Playing at McCormick Creek

McCormick Creek State Park July 31-August 3

Many of the State Parks in Indiana have a community pool. We needed it! It was so hot. Aurora had not napped all day and she desperately needed one, but we all needed to cool off. Nathan had to keep dipping her in the water to cool both of them off. She slept happily the whole time....I have been telling you- she is an amazing baby.

The boys played with their squirt bottles while Nathan cools Aurora.

Everest learned to dive at McCormick Creek. I was nervous about him going off the diving board by himself. He has only been off 3 or 4 times during swim lessons. We jumped off for 15 minutes or so and I asked if he wanted to learn to dive. I dove first and showed him what to do. He got on the board after I did. He bent over like I showed him.......

......and in he went. No fear. He did great. He dove a few more times, but decided he liked cannon balls and us jumping at the same time better. We jumped off the dive for almost an hour.

Stop Mama. Don't take my picture. I did anyway and as soon as I put the camera down, he came over and wanted to see the picture. He is a two year old!

Ouch....it looks like this will be painful, but he missed every time. I took the picture because I was sure he was going to hit. He wouldn't jump out. But somehow, he never got hurt.

While Leaf and I took a nap one afternoon, Nathan, Bonnie, Everest and Aurora went hiking. They found a shelter to play in.

A happy, hot little girl. She loves being with her daddy.

Bonnie exploring the area around the waterfall.

Everest getting wet. Ahhh...that feels good.

Checking out the big boys at the top.

Daddy's grumpy face....some boys were uncooperative....hmmmm who could that be?????

Everest is getting interested in taking pictures. The camera is almost as big as he is. He wants to save his money to buy a small camera.

Self portrait.

Leaf and I spent an afternoon at the Nature Center. It was awesome! There was a wild life viewing area. Just as we walked into the room....a raccoon walked into view. The ranger said it was a very talented raccoon. When he came into work that morning, it had shimmed up a shepherds crook and got into 2 hummingbird feeders.

Checking for any scraps it can find.

Leaf spent 30 minutes in the puppet play area. He had so much fun.

More to come soon....

Day 5 Rest at McCormick Creek

 Monday, August 1. A slow day at the park.

A rare sight. Leaf is bright eyed and happy in the morning. Usually he is groggy, fingers in his mouth and the only words he will say is "up" or "Can I sit on your lap!" (technically- in his mind- it is not a question, but he has been "trained" to at least ask)

 It looks like a biking day, right? Still dark while eating breakfast, biking clothing on, granola...If that is what you think you would be mistaken. No it is the great fortune for us as parents that our first born and last born have this uncanny ability to know the sun is rising 2 time zones ahead of us. And they make it their duty to get up before the sun has a chance of reaching us. In so many ways this is a good thing, except when you are exhausted and all you really want is to look at the clock and not see it start with a 5 when you get up!

And although we have tried everything, the minute Everests' eyes open he is dressed and ready to start the day, and somehow...huuuummmmm...the rest of the family is awake too.

Hey! Are you talking about me?

Leaf making sure every morsel of granola goes into his mouth. This kid...he either eats everything in sight or he takes 2-3 bites all day.

Aurora figured out the "bite me"valve on the water bladders very quickly. She is teething so it felt good to chew on it and get a drink at the same time.

Good morning! I am a little more than tired. I had to make a detailed grocery list for Nathan because we had no food. When we looked at the trip, we knew there was a grocery store in town and in the truck town was not far away. In reality it is not far from the entrance of the park, but when the campground is 3 miles in, another 3 miles to the store is a long way. Plus the 3 miles from town to the park is 2 1/2 miles of a VERY steep hill.

Aurora helping out with bicycle maintenance. It is a little out of true daddy! (I am sure all of our wheels are out of true, some of the pot holes and gravel roads we have hit are anything but idea.)

Checking the bike from all angles.

It has my stamp of approval as an A-OK bike to ride on!

Daddy surprised us all with a big watermelon from the grocery store. He towed it plus all the other groceries up the BIG, BIG hill! You really are amazing!

I love watermelon, it feels good on my teeth.

Nathan cut thick pieces, but it didn't seem to stop Leaf. He dove right in. Luckily he did not have a shirt on, notice the juice running down his chest?

Everest enjoyed the watermelon too. Grrrrrr.

The kids were not disappointed! They ate the entire watermelon. I had a small piece, not because that is all I wanted, but because my 3 little monsters gobbled it up while I was busy feeding the littlest one.

I know it is bedtime, but do I really look tired? We had a hard time putting her to sleep in the tent. Normally I feed her, and lay her in her crib. At most, she fusses for 5 minutes and even then it is usually a half-hearted cry. In the tent, she rolled all over and climbed over everyone for at least the first hour. We started wearing her until she fell asleep at night.

Leaf in his blue fire fleece sleep sac. It was put on in the middle of the night. I realized once I had it on and tried to zip it, it was on backwards. He didn't seem to mind.

