flashback friday - father's day surprise

We aren't so good about surprises in this house. Both of us like to spill the beans early.

But this year I DID IT!  I pulled of a great surprise and went to lots of work to do it!

It started at Dick's Sporting Goods a few weeks before Father's Day.

He had been wanting one of these for a year or so and they were on sale. 

I talked him out of getting it right then, knowing it would be a great gift and I NEVER know what to get him for gifts!  But yet I didn't want to make an extra trip to Wichita just to get it either. So I was trying to be quick on my feet and figure out how I could get it without him knowing.

We were headed out of the store and I told him I had to go to the bathroom  - that's all I could think of.

So he and the kids waited outside in front of the store for me. I ran and grabbed the canopy and drug it through the store, grabbed an employee and asked if they could help me out.  I tried to explain that he had to get this out to our truck FAST, before Dave decided to move and possibly either come back inside or head to the truck.  So he headed out the door, walked right by Dave and towards our truck.  I was SO nervous he'd get the wrong truck.  I saw Dave look at the guy, and thought he was going to watch where he was going.  But he didn't.  Although he suspected SOMETHING because he then started peering in the store window looking all over for me.  So I thought I had blown it. 

While trying to stay low so Dave wouldn't see me in the checkout line, I paid for the items and then headed out the door trying not to blow my cover.  Everything seemed fine.  I apologized I took so long and we headed towards the truck.  I kept my eye on him to see if he was going to peer in the back.  NOPE- he walked right by and didn't even see it sitting in the back.  SUCCESS!!

We got home with his gift and he didn't even know it! 

So I was trying to think of something fun we could do for Father's Day - usually Dave has always played in a wiffle ball tournament this weekend, but this is the first year in awhile he hasn't. 

His gift made me think of CAMPING - so I decided I'd plan a night of camping for our family.

My plans kept getting more and more extensive - and when the day came, I wasn't sure I could really pull off all I wanted.  I wanted to drive him to our spot and have everything already there - I didn't want him to have to do ANY work to get us there.

The day started at 8am...

In the shed - freaking out about skunks, snakes and spiders, trying to find and pull out all of our camping bins, coolers, chairs, etc.  It was a lot to carry, lots of it was really heavy - but I was determined! 

Met Dave's dad to help me find our camping spot at East Lake and set up the tent.

The wind was blowing 100 miles an hour- which isn't good conditions for setting up a tent.

But again, I was determined. 

It took us WAY longer than it should have and we had to tie it to some trees and put weight inside to make sure it wouldn't blow away.  But we were pretty sure it would stay.  I was pretty nervous that the wind would ruin our plans.  There was NO way we would camp in that wind - it was miserable.  So I PRAYED the wind would die down by the evening.

Back to town for a quick lunch date with friends and kids.

Then back to work..

Loaded up the car with everything I could possibly think that we needed.

Drove to where Dave keeps his stash of firewood - loaded up as much wood as I thought we'd need.

Back to the campsite - unload everything.

Back to town to load up with all the food we'd need.

Running out of time....SO glad he called and said he'd be about 45 minutes late.

Crunch time!

Dropped off the steak, potatoes, onions, and carrots at Dave's mom so she could throw the hobo dinners together for me. 

Back to the house to pack up the final stuff- overnight bags for all of us, bedding and coolers for our food and drinks.

Everything was finished in perfect timing.

Although I had forgotten that I told him to come home, shower and dress fairly nice (to throw him off in case he DID suspect something)....so my appearance completely blew my cover as I was basically in work out clothes soaking wet of sweat from the MARATHON I felt like I had been running since eight that morning.

So at this point he narrowed it down to the fact that we probably weren't going anywhere with other people - which actually ruled out something he THOUGHT we could be doing.

When I wasn't around he asked Taylor "where are we going tonight?"

Her reply..."I can't tell you!"  So proud of her!

Taylor wanted to blind fold him - which I thought would be a great idea too.  I knew if I started heading to East Lake he'd figure it out possibly.  So I decided we'd drive in some circles and in all different directions for awhile to try to throw off his sense of direction.  He wasn't thrilled about the blind fold - I could tell he was doing all he could to just be nice and let us have our fun.

