Packing galore

Our morning began with a little chicken pox scare, which I thought Jack had. He spent last weekend with my parents, and my mom got shingles. We were told he wouldn't be at risk because he had a chicken pox vaccine, plus she had no blisters (which makes shingles contagious). But lo and behold he developed several faint red bumps last night and I freaked. There went our vacation, fading before my eyes, as we obviously couldn't take him to a cabin for the weekend with 5 other kids (1 of which is only 4 months and has not had a chicken pox vaccine). Luckily the pediatrician said it does not look like chicken pox at all, but is probably just a heat rash that hasn't yet gone away and is slightly the result of going in and out of the kiddie pool without rinsing. Phew.

Tomorrow begins our trip to Okoboji, and since Alison is here from 8-4 today, I should be mad working on chapter 4 of my dissertation. But there is SO MUCH packing to be done, that I'm a bit tied up with that. Little people require so much. Or maybe they don't, but we think they do. Either way, that minivan will be full. And we don't even take pack n' plays or strollers along! The first weekend of our trip will be spent in a cabin part owned by a college friend of our's. It will be a mini-Drake reunion, with 4 families and their kids (6 kids under age 5!) all in one cabin on the lake. I think the kids will have a blast...although sleeping may be interesting. Most of the beds are in one big loft area, so my imagination is running as I think about trying to get them to calm down and sleep--together. Sunday night we'll check into our hotel, since we are staying the rest of the week on our own. Hopefully the weather cooperates and affords us nice, sunny, but not over-the-top heat for that week.

My goal is to keep up with Samantha's challenge while we're gone by writing up a bunch of posts ahead of time that will go up each day we're gone. I'm not even half way there yet and am running out of topics. I wish I was more creative! We'll see how it goes.