Drummond Recap

It took me a few days, but I finally have everything back together and in working order at our house, so I can post some thoughts about our trip to Drummond Island.

1. It was a lot of fun to watch our kids experience their first campfire. I love campfires and brought all of the smore essentials with us. I have always been a little hesitant to bring the boys near a campfire because I was concerned that they would get too close and get burned, but they respected the fire and kept a fairly safe distance. We had a campfire down by the lake almost every day at lunchtime (instead of at night to avoid the bugs and meltdown time) and roasted marshmallows, hot dogs, and made smores. Everybody loved the smores. Sammy literally would take about 20 minutes savoring his smore before he polished it off. We could definitely get a lot of use out of a fire pit if we had one here at home! Hmmm food for thought!
2. Shane’s schedule was messed up on the trip. At home he sleeps swaddled up in a Moses basket with a fan blowing for some background noise (because our house is just a little loud if you can imagine). Up North I had Shane in my room with the fan and he kept getting up 2 hours earlier in the morning than usual and eating at least 2 extra feedings! I noticed that he was getting a tooth (boo hoo) so we thought that maybe that was throwing everything off schedule. It also could have been that the sun comes up at 5:30am since we are so far north and didn’t set until 9:30 or so at night so there was a lot more sunlight. I also suspected that Shane wasn’t getting filled up enough with milk and maybe it was time to start him on some cereal. In any case, since we got home, he is back in the groove. No issues with sleep or feeding so we are all happy again! He did have a little sleep mishap though on the trip that is worth mentioning…. Grandpa and Grandma (Bontir and Bonir) went home for a few days and we were in the cabin by ourselves so I slept with Shane in Grandpa and Grandma’s room. I put Shane’s basket on a little end table right next to my bed and went to sleep. At 5:30am Shane stared talking (but not crying) and I laid perfectly still so that he didn’t notice that I was awake hoping that he would fall back asleep. After a few minutes I felt a slight thumping on the bed and thought that Maggie must have come in the room and was wagging her tail. Finally I rolled over and looked at Shane’s basket. It was tipped over on the floor and Shane had rolled out of it and was almost completely under the bed. He never cried and was kicking my bed talking and smiling in the morning! That was quite a wake up for both of us!
3. John took Wyatt fishing a lot and they even did some fishing at night. Since Wyatt is never outside at night he saw his first sunsets ever on the water from the boat (which were stunning). Tonight when I was tucking Wyatt into bed he asked me why it was still light outside and I said that the sun hadn’t set yet. So he said “when the sun goes down it will go into the water?”. Apparently he thinks that the sun goes into the water every night and comes up out of the water every morning! How cute!
4. I did a lot of running outside on our vacation and mapped out a 3.5 mile loop that was a nice scenic route without a lot of cars to deal with. Normally at home I run on my treadmill so the outside runs were a nice change of pace. After the first couple of days, I decided to take Maggie on my runs with me and she was great! She really seemed to enjoy running with me and eventually I didn’t even need to take her on a leash. She would occasionally fall behind or run ahead, but she was always looking out of the corner of her eye to see where I was and check in. It was like having my own personal running coach on the trip. We are going to try and make it a regular thin here at home if I can just find a loop without huge hills and a limited amount of traffic. Easier said than done!
5. Grandpa spent a good part of his vacation making a new end table to put between the couch, a lamp, and a chair in the cabin. He claimed that it was an Amish-made table, but I swear that we heard him using power tools across the street in the garage. It’s quite an interesting design… After 400 coats of varnish the table was ready to be used and fit perfectly in the designated space. We were all pleased with how it turned out (though we were all high from the fumes so we were pleased with everything)…especially Grandpa!
6. We watched the movie 7 pounds with Will Smith and loved the movie! Watch it if you haven’t yet!
7. The red truck is still working and still the GREATEST vehicle in the world if you are 2 and 3 years old. I think that it is the lack of seat belts, or maybe the massive springy seats, or the enormously loud sound that the engine makes when it is fired up or knowing that your Mom learned to drive a stick shift in that very vehicle, but it was like liquid crack for the boys! The golf cart is the second greatest vehicle in the world and the tractor is the third greatest ride when you are 2 and 3 years old. It didn’t matter where Bontir and Bonir hid the keys for the golf cart, Wyatt ALWAYS knew where they were. He has a special talent for finding and taking keys to great vehicles that is shocking!
8. One morning when I came into the cabin at 6:30 am to feed Shane Grandma told me to go in the back bedroom with her and the boys and close the door. When we got in there she told me that there was a bat in the cabin and Grandpa was going to get it. We waited and heard a lot of banging…then nothing. Finally Grandma peeked her head out and asked if the coast was clear. Grandpa seemed surprised and said the bats gone and “next time let me drink my coffee before you have me kill a bat this early in the morning…he wasn’t going anywhere!”
9. It was a 12 hour drive, we have about 25 pounds of crushed goldfish on the floor of our van, I had about 12 loads of laundry to wash when we got home, we didn’t have a dishwasher, we didn’t have tv, the weather was colder than we expected the first part of the week, Shane got off schedule, it took 2 weeks of packing and planning to get ready to go to Drummond Island…. but it was amazing, totally worth the drive, and we already can’t wait to go back next year!