Day 4 biking day

Sunday July 31, 2011

We got up at 5 am again. We are heading to McCormick Creek State Park. We are excited to get there because we will have a 3 day rest. We started the day very tired.We didn't carry much food with us because we knew there was a grocery store near McCormick (turns out it was 5.5 miles away). Nathan's load was a little lighter. We weighted his trailer before we left, with just our gear and the trailer weight, it was 82 pounds. Most days we carried a lot of food, enough for 2 days and 6 people. For those of you who have eaten with us, you know how much Nathan can eat. It was a lot of food.
Leaf and I getting ready for the day.

Everest and Grami having breakfast.

Everest at the camp store/office. He wanted to ring the bell so much, but it was 6:45am, we didn't think the other campers would appreciate it very much.

Bonnie and I took off ahead of Nathan and Everest. The first mile was all dirt, I had to go slow so Aurora would not get bounced around so much. Nathan and Everest took some pictures.

There was a gate to get in and out of the campground. We just went around it. Everest loved pressing the buttons and pretending.

Nathan and Everest caught us quickly.

Good bye Hickory Hills. You were a nice campground, but not on a bike.

I love how cute Leaf looks riding his tag-a-long. Both boys have Burley Piccolo's. If you are in the market for a trail behind bike, it is worth it. We did a lot of research on these before we bought them. Most trail behinds attach to the seat stem, which makes you unstable every time they blink. Burley is the only company that manufactures one that connects to your back wheel (via a moose rack). You can still tell when they move around, but it is much more stable. Burley has 2 models the Kazoo and the Piccolo. The Piccolo has the ability to change gears. We decided on it because we knew the kids would use them until about 7-8 years of age, by then they should know how to change gears well. Everest does well, but we still have to tell him which gear to be in. Leaf just likes to switch gears to hear them change. FYI- Burley doesn't make the tag-a-long bikes right now. Not sure why, but they are prototyping one now. We offered to be test them out, but they didn't take us up on the offer. We found Everest's bike through a bike shop that still had one in stock. Leaf's we found on Craigslist in Chicago.

A rare shot of Nathan and Everest biking. It is rare, because I was rarely in front of them. If I was, we usually just pushed our bikes up a big hill and I was sweating to death and they were pushing so I wouldn't get them riding anyway. Other times, I was only a few feet in front of them, because of Everest (and Nathan's) competitive nature, they would do whatever it took to be first.

Taking a break. Everest went exploring a farm road that lead to a field. Indiana can be very pretty.

Here is an example of some of the roads we were on. We were on back roads to the back roads. We did not pass many cars on most of our trip, which was just fine with us. This was a little bit hard on Aurora, so I had to go slow when the road was broken up.

Taking a break after a steep downhill. We got up to 37 miles an hour!!!!!! I didn't realize we were going that fast. Might have been a little too fast for a 2 year old I know. Nathan's top speed was 42 miles an hour!

Around 2:30 we finally made it to McCormick Creek State Park.We stopped at Pizza Hut for lunch (it was the only restaurant near our path), then we pushed our bikes up a 2 mile hill. It wasn't as steep as I thought it would be, but it was long and hard to maintain any speed, so we walked most of it.

Grami and Aurora are hot, sweaty and tired! We set up the tent and went to the pool to cool off.

We had 3 nights to rest this time and we ALL needed it!

Saturday July 30, 2011  afternoon

We stopped at Cataract General Store. It is the oldest continuously run general store in Indiana. I think they said since 1860? It was very cool inside. They had all kinds of fun things in the store. It was an antique, general, grocery store.We got a post card on our way to Cataract Falls (1/2 mile away).

Cataract Falls State Park. We had lunch at the upper falls, then biked to the lower falls.

I think this is the upper falls, but I am not sure. There were a bunch of water falls in a row.

It was very hot! The falls were nice, but there was no where for us to get wet. We were all tired, hot and ready to get to our next camp site.

That is until we found the digger. We let the boys play for a while before heading out again.

We biked past the General Store again, but this time we stopped for some cold snacks!

Aurora enjoyed some of Nathan's Klondike bar...

While Leaf and Everest enjoyed Popsicle.

We finally arrived at Hickory Hills campground around 1:30. It is a private campground off a dirt road. We had to bike a mile on hard pack dirt road. It was very difficult. We thought the road would be better once we got to the campground, but it got worse. It was loose pack big gravel, the worst thing on a road bike. The campground was big and everything was on the opposite side from our camp spot. For some reason when we got to the office, they thought we wanted a campsite by the river. Our first site was 1/2 mile downhill, on gravel and dirt, with the closets water tap at the top of the hill...1/2 mile away. Bonnie and I saw it and said "no". It was a nice spot, quiet and semi close to the river. But we were exhausted, dirty, hungry, and tired. We picked another site at the top of the hill, closer to water tap, but still secluded. We were still a mile from the showers, and playground, but only 1/2 mile from the office and "swimming lake". I wish we would have gotten a picture of the "swimming lake". It looks beautiful online, in reality it is a big mud puddle that is about waist deep and who knows what on the bottom. We swam for an hour anyway, we were so dirty and hot, it didn't matter too much.

Having dinner at Hickory Hills.

We went to bed early because we had to get up at 5 am again to bike to McCormick Creek State Park.