Starved Rock

Just some more pictures from our hike on Sunday morning. We hiked into French Canyon which was okay and then we did St.Louis Canyon hike. This one had an awesome ice waterfall several, several years ago that Joel and I saw. It was pretty amazing. This time the waterfall was just a trickle and I was pretty disappointed.

Starved Rock

Joel and I made a quick trip to Ottawa, IL this weekend to visit my brother and his family. I also have two uncles and their families that live there as well and I got a quick visit in with my Aunt Polly before we had to leave Sunday afternoon. It is always an adventure when we go down there and this was our first long trip with a potty trained Deacon. Wow, he is so different from Tyler. With Ty, we visited every rest stop between here and Ottawa. With Deacon we only stopped when we wanted to and he would go then. What a relief! He did really well. No accidents on the way down and he even napped without a diaper or pull-up on in the car and still no accidents. I'm a little amazed at his bladder control and very grateful.
Whenever we visit we are in a back room of the house, sleeping on a futon, which really isn't that uncomfortable...if there are only two people sleeping in it. We ended up sometime in the middle of the night with both boys on the futon with us. I was sqwinched between Tyler and Deacon and had to keep a tight hold on Deke so he wouldn't fall off. Joel was sqwinched between Tyler and the wall and Tyler kept kicking him all night. In hindsight, I should have moved Deke and I to the floor and we probably all would have been much more comfortable, but I claim sleep depraivation for missing this quite obvious solution to the problem.
My sister-in-law and niece typically sleep in much later than my boys so when they woke up at 7am, I was in a nervous state trying to keep them quiet. With Deke, this is impossible as his volume control is stuck in LOUD and he has no concept of "Shhh". Even though I think I said at least 100x's, it just didn't seem to sink in. So I got us all up and out the door and went to McDonald's for breakfast. We went back around 9:30 and then we all went for a hike in Starved Rock.

Frontenac Take II

Deke fell asleep on this hike. We were pretty glad, because he started to get a little restless being in the carrier. Next year, he should be old enough to start walking these himself.

Frontenac State Park

The Kelner's have been busy! Yesterday we visited Nerstrand State Park and today Joel suggested we go to Frontenac. We did a very strenuous hike and I am very glad that Deke was in the backpack carrier most of the way. The terrain was rugged and steep. I was a little worried about Ty, but he did awesome. He took it slow and easy and never once came close to tripping.
In that last picture, if you look closely at Ty's face, he looks scared. We were at an overlook and for some reason, it scared him. It wasn't even that steep of a drop off. We've been in way worse places, but for some reason, this one did it for him. He didn't want to get close to the edge and there was a railing there. It was a beautiful hike and I loved all the moss covered rocks and the views that we got to see.

Nerstrand State Park, Take II

Nerstrand State Park

Really cool tree. The kids loved this!

My boys. I so wish I could get all three to look at the camera at the right time.

Ty was upset because I wanted to take a picture with all four of us (couldn't get Deke in the shot) and he wanted to look at the waterfall.

This is a beautiful park and my second favorite one so far in Minnesota. I loved all the trees and of course the Hidden Falls. They weren't really hidden. Super easy and short hike to get to them. It's about 2 hours from Winona so a bit of drive, but overall not too bad and it was worth it. Deacon didn't sleep on the way up and we were hoping he would. He slept on the way back which meant he got a super late nap, but that's okay. The other piece of great news, is he didn't have one accident the whole time we were out there. He's doing really, really well with the potty training.

Scooby Doo! Where are you?

Both costumes came in on the same day. How lucky for us. Ty couldn't wait to put on his costume and immediatly proceeded to act like Scooby. Deke soon joined him and they had so much fun pretending to be their favorite dog.
Yesterday, Joel and I celebrated 9 years of marriage. How lucky are we that we got those last 9 years. Here's to many, many more.

Canoeing

Joel and I went canoeing today. The Bradberg's volunteered to watch Ty and Deke for us so Joel and I could have a day together. This was our anniversary date. We celebrate 9 years on the 15th. It was a great day to go for a canoe ride. I had orginally wanted to do the Cannon River which is supposed to have some small rapids, but that one was a little bit further away so I reluctantly decided to do the much tamer Zumbro River. Thank God I changed my mind, because this river had some small rapids which scared me. They were super small and probably not scary at all, but I was super scared of flipping. When we hit the first set of rapids, we somehow managed to turn our canoe completely around. We managed to get it turned the right away again without tipping. There were a few others that we got stuck on the rocks and Joel would have to get out and push us off.
When we told Tyler that he was going to get to spend the day with Connor, he was so excited. He started doing this crazy dance and was ready to leave right when we told him. Sounds like the boys had a blast. Heather and John took them to a corn maze and they got to play in a big dirt pile, see some animals, go on a hayride, go through the corn maze. The hayride was Ty's favorite. And he also liked the pig race. Apparently they got so dirty that they got to ride with only their underwear on on the way home. I think Ty liked that a lot too. And poor Heather and John had to bathe three boys when they got home. A huge thank you to them for watching our boys and showing them such an awesome time. Ty has talked about nothing else since I got him home.