We took a long weekend trip with Grandpa and Nana (and Magic) up to Silver lake. We packed up the car - Isabella packed pretty much every stuffed animal she has into the car around the car seats - and piled ourselves in. Despite trying to leave a little bit early, we still ran into traffic. The kids did pretty well for the first couple hours of the drive. We took a stop at a combo A&W and KFC, in the interests of re-creating my child hood. The strawberry shape was pretty popular with the kids, but they didn't really eat much. Ian mostly wanted to run around. Poor little guy, we picked him up right after his nap and shoved him in the car...
We got it a bit wrong as far as the directions went (teach me to trust google maps...) and ended up wasting a bit of time bumping down a dirt road. By this time the kids were getting a bit cranky at being struck in the car for so long.
Fortunately, we did eventually get back to the road and found the campground just up the way off the road. Then drove around in a big circle until we spotted the campground. Fortunately, pretty easy to set up with 4 adults to help!
We crammed everyone into the car to go hiking the next day. Fortunately, it was just a short drive to the start of the trail. Ian fell asleep in the car (sigh) so dad stayed in the car with him while I dragged a reluctant Isabella along the trail. Whine, whine - mommy, it's too hard... I did make her wear her new "hiking" shoes. She picked up lots of rocks which she wanted us to carry with us, of course, so she could throw them into the lake. After a while she did finally get into the swing of things and the whining slowed down. Although it turned out to be longer than the map said, so there was lots of "are we there yet?"
We did finally make it to the lake, and threw some sticks in for Magic so he could go swimming. Unfortunately, the shore was all muddy so no real chance to play in the water. So we sat and ate lunch.
Bill joined us with Ian a short while later - a somewhat cranky Ian who happily fell to eating lunch. And then... thunderclouds and some rain drops. So we raced back to the car. I carried Isabella piggy back most of the way. Lucky girl... fortunately, it didn't really start raining until we got all the way back. And even then it wasn't too bad.
Ian was being fussy, so Bill took him into the tent for awhile. Where he emptied the contents of his stomach over some of the sleeping bag, his clothes...
Poor little Ian. He ended up sleeping a lot of the rest of that trip and the next day. And kept throwing up. Dad did duty as a sleeping pad for a while. We kept trying to put food in (silly us) and out it would come again.
And then it started to rain - really rain. Fortunately, our tent kept us dry and we had the camper van. But there's only so much time you can spend in the camper... although I think Isabella could happily play in there for a long time. I found some stickers at the store and she happily colored and played with blocks and read stories with Nana (we found goldbug on *every* page of the book).
Despite the bad weather and being sick, but Isabella and Ian enjoyed playing by the creek and throwing rocks into the water. Isabella has quite an arm on her now, and can chuck in even big rocks.
Ian kept wanting to walk into the water. And he didn't quite understand about this height and steepness thing. But he did get the rock throwing part. And he did surprisingly well running around the campsite and even up and down the trail to the creek.
When it looked like it wasn't going to stop raining we decided to pack up and head to the Willow Garage Ski house. Of course, we didn't quite know where it was or how to get in...
(Kids in the campervan.) So we headed out again. Ian ate one too many fruit mashups and we had to stop at a cvs to get paper towels to clean it all up.
After much calling, we got a hold of Eitan, who let us know all the secrets to getting into the ski house. Where there was a *bath* for the kids and showers for us, and a kitchen and rain on the outside! And even some games - Isabella, Nana and I played a very well-worn game of Candyland.
The ski house is pretty much as un-kid proof as you can get. Sunken living room with stairs on both ends, tile stairs, big open stairs to the upstairs... the big hit was probably the pool room. Both kids spent a lot of time rolling the balls around and playing with the pool cues. A somewhat creative version of pool, but there you go.
Isabella had laid a towel on the floor in the living room, for whatever reason. Turned out to be a good thing, because shortly before bed she lost it and we didn't quite make it off the carpet (but we did make the towel!). She lost it again a little while later, but got it into the bowl. So much easier!
The trip back was long. We took a break partway back and went to Target, where Isabella go herself a doll, we got two magna doodles (the other one had been left out in the rain and didn't work so well) and a talking phone for Ian. Except, of course, that Isabella ended up playing with the phone most of the way back. In the future I think we'll try driving most of the way in the evening and letting the kids sleep.
We left some crayons on the dashboard, which ended up melting(!) at some point. Oops.
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