued

It is difficult to choose between my two favorite titles for today.  “Are you kidding me?” or “Holy Tantrum Batman!”  More to come later.  Let’s just say we didn’t make too many friends at the campground and our first campground showers were interesting! :-)  I hope you are having an “interesting” day too!

read more

[2010 Alaska]

Day 3: Saturday, June 5th LaCrosse, WI to St. Croix Bluffs Regional Park, Minnesota

The day began at six, which isn’t too bad, unless you consider the plethora of times Cody and I were up last night.  It is good we were up because we had our first “Call Me Button” phone call from John around 6:15.  Yes, the button worked. :-) I haven’t tried to call myself, but apparently you just click on the button on the right, put in your phone number, Google Voice calls you, and it calls us.  Pretty neat!

[2010 Alaska]

Fun at lunch time

Location:La crosse

[2010 Alaska]

Day 2: Friday, June 4th – The Great River Road

We were up and moving by nine.  At Grant’s home we had our first “asphalt picnic”.  We didn’t intend to eat out of the van in the parking lot.  Scott asked Brooke if she wanted a snack, and before we knew it we were eating for an hour.  We found a beautiful park five minutes down the road. :-)