Dinosaurs are Back!

Dinosaurs have been making a comeback in the Lovingfoss house!  After being stuffed in a bin for about a year, they have been rediscovered and are being played with again.  However, you can tell what kind of play is being done and by who.....there's not so much blood and carnage and death happening, but much more family oriented play.  Here are the mama dinosaurs carrying around their babies...:)

Memorial Day

We spent memorial day over at a friends house.  A friend who has a POOL at her house.  And since it was 90 or so outside, a pool was pretty much perfect.  The kids literally were in the pool for a good 5 hours straight.  They got out to eat some food, warm up, or in Willow's case take off her bathing suit and put on her dress until she was warm 5 minutes later, then demand to have her bathing suit put back on.  I think I dressed and undressed her probably 20 times, no joke, by the evening I was begging her to just go in the pool naked.  She wouldn't have any of that.  It was a lot of fun.  Probably the best memorial day we've had since we moved here.  Memorial day is usually one of those holidays where everyone has "set" plans that they've done every year, and us out of towners usually spend it by ourselves.  But not this year!  And it also provided us with the opportunity to bust out our underwater camera again!  Yay for the "start" of summer!

Last Day of School

Today is Jayden's last day of Kindergarten!  It was so different from the first day of school where we kinda had to drag him out the door.  Today he was ready for school 30 minutes early and demanding we leave then.  In his words, "I'm so ready to be a first grader!"

First Day of School!

Last Day of School!

We are switching things up majorly for school next year, but before that happens, we have all our summer plans to get through first!  35 days until blast off!

Fun in the Sun

Friday was Jayden's field day at school.  Willow and I tagged along to see all the fun.
Ball racing

Football toss

Ball catch

"car" racing

Cup stacking

Some sort of water squirting game - I have no idea what the point of the game was because it was so hot, all they did was squirt themselves in the face.

Ball bouncing race

Hula-hooping

 And lots lots lots more.  But I'm pretty sure everyones favorite station was the water/popsicle/dancing station

 The boys cracking up at Willow's dancing

What Willow Wears :: 16

Here's is Willow's outfit of choice this morning!  I was actually so happy to see her in a dress and then with some cute little leggings underneath, because her morning attitude was definitely not going to let me do anything with her hair.  She looked so summery and comfortable..........and then she needed shoes to go outside.....and chose these ones....

Because you just can't get enough of fur lined boots when it's 90 degrees outside!

The Wandering Goose :: vol 2 :: Wilson State Park

disclaimer :: long post ahead, make sure to get a drink of water, go to the bathroom, sit in a comfy chair, and you might want to wait until your kids are napping so you can read it completely uninterrupted!  just a suggestion....

For our first time out in the trailer, we went to Wilson State Park for the weekend.  We figured we needed to take this thing on a few test runs to see what is and is not working with it before we begin the long haul out to the west coast for the summer!  Wilson Lake is the cleanest lake in Kansas and it was only about a 3 hour drive for us.

Chapter 1 : The Drive
We picked Jayden up from school on Friday and got right in the truck and started driving.  This was kind of challenging because the kids were in their after school/before dinner crazies which tends to lend towards extra crankiness, extra whining, and little ability to cope with any disappointment.  But, they did alright.  I loaded them up with snacks, put a movie on the dvd player, we only had to stop once for gas (who leaves without a full tank??? us! that's who!) and once for a bathroom break.  We made it to the campground a little before 7.  I was so glad that I had put in some extra effort the day before we left and made pizza buns (basically a roll with pepperoni and cheese stuffed inside it) because the kids were starving and all I had to do was warm them up and they could stuff them in their mouth, along with some sugar snap peas.

Chapter 2 : The Campsite
For our own personal records, we stayed in Big Bluestem Loop, in site 29, and had 50AMP power and water hookups.  When we reserved the site online, it said it was a pull through site, but what they really meant was it was a parallel park site.  Thankfully people were kind and left enough room, because most of them had their campers parked on one side of the street and their boats parked on the other, and thank goodness Royal is a really good backer-upper, so we managed to slide right in.  But the benefit of a semi-difficult (probably impossible for me) to get into campsite was that the entire side of our trailer was open to the lake, which made for a really pretty view.
Here is the view from the door of the Goose!

