Leaving Minnesota

The time has flown, and we're leaving tomorrow. It's been a fun vacation. We've really enjoyed Greg & Marianne's hospitality, and it's been fun relaxing and visiting and eating good food. We've barbecued some great meals, and we even went out to dinner last night. The four adults had a date night! Peyton was with her grandparents, and we got a babysitter for the boys last night so that we could go out for a child-free evening. We took the boat to a restaurant on the lake and sat outside on their deck for dinner. We didn't have to chase any children or pick up any cheerios. Then we took a nice cruise around the lake before heading home to put the boys to bed. It was a very fun evening. I think Henry & Nathan will grow up being great friends. They are only 4 months apart, and it will be fun for each of them to have a cousin so close in age. But, for now, they've mostly ignored each other. Except when fighting over the same toy (in a room full of hundreds of other toys). Every once in a while, though, we've caught them playing nicely together.

They shared a book. They played outside together. They watched t.v. together. They checked out the food in the pantry together. They took a bath together tonight.

We're going to miss them when we leave!

Fun at the Lake

We spent yesterday afternoon enjoying the lake. We loaded up the towels, toys, drinks, and kids and walked down to the lake. Jeff, Henry, and Peyton went swimming.The little beach and boat dock are a great place to hang out.

Then we went for a fun ride on the boat. Peyton relaxed. Jeff did some tubing.

The boys steered the boat.

We all had a great time!

Another fun day in MN

We're still enjoying our vacation here in Brainerd. Jeff took Henry swimming in the lake today...naked. Well, Henry was naked. Not Jeff. Then Henry continued the naked-ness for the walk back up to the house. And for some play time in the front yard. Nathan opted to play fully clothed.
I finally got a picture of the elusive Marianne.Still no pictures of me. Maybe later. Marianne and I are going to get massages at a spa tomorrow. That should be fun!

Land of 10,000 Lakes

I don't think I mentioned on the blog that we were going on vacation. We are now in Brainerd, Minnesota visiting Greg, Marianne, Peyton, and Nathan. We arrived yesterday, and we'll be staying until August 1. The flight over was o.k., but it was very crowded, and we didn't buy a seat for Henry, so it was not fun having him on our laps for 3 1/2 hours. He did very well, though, and even slept for an hour and a half. It was another 2+ hours in the car to get to their house, but it was well worth the flight and the drive.

Greg and Marianne's house is right on Gull Lake, and we are staying in their guest house. It's a gorgeous place with a little sandy beach (which Henry hasn't tried out yet) and a boat dock. The weather was in the 90s and humid today, but it's supposed to be nicer in a few days. Marianne and I braved the heat and took the boys and the dog, Charlie, out for a walk today.

Henry already loves Charlie. He keeps saying "puppy...puppy."Marianne said that she never gets pictures of Nathan smiling, so of course I had to take that as a challenge.Greg & Jeff with their boys.

After we put the little boys to bed, we took the baby monitors and headed down to the dock for sunset. Greg, Jeff, and Peyton did a little fishing. Greg caught a little bass.

Jeff enjoyed sitting on the dock and drinking an Old Milwaukee...yuck.

Somehow I managed to avoid being in any pictures, and I didn't get one of Marianne either. I will make it my mission to get a picture of her, and will be following her around tomorrow like a member of the paparazzi.

Signing off...from Brainerd, MN.

Henry is a genius!

I guess I don't have a lot of other 21-month-olds for comparison, but I think Henry is super smart! He keeps amazing me with the things that he knows. He blew me away again today. He has magnetic alphabet letters on the refrigerator, and he brought two of them to me today. As he gave them to me, he said, "O....P." Sure enough, they were the "O" and the "P." I thought it must be a crazy coincidence since he's never named the letters before, so I went and grabbed the letter "E" and showed it to Henry. He immediately said "EEEEEE." I tried it with a few other letters, and he knew several of them...even "W!" Here's proof!

Do most 21-month-olds know their alphabet letters? I think he's a genius! Of course, I might be a tad bit biased.

