warren dunes

This year we acquired a camper. Jeremy was adamant that we actually USE it so we planned a little trip up to Warren Dunes with Matthew & Jodi & kids.
The last time we were up there was 5 years ago, in the middle of a roasting July. (Disclaimer: it was still a great trip.) Going in September made for perfect camping weather - cold enough for coffee in the morning and evening and warm enough for beach and outdoor time during the day.

 Surprise! Found a flat tire when we pulled into our campsite.

 Jeremy's craigslist camping table. Yes, he is proud of it.

 Our site was right beside the campground and the bathrooms. :)

 Making Mountain Man's Breakfast one morning. It was a hit!

 She was digging this trike. She needed a push every now and then but did pretty well riding herself.

 That girl in the pink pants? She's Miss Bossy. I believe she's telling the boys they shouldn't throw sand...notice the sand throwing in the background?

 Teacher Jodi having the kids girls make people and animals from found nature objects.

 The beach was empty (yes!), and the water was cold but the kids didn't seem to mind. To be fair, the water was cold at nearly all the places I took the kids swimming this summer, so they were probably used to it.

 River's collection of "shells".

 Sand, sand everywhere...

It should come as a surprise to no one that when Mr. Social hits up the beach, he finds someone to talk to. So he met a man who was sand boarding on the dunes, and he let Jeremy and the kids use his board.

 Trying to fly kites at the beach. It was not really windy enough.

 Finally got it up in the air.

 Finally. A nap after a busy day on the beach.

 Poor little guy. Some lady went by our site and said that "her" seat was so cute! Does he look even a little bit like a girl?!?! No, he does not.

 This fence made a handy clothesline.

 Prepping hobo dinners.

 Ingenius or lazy? Using a roasting stick to propel the lady when needed...

 I don't believe I mentioned that spare also needed fixed...

I did not stem from a family of campers. I recall camping the year Wes was a baby (89!) at Mohican with another family. We tent camped and he must not have liked his bed made from a box because it seemed like he cried all night. Then we went to Turkey Run years later (94?) and it rained. A lot. We didn't go after that.
So I wasn't really sure how this whole camping this was going to work out, me being a novice and all. But we had so much fun, I'm planning trips for next year. :) Wanna come?

fair oaks farms

Several weeks ago we went to Fair Oaks Farms in Indiana with Jeremy's family. I thought it was a pretty cool place so I'm sharing, if you ever get that way. It was only about 2 hours for us.
It was scheduled to rain in the afternoon the day we went so we did the outdoor activities first.
**There is something for all ages here as far as activities. 
This looks like a easy peasy climbing deal but apparently it was pretty hard. None of the men got to the top on the "difficult" part. Bwahaha! I heard a lot of talk about how hard it was to get a grip on those climbing things. Excuses, excuses, men... (Kidding, it did look tough.)

Fair Oaks Farms is huge so they have cows having calves all the time. We witnessed this birth and believe, I broke out in a cold sweat watching her have contractions. Someone finally came out and helped ease the legs out and finally the calf was born. She had a boy too - I bonded with her. :)

That face on my girl - so Madeira.

This train was a big hit with the little girls. I didn't get a picture of it but River was a big fan of the corn maze. Who knew?

Her. :)

Us.

This was one of the those "interactive" type theaters. Where they randomly spray you with water and blast your ears with loudish noises. Not a fan. At the end, the cow on the screen lifts her tail and you get a face full of water...
Umm, but the content of the movie was interesting.

After the movie, you walk through their set up of the cow's stomachs and their anaerobic digestor display.

Luke, giving a try at climbing this wall with magnetic climbing gear. It was pretty tough - he didn't make it to the top either.

Because of diseases and cleanliness, our tour of the farm was pretty much all done by bus. This is just one of their dairy farms. They milk 2800 cows a day, 3 times a day. They get 8-10 gallons of milk per day per cow. Pretty crazy.

5 acres of cement where they mix the feed for the cows.

I thought this rotary was awesome. The cow steps on to her spot by herself where someone cleans her and puts the milker on. The milker is on for just 5 minutes but they're on the rotary for 8.5 minutes to allow time for cleaning, etc. Each cow steps off herself when she's done - I don't know if the rotary ever stops moving. These farmers or whoever behind this are efficiency experts.
Also highly efficient - the milk comes into a tank straight from the cow at around 101 degrees. In 5 minutes, it's cooled to 32 degrees.
Fair Oaks also has an anearobic digestor, turning all the cow poop into power, which not only fuels all their farms (11 right now) but extra for the local power grid. I think this is amazing!
I had to think of my dad while I was touring this place. Pretty sure he would have thought it was as incredible as I did, at least their methods of turning a dairy farm into a veritable milk factory.
Honestly, I can't tell you enough how scientific this place is. During the tour, they described just how the farm works - which is like clockwork. I'm probably biased but it sounds like people of German descent engineering this...but we'll save that for another post.

And lastly, what would a dairy farm without an ice cream shop be? Pretty lame. Mad, enjoying her ice cream. (And she does, greatly.)

obx: part 2

The follow up post as promised:

The Wright Brothers Memorial in Kitty Hawk. If you have kids who are old enough and the least bit interested in history or mechanics or engineering, this was a pretty cool place. They built a replica of the original flying machine for the 100th anniversary of flight and had a little talk in this building. There was also a wall dedicated to people instrumental in flight which was extremely interesting.
Outside there was a "camp" identical to the one the Wrights had while they were experimenting. One of them was a photographer so they had plenty of pictures of the whole experience.
One of the things I found fascinating was a comment by Wilbur or Orville that he was so dedicated to learning how to fly that he was willing to die to learn how. And here we are, over 100 years later, reaping untold benefits from his work. :) I'd hate to be driving out to Oregon or California or wherever every time.

I love the East Coast. All the water and bridges, etc. 

This tunnel somewhere in Virginia was the cause of a traffic hold up but still fun. We must be nerdy in our household to be interested in tunnels but anyhoo...

We stayed at a super nice hotel in Williamsburg. We had our own kitchen and washer and dryer. :) There was also a little playground outside by the pools which the kids enjoyed.

Pool fun. 

I realized that there are very few pictures of just Jeremy and I around so I had my mother-in-law snap a quick one for us before going into colonial Williamsburg.

This picture is typical Madeira - waiting in line for tickets to Williamsburg.

 "Storming the Governor's Palace" was going on right as we got to Williamsburg. I was in Williamsburg around 10 years ago and thought it was cool then. This time around I thought it was even more so. There was so much political disturbance and big changes coming to the colonies. I blame my dad but I kinda like politics and so all the discussions reminded me of what's going on today and thinking about what it will take today to refresh the "tree of liberty".

 All the workers in CW are real artisans. This is the cooper.

Taking a bath after a sweaty day outside in our sweet jacuzzi tub.

 We swung through Ohio on the way home and we spotted this fawn as we were pulling into Corb & Jess's place. I was pretty excited and then let down as I noticed it was pretty tame...turns out it was the neighbor's pet that wandered away. :) Ah well, it was still cute.

 Our gracious hosts.

 Jess invited Grandma over for lunch so I wanted to get a picture of her with our family.

 Picking wild blackberries in the rain before we headed home.

Blackberry teeth!
Vacationing and driving, for sure, with 3 young kids is exhausting at times. But I'm glad we made the effort.
After all, where else could we get a picture like this? :) Thanks for taking the picture (as usual!), Mom.

Unless I'm super ambitious (unlikely!), I'm done with Christmas pictures for another year. Woot, woot!