Okoboji 2009!

Well, leave it to me to use paid nanny time to sit down and post about our vacation. Honestly, though, we've been back a week now and I've yet to find enough time to do so until now. Not that any of you are dying to hear about our family vacation, but still. It's on my "to do" list. So I plan to get back to that diss. as soon as I post some photos of our trip.

Note: on the dissertation front, today I received my most recent chapter back from my adviser with notes and suggestions for revisions (can you call them "suggestions" when she writes things like, "Brandy, you MUST include ___". Probably not.) Admittedly, her page to page changes were not bad at all-- in fact, there are several pages that have no comments. Score. She had 4 general points about the chapter overall about weaknesses that need to be strengthened. Some of them make me groan because I have to go back and add crap in that may not need to be there, but considering this is how academia and the revision process works, I am not surprised and not too down about it. In fact, it was much better than expected. If her changes are that easy with every chapter, I may be able to finish this thing. However, this WAS the only chapter she returned to me, though it was the third one she has received. Not sure why. One of the previous chapters was my intro, which is arguably the most important chapter in the diss. Anyway, I tread on. She'd like me to finish another chapter and get it to her before we meet in person in two weeks. This may be unlikely to happen, but I guess we'll see.

So....vacation. Sigh. It was nice, the boys had fun, but it was indeed exhausting.As much as I'd like to wax poetic about how great a vacation it was, at just the right time, and how we loved the sweet family time, reality pushes me to admit that it was a bit of a challenge. Even with all the mental prep for a vacation with kids, we were unprepared as to how challenging it would be. Vacation with young kids is like being at home with young kids, except without the baby-proofing or toys. Each morning the boys got up around 6:30am, and by the time we ate, walked, did arts and crafts, and swam, it would be 10am and we'd be wondering, "My god, NOW what are we going to do??" There was no sitting idly on the dock and watching the boats float by, since Benj would have nothing of that stillness. And the kids' craft classes each morning were fun for Jack, but for a 2 and a half yr-old, it only takes about 10 minutes to haphazardly paint a ceramic puppy before he's off to the next adventure. Thank god for parks. And hotel rooms with full kitchens and eating areas. If we had been forced to eat every meal out, we may have started skipping meals. Still, the photos show us having fun together and there were definite good moments. I found myself feeling quite depressed the morning we left, which proved to me that my dad is right when he says every year, "A bad day at the Lake is still better than a good day at home." Here are some of the photos...

Our first two days were spent at the cabin of a college friend of our's, right on west lake Okoboji. Four families got together in this cabin, with 6 kids under age 5. The main sleeping area was one big loft with 5 beds. You can imagine that getting children to nap/go to bed was the biggest challenge of our days :) They had a lot of fun, though.



I giggle every time I see this photo. All the kids were up in the loft, with one brave parent in the middle of them, trying to keep them in bed and quiet for naptime. At one point the rest of us heard giggling. Apparently, Caleb (Jack's bed buddy) was almost asleep, when Jack turned to him and said "I'm gassy!" and farted very loud in his face. The more they laughed, the more he let loose, until it was a gassy giggle fest. So much for naptime.





This may be my favorite photo from the whole trip-- the 4 oldest kids on the dock:


We frequented the "old time" park, complete with teeter totters, metal slides and play equipment, and an old school merry go round. I narrowly lost a game of tetherball there, too.


The three youngest: Benj, Baby Alex, and Dana


Upon leaving our friend's cabin at the end of the weekend, we checked into our hotel for four more nights of lakeside fun. This was the view from our room:

We killed time waiting for our room to be ready by heading over to Arnold's Park, just steps away from our room. It was more expensive than expected, but fun for a day of rides and sunny weather. Jack loved the trampoline:

Benj couldn't do much, but he did enjoy the carousel and these kiddie boats

Jack and Mike went paddle boating

We attended a 50s, 60s, and 70s party (yes, that's a lot of decades) at our hotel one night, and Benj and Jack danced and entertained the crowd. Jack limboed. Sort of...


We swam every day. Usually in the indoor pool since we went in the morning, but once in the outdoor pool, and only in the lake when we were at Abby's cabin. Jack LOVED swimming alone with his life jacket on. It made life a bit simpler for us, too. Both kids are fish and love, love, love the water.


This was a site for sore eyes, but unfortunately it never led to actual napping. He got to watch his Thomas movie each day to relax before naptime. The only way we could get him to nap, though (the whole week) was to pop him in the van and drive for about 10 minutes. It worked like a charm every time. But then one of us had to sit in the van while he napped, AC running. Nothing like burning fossil fuel to get your kid to rest.

My favorite part of the lakes is still the daily cruises on the Sunrunner. The kids enjoyed the crackers and cheese, I enjoyed that they were still for 45 consecutive minutes. They liked the Sunrunner cruises so much, that on our last full day there we decided to do one of the other boats. We went out on the Million Dollar Home tour, a smaller speed boat that takes fewer people out around the lake, and points out nice houses--telling you how much they are worth, how many bathrooms, etc. are in them, and who owns them. We thought this would be fun, but it was a BAD decision. Jack was the only one who loved it (speed boat). Benj hated his life jacket and screamed the whole time, and the speed boat was so bumpy I thought I might go into labor right then. It was horribly uncomfortable and left me feeling really uneasy for a good 3 hrs. afterward. Oops, I guess that was not a good choice for a woman who just entered her third trimester.

The only relaxation time Mike and I gleaned was if and when we got the kids to sleep at night, we escaped to the patio outside (baby monitor in hand) and watched the sunset. Just sitting by the lake (usually with chocolate) helped ease our minds after a long day of kiddie entertainment. We often were exhausted enough that we barely managed an hour out there, but it was worth it. So I'll end with the beautiful photos of those moments!!