A visit to the ER

Unfortunately Henry had his first visit to the emergency room on Thursday night. He's o.k. and it turns out we probably didn't need to go, but we were erring on the side of safety. I was just thinking the other day how wonderful it was that Henry hadn't been sick for months. I guess I jinxed us because at about 6:30 on Thursday evening Henry vomited...a lot. He was fine all day on Thursday. We went swimming and played, and he was in a great mood all day. Then in the late afternoon/early evening, he got pretty lethargic, and didn't want to eat or drink. A while after his big vomiting episode, we tried giving him a bottle, but he quickly vomited again. He kept asking for a drink, saying "cup...cup." But every time he took even a few sips of water, he threw up again. He didn't have a fever, so it seemed strange for him to be so sick. I tried putting him to bed at 8:00, and he actually slept for almost an hour, but then he woke up and threw up in his crib. Then he threw up several more times between 9:00 and midnight. Finally Jeff called the advice nurse. She asked whether Henry had experienced any head trauma. I immediately thought "NO," but Jeff answered that he had been hit by a swing and knocked over on Wednesday evening. I completely forgot about that because it really didn't seem like a big deal. My friend's son was swinging in Henry's swing, and Henry walked in front of the swing. The hard plastic swing hit him on the forehead and knocked him down. I didn't even see it happen because I was inside the house, but Jeff didn't make a big deal about it at the time. As soon as he told the advice nurse about this possible "head injury" she advised him to take Henry to the ER, but we weren 't really sure whether it was warranted. We debated about it for a while (it was past midnight at this point, and Henry had FINALLY fallen asleep 10 minutes earlier), and decided to call the emergency room and see what they had to say. I spoke to an ER nurse, and asked whether we should bring him in and her answer was, "ABSOLUTELY." She said that any time a baby hits his/her head and there is vomiting in the next 24 hours, you should bring them in. I immediately started crying. We got Henry up, he threw up a little, we got ourselves ready, and we headed to the hospital. Once there, they needed to check Henry's vital signs, and he wasn't too happy about the pulse/oxygen monitor that they attached to his toe. If he thought that was bad, the next thing they did was take his temperature...rectally. He had a FIT! He sobbed and screamed and cried and didn't calm down for a long time. We were finally seen by a doctor at about 2:00 a.m. He said that we they could do a CAT scan to check for head trauma, but they would have to start an I.V. and sedate him. Then we would have to wait for the sedation to wear off. But, since Henry wasn't exhibiting any other signs of head trauma, he didn't think it was completely necessary. We opted to give him a Zofran for his nausea, and let them observe him for an hour. We finally got home and into bed by about 3:45 a.m. He seemed pretty good all day on Friday, other than not eating or drinking much. Then, this morning (after NOT vomiting for about 34 hours), Henry drank about 8 oz. of milk and vomited A LOT again. Since then he's been absolutely fine. I really don't know what to make of it. No fever. Lots of vomiting. But, he seems to be feeling great right now. We'll just hope that it's a stomach bug, and that it's long gone now. It was a horrible scary night, but we're just happy he's o.k.

Killer Tomatoes

I am amazed at how much my tomato plants have grown in only 3 weeks! They are just starting to get some tiny green tomatoes, so hopefully we'll be eating home-grown tomatoes in August.

Here are the plants on June 26:

Here they are today (July 18):

Henry + Spaghetti =

HUGE MESS!!Even after I used about 20 wet wipes to clean him up, Jeff later found a piece of spaghetti hiding in Henry's hair.

Fashion Statement

A John Deere t-shirt, camouflage shorts, and rain boots. He INSISTED on wearing the boots. Now THAT'S a look! Soon everyone will be wearing it.

We had to cruise the neighborhood to show off his good fashion sense.

Henry Picasso

Jeff took Henry to his art class today. He created a beautiful finger painting masterpiece...on the paper and on his face.

Henry is...

Happy

Serious

Inquisitive

Studious

Silly

Opinionated

Thoughtful

A typical male (notice the hand down the pants).

Some things never change

This morning Henry & I went shopping at Fred Meyer. I let him ride on the horse outside of the store, and as soon as it started moving, he got a HUGE smile on his face. Several people who were walking by smiled and commented on how cute he was. When the ride ended, Henry immediately started signing for "more." I put in another quarter, and as he was enjoying his second ride, a very elderly woman walked up and stood there watching Henry. It was very sweet to watch her watch Henry. She told me that her children, grandchildren, and now great-grandchildren have all enjoyed this type of ride. Then she smiled and said, "It's nice to know some things never change."

**This is the first time I've ever used a picture from my camera phone on the blog. I just figured out how to do it.