The minute we turned out of our neighborhood in the opposite direction of the lake, Taylor said

"but Mom, Nana turned the other way to go to camping!" (as she recalled from earlier in the day when Nana drove the kids out to see where we were camping at)  I just laughed! 

So...he knew we were camping - he took the blind fold off and I headed to the lake. 

But he still didn't know details - if we were meeting someone else?  if we were just going out for dinner or swimming?  he never expected to find a campsite waiting for him.

He was quite surprised!  And I think pretty impressed that I had gotten everything myself.

We weren't able to have his gift set up (b/c of the wind earlier in the day) - but we showed it to him first thing and told him how I bought it the night we were there. 

And then he grabbed a chair, sat down with a drink and said "man, this is nice!" 

Just what I was going for - a night of camping without him having to do any of the work to get us there!

We got the fire going and then headed to the swimming area so the kids could swim.

Dave's dad joined us since Nana had bunko - and he put dinner on the fire while we were swimming.

Thanks to Dave's mom for getting these put together in my last minutes of craziness!

Here is the rest of our little camping trip in pictures...

They each had their own little tent inside our big tent.

Their windows were up against each other so they had fun peaking in at each other and laughing. 

Oh yeah, and crawling from one tent to another that way too.

For you die hard campers, I'm sure the Ipod breaks official "camping" rules.

But an episode of Cailou before bed sure helped them to calm down and have something similar to home.

Nothing says camping like bacon and eggs.

We had a blast!

I knew Dave would enjoy it but I really didn't expect him to enjoy it as much as he did.

But he deserved every last bit of the work and planning involved - and then some!

my heart just melted

I came uptairs to see these 2 being extra sweet to each other.

Mason had laid on the couch and was covering up with Taylor's blanket.

Normally this would cause some major problems.

But this day, she ran to get his blanket, took hers off of him, and covered him back up with his own.

And then proceeded to stay by the couch and cuddle and talk to him.

These pictures don't even do the moment justice.

Makes a mommy's heart melt.

I think I moved too fast

Taylor's been ready for a new bed for awhile now.

She's been in her crib (converted to a toddler bed) for the last 2 years I think.

I've kept moving it down the list as I haven't had time or been ready to shop for new bedding for her and decide if there are any changes I want to make to her room.

But it was time.

So we decided we'd just go with what we have on hand for now.  We have Dave's bunk beds from his childhood, that come apart, and we have an extra white down comforter - so all we really needed was some sheets.  Walmart is good for that.

We needed to buy a twin mattress and get Dave's bunk beds out of storage.

So why not just buy 2, and get both beds out of storage at the same time.

Mason's done SUPER since we've taken the front off his crib, we were sure he'd do fine in a twin too.

I thought it sounded like a good idea.

Until now.

I stand in the hallway, looking into both kids' rooms and see this...

I will admit sitting and looking at these pictures are making my eyes water.

Big kid beds.

No more cribs.

It is quite the shock.

Next time maybe I'll take it a little slower. 

Although they are only 16 months apart - maybe I'll spread them out on a few things a bit more.

Mom can't handle shocks like this too often.

And in case you are wondering how they are doing...

Taylor chose to sleep on the floor the first night, because she was a little scared of the bed.

Mason hopped right in, went to sleep and slept all night.

Since then I have found him up out of bed a few times playing with his cars.

And since Anni (our lab) sleeps in his room, by his request, I've also found her sleeping on the bed with him, right at his feet. 

Taylor got used to it pretty quickly after that first night.

And now they are both doing PERFECT!

And on a few random but half-way related notes...

Taylor found this baby doll in a box in our storage room.  All of a sudden it appeared one day.

It's my babydoll from when I was her age.  It's quite an ugly little thing, but special none-the-less.

And since our recent stop at IKEA - that plain white comforter in Taylor's room is sporting a very CUTE duvet cover now!

chicago in a day

All along we planned to leave Michigan on Thursday, July 8th, and drive straight through - so Dave could go to work on Friday.

We left the lakehouse and all of our sleeping family, at 4am in our pajamas.

Dave noticed the GPS didn't have us going home through Indianapolis, the way we came.

