Fawn Doe Rosa

 To end our fun mini- vacay at Ryan and Kristie's family cabin in Osceola, WI... we hit Fawn Doe Rosa Wildlife Educational Park.

We had 3 toddlers under 25 months (it would have sounded more fun to say under 2, but the big #2 just passed). It's a great park that boasts a good amount of wandering room for the animals and many of them are just wanderin' around so you can pet them! We had a great time thanks to our great friends who introduced us to this place!

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Rocky Gap State Park

We have now completed camping trip #2 with the girls (still sans puppies). We decided on western Maryland this time- a bit further away than our suburban camping experience. The campground was considerably nicer at Rocky Gap however; I don't think I have seen cleaner bathrooms while camping... ever.

Dave spent a good half an hour attaching the stroller to the roof of the truck so we could bring it along this time. We never ended up using it however since we didn't want to spend the time taking it down:) We also brought a 2nd pack n' play along with our little noise machine. I attribute better baby sleeping to 1) They each had their own bed (one did not have to go on the floor next to us 2) the noise machine added a nice wave-seagull ambiance to the tent (it was like we had an ocean front campsite!); 3) they have started to get used to camping!

Stella

Lucy

Dad with Stella

We went to the beach at Lake Habeeb for the girls' first swimming experience. Lucy was not a happy camper when we put the sunblock on her - but once she was in the water she was all smiles. It took Stella a bit to get used to the whole experience but she was soon having fun as well- especially when we started playing with the mini pine tree-looking seaweed! I should note that Stella was the first one in the water!

The only thing that we kind of messed up on is that we did not prepare very well for the cold nights (i had checked the weather before we left and it appeared that it was not going to go below 75 at night, but it was wrong!). None of us had warm clothes with us so we had to get a bit creative. The girls used their own blankets plus a few of Daddy's t-shirts and we ended up using the girls play blanket as an extra cover.

Saturday night, after the girls fell asleep and we were chatting around the campfire- we saw a UFO. At first Dave pointed at the blinking light in the sky through the trees and said "Look at the satellite!"; all of a sudden it shot across the sky. We then thought maybe it was a shooting star, because satellites do not move that fast... right? All of a sudden it shot back- it was moving all over the place up there! We were pretty convinced we were having a super natural experience. And then, right before our eyes, the UFO zoomed down towards my face. This is when we realized that we had been watching a lightening bug the entire time.

After all was said and done, this experience went a lot smoother than last time!

First Camping trip with the Girls

So we haven't been camping since the girls were born and we decided to give it a shot for Father's Day weekend!

We stayed in Patapsco Valley State Park, which was our first time, which is kind of funny since it is only a 25-minute drive from our house. It is between Baltimore and DC. It is a beautiful park, and somewhat comical that it was a mere 5-minute excursion to a Starbucks (along with a host of other suburban supermarts) from our campsite. But lo and behold, while in our lovely site, you barely noticed that these things existed. We didn't even hear traffic, just the occasional train

.

We arrived late (after 8) on Friday evening and were able to get the tent up and fire going before

it got dark. All was going smoothly until we tried to get the girls to sleep. We only have one pack n' play so we figured that one of the girls would just sleep on a make-shift number next to us. It was not as easy as I had hoped and Dave ended up having to drive the girls around the campground loop a few times until they fell asleep. This is something that I have often heard of parents doing to get their little one asleep, and we haven't had to use this method until now! We had them in their car seats for a while and then transferred them to their sleeping quarters. Lucy only woke up once the first night; Stella was up several times. Then, thanks to the lack of blackout shades, she was wide-eyed and bushy-tailed

between 5AM and 7AM

(Dave and I were definitely not ready to be up yet considered our campfire was still burning at 2AM). Lucy woke up to eat at 7AM and that's when we decided we were going to have to relocate the girls back to their car seats and create some make-shift sun shades. This worked and they slept until 9AM.

I should also mention that we had a HUGE thunderstorm that started around 4AM with pouring rain and loud loud thunder (the girls surprisingly did NOT wake up during this). And we are happy to report that our tent continues to be fabulously waterproof!!

Saturday morning we drank homemade cold-press coffee and made a trip into suburbo for some hot breakfast sandwiches. We took a hike on the Ol Ranger trail through the Paw Paw trees. It

was beautiful and very shaded; it was fairly hilly terrain and we definitely got a work out dodging

rocks and roots, and climbing up and down- all with a baby attached to each one of us! The girls

still fit in their carriers (Baby Bjorn and a Fisher Price number) so we had them facing outward on the trek. I think its about time we look for the backpack kind however; dangling toes and strong legs tend to hit their parents in uncomfortable places!

We visited H Mart (which is an Asian specialty grocery store) to find food for dinner. From the selection of cow tongue, rabbit, and pigs feet- we ended up selecting a nice healthy portion of Halibut. We wrapped it in tin foil on the fire. One was marinated in a garlic/italian dressing for an hour and then other we cooked with butter and a lemon/ pepper/ salt mixture. Both of them turned out quite nice- the marinated one a bit better.

Shortly after dinner, I heard some rustling by the picnic table. Naturally I had to have Dave

check it out, since I was not going head-on with whatever it was.... We thought it was probably a squirrel, but it ended up being a big ol' raccoon digging in our trash that we had just lying around (oops). Fortunately, he wobbled out of there as soon as Dave shone the flashlight on his masked face.

Bed time, take two. This time Lucy was the non-sleeper. They had both fallen asleep in their car seats (it seemed to work well because we could rock them to sleep) .We couldn't let them cry it out in their beds because we had a couple new neighbors on both sides and the sound traveled a little too well. Lucy however, did not stay asleep- she was awake almost every hour. Then around 7AM Dave took her for a ride in the car so I could get a bit of sleep.

We left on Sunday after our morning fire.

After all was said and done, we had a good time, even though we were both quite sleep-deprived (a bit more than normal!). Since it was now Father's Day I knew who was going to get to take the nap when we got home:)

Sleeping through the Night

I did not believe it would ever happen. The week before we left for MN, so Dec. 18ish, the girls BOTH slept through the night. I am talking a good 8 hours. Of course I woke up several times to make sure they were OK, but after a couple weeks now of mostly sleeping through the night, I am actually getting a normal amount of sleep (in a row) again!!

It makes a difference how much they eat during the day I found. If I feed them every 2-3 hours during the day, they will sleep through the night. When they are home with Daddy, they eat less and I notice that they are more likely to wake up in the middle of the night.

They are still on our room in the pack and play, the plan is to move them into their own space after my parents visit in January!