While You Were Away

While Jason was surfing in Nicaragua, I went to stay with my family for the week. Charlie was just under two months...so I was really nervous to be with him by myself for a whole week. I’m so glad my family was willing to have me, it was so fun and I had lots of help. 

Dropping Jason off at the airport

Especially fun was to see Bryan and Kimberly warm up to the uncle and aunt roles. They hadn’t really had a chance to become comfortable with a wiggly baby. Since I was staying there all day and night for a whole week, they got lots of practice and I could see them becoming more and more comfortable. They would ask to hold him, and even when he was crying they would take turns taking him from each other...saying “Oh, come to Aunt Kimberly”. It was so sweet to see! He even fell asleep in Kimberly’s arms for two and half hours on Sunday! (Which is a shock since normally his naps consist of tiny 15 minute catnaps!)

Also, due to a painful and raw blister, I was pumping every other feeding and giving Charlie a bottle. This provided a great opportunity to allow others to feed him. Bryan was always there to volunteer to bottle feed him. So cute!

The week I came to stay also happened to be the week my family was taking their annual camping trip at the spruces. I gathered the courage to agree to go during the day and evening, but resolved to come back home at night to sleep. It worked out perfectly because my mom was also going to be coming home to sleep since she had spent a good part of two months sleeping on chairs and couches (if she got any sleep at all) while caring for my Grandma and Grandpa Rich. So at night, my mom would drive down the canyon with me and Charlie.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I always love going camping with my family. My family has several sites at the Spruces that they like to reserve and return to. The site they got this time was the same site from two years ago when Jason and I were able to go. It is right next to a large stream and has lots of room to run around. It was especially nice since the site above us was empty, so we were really able to take advantage of the running space. 

On the first afternoon that we arrived, our neighbors at the site below us came over and informed us that they had seen a large moose and a black bear the night before roaming around our campsite. Yikes! We made sure to pack up all our food at night. However, we did see the moose walking around across the stream. He was less than 30 feet away! He didn’t seem hostile or anything, just eating leaves...but it still made me pretty nervous. I didn’t want to get any closer. 

I had no clue how Charlie was going to behave while at the Spruces...but to my great relief he was pretty dang good. He was very active and loved looking around at all of the trees. He especially loved the streams and the calming sound they made. The weekend before Jason left, we bought a cheap baby carrier from Walmart...and so I tested it out around the campgrounds. Charlie loved it! He loved facing out and seeing all of the new sights. He even fell asleep in it while we went for a walk. 

And who can forget about the beloved airsoft wars!! Lucky for us, Bryan “allowed” us to play and “rent” his airsoft guns so we could play several rounds of airsoft wars. Always fun...and always painful.

Dad holding Charlie while we played airsoft wars.

Notice the orange vest...Bryan had my mom and dad wear the vests so we would not shoot them by accident.

Yes, a nice big welt on the neck

One final tidbit of camping...have you ever put banana slices in your s’mores? Dang good!

Once camping was over (just two nights), we had lots of time at home. My parents were amazed at how wiggly Charlie is. He is always moving when he is awake. They really think that if we placed him next to another baby his age that Charlie would be moving so much more than what is typical. 

Thursday morning, my mom left for Idaho for the weekend to help care for my grandpa. Dad had work and Kimberly was gone....who knows where....so that left me and Bryan to hang out. We watched Open Season 2 together. Kimberly returned home and I took them out to McDonalds for lunch...classy I know...but so dang good. They had a deal going on that day for Big Macs (buy one get one for a penny!!! Score!). Afterwards, we came back home and Bryan made us a homemade peanut butter moo’d smoothies. That evening I met up with some old friends from my Vivint days and had frozen yogurt while I introduced them to Charlie.

On Friday, I spent the day with Erin. We went to lunch at Culvers (yum) and watched a movie - Definitely, Maybe - cute movie, by the way. Friday night was a night straight from Hades! I woke up at two in the morning in so much pain from engorgement...it gave me a headache and chills. Then, of course, Charlie chose that night to wake up at 3:30...and by then I was experiencing diarrhea and feeling the need to throw up. Luckily I was able to hold back the hurling until after I nursed him...it was a close call though. And then, of course again, Charlie decides he doesn’t want to go back to sleep...so he just cried and cried. The only way I was finally able to get him back to sleep, was laying him beside me and using my finger to keep the binky in his mouth. Finally after the hours of sickness and struggle, we were both able to fall asleep. And thankfully to my dad and siblings, they offered to watch Charlie for a couple hours while I took a much needed nap.

As fun as the week had been, I was so excited for Jason to get home. I was missing him like crazy. Saturday night finally came around and I was able to go pick him and Mike up from the airport. It felt good to have all our family back home again.