So I checked the atlas to see if going through Chicago was a lot longer or not.

It didn't appear to be too much different - even if was a bit longer, we decided we'd like the new scenery.

So we just followed the GPS.

Around 9am we stopped 40 miles out of Chicago for breakfast.

That's when Dave got the crazy idea of taking an extra day and staying in Chicago.

I figured he was throwing it out there, gonna get me all excited and then take it back and say we really needed to get home.  He can be spontaneous with his ideas sometimes - but doesn't like to follow through and actually DO IT like I do!

But he didn't take it back, he was serious.

He said he could make a phone call and not go into work.

By 9:30 that morning we were planning out our day.

I called the one person that I know that KNOWS Chicago - thanks Megan! We missed her family by a day there!

I asked where the best area to stay would be, what we could do in a day, where everything was, etc.

I got all the scoop and then booked our hotel room on priceline.com - thanks to some friends that have recently given great reviews on using priceline! It was a first for us.

We knew the area we'd like to stay - but knew it would be quite pricey.

But priceline treated us WELL!

We got a room at the Palmer House Hilton in downtown Chicago.  A block or so off Michigan Avenue, walking distance to Millenium park and The Navy Pier.

And the best part - they let us check in at 10am!  I was trying to figure out where we were going to all go change and freshen up since we hadn't really gotten dressed that morning, thinking we'd be on the road for 16 hours.

So we got right in our room and then headed right back out to enjoy the city.

First stop...Millenium Park

We were about an hour or so into our day and hadn't covered much ground at all.

It's hard to move along in the city very quickly with a 2 and 3 year old walking.

So the one problem about being spontaneous was that we didn't have a stroller.

And we obviously knew we would not be making it far without one, and we got tired of trying to find a place to rent them.

So we hopped in a cab to go to the nearest Walgreens.
Mason asked if the police was going to get him because he wasn't in his seat.

2 ugly strollers = $60

But it made the rest of our day SOOO worth it.

We took Taylor to the American Girl Store.

And she picked out Lanie.

We're just gonna let her dream about that one.

We were headed to the John Hancock Observatory for $15 each, when a man told us to go the lounge/restaurant at the top and just order a few drinks and get the same view.

So glad we did!

We sat right at this table that looked out over the city.

The kids liked their "fancy" drinks with cherries - so much that it required a "cheers"

In this next picture you can see the Navy Pier - which is where we were headed next, by foot.

We had wondered about having to go back to the hotel for naps, and were hoping not.

They both ended up falling asleep in their strollers - PERFECT!  We just kept on truckin!

At this point we were both dragging - it was HOT and we had walked so much.

Dave relaxed at the end of the pier while we walked around and took some pictures.

They were too short for the big ferris wheel and other rides on the pier, so luckily Thomas was good enough.

Along with some Dippin Dots.

And then dinner at Bubba Gumps. SOOOO nice to sit down.

On our way back to the hotel we stopped here..

Of course he found some Lightning McQueen legos.

And Taylor picked out a camping-theme set - she said it was because we went camping with Daddy for Father's Day (a great memory for her) which I realize I have yet to post about.

Our hotel was pretty close to the fountain - so we stopped again on the way back and this time let them get wet!

We even still had energy to hit the hotel pool for a little bit before bed.

They loved the hotel room.

We were really high up so they liked to look down.

It was HUGE - with 2 bathrooms and 2 walk in closets!

I have never even heard of a hotel room with 2 bathrooms - especially one that you don't have to pay hundreds of $$ for.

The Palmer House was beautiful. We read all about the history of it on the way home.

It is the longest continually running hotel in the country.

When we walked out to the street to pick up our car with valet, we were under the train tracks, it was just such a cool city feeling.

We were SOOO glad we stopped - some of the best memories we've made as a family!

Our kids were DELIGHTFUL and had so much fun.

It is so fun taking them on new adventures like this. And it was such an awesome ending to our family vacation.

I know there is lots more to do in Chicago - but I think we did pretty darn good with all that we did in a day.

I think Dave figured that we walked approximately 8 miles.

NEVER to have been done without the lovely strollers. Thank you Walgreens.

My body was definitely feeling it the next day on our 12 hours in the car back home.