Farm Weekend

The kids and I took off to a farm for the weekend while Jake and his brother enjoyed a trip to California to see Kristen. We got to feed and hold every farm animal imaginable. After the farm we took our stinky, sweaty selves to our hotel and jumped in the pool. I wanted to stay in a nice hotel so I sprung for the cheapest room in a 4 star. It was worth it..clean, clean, clean. The pool was great and I got so many compliments from others swimming around us about how the boys were such good swimmers. If they only knew what we've gone through to get to this point! We were so tired that evening I couldn't even imagine the long, hot walk back to our car (nearly 1/2 mile away) so we took a bath and ordered room service. Reese managed to pour an entire cup of very hot chocolate down his belly. I ripped his pajamas off as fast as I could and luckily had ice in the room to soothe the burn. Within a half an hour his skin returned to it's normal color and I changed him into his dirty clothes from the day to sleep in. Before 9pm we were all snuggled together fast asleep. It was the first time ever I've slept in a bed with both boys. If the kids have a sleep over in our room they use their sleeping bags on the floor so it was a nice treat to have them right there in bed with me. I woke up about 1am and smelled urine, argh! I put my hand on Reese who was right next to me and he was damp. His pull-up had leaked onto his clothes, his blankie and a little of the bed (must have been all that pool water he drank!). I woke him up enough I could change his clothes.....this time into Nathan's dirty clothes. I was trying to hold off on the only clean clothes I had for the next day. Then I removed a pillow case from an extra pillow to lay over the damp spot on the bed and tucked him back in. Before going back to bed I decided it would be wise to clean his blankie so it could air dry by morning, knowing he'd be asking about it. So, in the middle of the night I'm hand washing his blankie in the bathroom sink with hand soap. Of course by that time I was wide awake so I hibernated for an hour on the bathroom floor (so greatful we were in a clean place) and read my book, The Secret Lives of Bees. It's been a very long time since I picked up a book to read so I was so glad to be deeply involved in a book and have something to do without disturbing the boys sleep.

The next morning they woke up at 6:30am as usual. My hope they would sleep in because of a dark room vanished as Reese tugged at me asking for a drink and his blankie. With the help of the blow dryer it was dry before we left the hotel. I had gotten brave and made horseback riding reservations nearby. They told me Nathan was old enough to ride his own horse, but I wasn't sure he would go for it. To my surprise, the boys turned out to be regular cowboys. It was an hour nature trail on horseback and Nate rode like he owned the place and each time we stopped our horse, Jesse James, for those behind us to catch up, Reese yelled YEE-Haw as we began to ride again. The group loved it.