Smiles

Derek, now 10 months old, has discovered the camera and when he sees the light flash, he shows us his "smile":

Those smiles are cute and make us laugh, but we are really trying to capture the smiles that look like this:

Hi Dad!

Mike is currently out of town for work.  He has been gone since Monday and now it's my turn as a single parent.  Today, Derek and I decided to send him a little message through photos:

We didn't get much farther with the photo message because this piece of paper was so much fun.

Choking

While picking Derek up from daycare yesterday, I was chatting with our provider while Derek was playing with the musical instruments.  In the bin with the musical instruments were some laminated pieces of paper with songs on them.  Derek was enjoying shaking the paper and of course, eating it.  All of the sudden, he started coughing.  We both stopped and looked at him.  Then he started making this gagging noise, his eyes were watering, and he was starting to turn red.  She jumped up and said she thinks he's choking.  I couldn't imagine on what - the entire sheet was still there and laminated.  She acted quickly by taking a swipe of his mouth with her finger to feel for any debris - nothing.  After a few seconds, it was clear he was still in distress so she laid him over her knee and hit his back with the heel of her hand.  When we flipped him up, he wasn't gagging anymore but it looked like he was chewing on something.  Another swipe of his mouth revealed a piece of scotch tape.  A few snuggles later and watching him closely, he was just fine - and only then did I exhale.  Apparently the songs used to be hanging on the wall with some tape and there was a piece left on the corner and he managed to find it.

She did a great job of remaining calm & not alerting the other kids, acted swiftly, and resolved the issue.  After it was all done, we chatted a bit more as we watch to make sure he was okay.  She took the time to explain why you swipe the mouth versus going straight for the object in his throat and why she did the pat on the back.  I was very grateful that she is CPR & First Aid certified and believe Mike and I will be registering for a class soon too.  After this experience, I need to know that we can handle a similar situation on our own - especially when he'll soon be moving and finding all sorts of new things.

First Camping Trip

For our annual camping trip with friends, we brought Derek along - his first camping trip.  I was a bit nervous because it was new experience but we didn't venture too far from home and went to William O'Brien State Park.  It's only 1 hour away from home and we rented a camper cabin.  It came with electricity and heat.  This was nice because it made pumping easier for me and I felt comforted knowing that if it got really cold we could turn on the heat.  

Otisville - our camper cabin (with a screened in porch!)

We went camping with our friends, Tae & Steve.  They were very brave and agreed to sleep in the cabin with us.  To our surprise, it had plenty of room and we each used the bunk above us for our stuff.  Just in front of this on the left is some open space where Derek's pack n play was set up and on the right is a table and benches.

Derek decided he liked the cabin.

We borrowed a baby carrier / backpack thing - something that was a little sturdier than the baby bjourn and headed out on a hike.  Derek was almost as tall as Mike!

Hiking!

We headed out of the cabin for some play time so Daddy could take a nap.  Luckily those toys are just as much fun camping as they are at home.

There was this HUGE pine tree next to our campsite and Steve loved climbing it.  This was only one of several trips up the tree.

Derek and Tae are coordinating outfits.

Showing off how flexible he is - even in the stroller.

Not all the nature was fun - Derek had enough and was ready for a nap.

We wanted to go canoeing down the river and to do so we needed to up to Interstate Park to launch, canoe down and then take the bus back up to our car.  We missed our opportunity due to a miscommunication and decided to explore the pothole area at that park instead.  There were lots of interested critters around that were new to Derek.

I'm not sure if Derek is more interested in the frog or Tae.

Family picture next to the St. Croix River

Smiling next to an algae covered pothole.

A Lion King moment with Tae.

Each state park contains a geocache so we brought our gps and went geocaching the next morning - it's like a scavenger hunt using gps.  We went in search of it and discovered it was a multi point catch, meaning that we would get to the coordinates and find a clue to another set of coordinates.  Eventually this is supposed to lead us to the catch which is a hidden box.  The hunt lead us through many areas of the park it was a neat way to explore the park without feeling like we were wondering around aimlessly.  The third clue was "SWIM" and we were at the coordinates but could find the box or another set of coordinates so we just gave us.  We stopped by the park office headquarters on the way back to the camp site and learned that "we just weren't looking hard enough."  That was frustrating to hear but the ranger would not give up the location.  Arrrggg...  So we abandoned our search for the day.

We arrived back to the cabin and put Derek down for his nap.  A few minutes later the smoke alarm started beeping.  The battery was low and this loud beeping scared Derek and made him cry.  Even after taking the battery out, it didn't stop beeping.  We finally put Derek down for his nap far away from the cabin and Steve headed back to the park office to get a new battery.

Sleeping in the woods.

The park office didn't have a replacement battery and had to send out the maintenance crew.  About 45 minutes later, THREE guys showed up the change the ONE 9v battery.

Cue Joke:  How many guys does it take to change a battery?

Derek didn't sleep much outside but was finally tired enough to sleep inside once the beeping stopped and was in a familiar place.  

z z z z z z

We took advantage and relaxed

On Saturday, we were joined by some more friends, Erin & Steve.  We headed to a local town's summer festival called "Taco Daze" where Steve & Mike, and Erin & Steve entered into a bean bag tournament.

Watching our boys toss bean bags.

Derek liked playing with Tae.

Mike and Steve lost in the first round but Erin & Steve made it three rounds in and were just one game away from winning some money.  We had fun planning on how we all could spend it (before they even won it).  :-)

The Nichols brought some Reese's footballs to snack on.  The consensus was that they were not "football" shaped but rather "egg shaped" - clearly Reese's was reusing their Easter molds and creative marketing..

Reese's eggs - not footballs.

Regardless of the shape, they are AMAZING on s'mores instead of a plain chocolate bar.

Sunday morning we decided to take another shot at finding the geocache.  As it turns out that "No Swimming" sign isn't bolted on the bottom and swings up to reveal the next coordinates.  Sneaky!!!

We quickly arrived at the next coordinates but after 10 minutes of looking, still couldn't find anything.

Geocache - where are you?

Then Derek stepped in to help us and found it!

In years past, we've found some pretty fun things in there.  Often the park will put something in and then it's common practice that if you take something out, you leave something behind.  We were hoping for temporary tattoos, like we'd found in years past. Instead there were some trading cards with information about snakes.

Family photo with the cache.

Tae & Steve found a gold dollar in the cache - lucky!