Chapter 3 : The Bathroom
Oh. My. Gosh.  Can I just say I have never seen my kids go to the bathroom as many times as I saw this weekend?  Willow was so excited to use the toilet in the trailer that she literally went every 5 minutes.  This coming from a girl who usually walks around holding her crotch because she refuses to take time out and go to the bathroom, a girl who usually twice a week has to come inside and change her pants because she's held it too long, a girl who I often have to bribe with whatever she is wanting at the moment to go. to. the. bathroom!!!!!  I didn't have to ask her at all during this weekend.  That was awesome.  Jayden was a little anxious about the bathroom.  You see, he had heard Royal and I talking about us needing to put some chemicals down in the tank before we started using it and he hadn't seen us do it.  So until we reassured him probably 10 different times that, "Yes, we have put chemicals in the tank", and finally used it ourselves, he just couldn't bring himself to use it.  But once he started, there was no stopping the kid.  Him and Willow pretty much traded off going in and out of the bathroom.  I obviously need to get a low toilet in the house with a foot flusher on it. 


Chapter 4 : Sam
Sam was awesome!  I really wasn't too sure how Sam was going to do.  For the most part, he is an awesome dog, but after this weekend I am pretty sure he is the best dog ever.  We brought a longer leash to chain him up with outside the trailer, because the rules are they have to be on a leash at all times, and I also wasn't too sure how well he would stick around our campsite with so many other distractions near by.  But we hardly needed it.  As long as we were outside, he stayed right with us.  And inside the trailer, he pretty much either laid on his blanket in the back where the kids slept or laid on the floor right in front of the door, which pretty much put him out of the path of foot traffic inside.  I was so glad he wasn't constantly pacing around inside, that would of been super annoying and would of got him time outside by himself, which I know he hates.  He also provided great entertainment for Willow.  She'd put on his leash and take him running, which really meant Sam ran and she tried to keep up, laughing the whole time, being drug by the leash.  If he tried to walk next to her, like he's suppose to, she'd swat him on the rear end and yell, "Run Sam!!!!"

Chapter 5 : Trekking Around the Lake
We could get right down to the water's edge from our campsite and we spent hours and hours and hours walking around the lake on the sandstone, until we got to where we couldn't go any further.  Then we'd turn around and walk the other way until we were blocked.  Sam ran around with us, going in and out of the brush and grass up from the lake a little ways, but always staying pretty close and coming the minute we called him.  Sam had just as good of a time as the kid's did, and I'm pretty sure he's never gotten as much exercise.  He snored way louder at night than anybody else.
Jayden kept running way ahead of us and then had to keep getting called back - we didn't want him falling in the lake and us not know about it - which he wasn't very happy about.  He told us he was part mountain goat and he just couldn't help himself.

Willow kept slowing our party down because she'd have to stop and throw rocks every time she saw one.  And that was often!

Chapter 6 : Hiking the Dakota Trail a.k.a Tick City
There was this great foot traffic only trail we saw when we drove in, so we decided we'd try it out.  The trail was great, it had been cleared recently with the grass/weeds killed off, and there was no one else on it, so we let Sam off his leash and he was running around all crazy, leaping through big overgrowth.

We soon found out why there probably weren't many people on the trail.  Because it went from this

to this

where the brush and bushes were growing in very close to the trail.  Obviously the park rangers hadn't gotten to this part of it yet.  And we all managed to pick up a bazillion ticks!  GROSS!!!  I didn't count, but I'm pretty positive we managed to pull off at least 50 between the 4 of us.  That doesn't even count the ones we pulled off of Sam.  Once we discovered the tick infestation, we pretty much ran the rest of the way off the trail.  Willow found a swing to play on while we spent time pulling ticks off the rest of us.

As soon as we knew we had the majority of them off, we high tailed it back to the trailer, where we stripped everyone down, turned clothes inside out to find hiding ticks, checked for ticks in normally covered places, in hair lines, sock cuffs, underwear waistbands.  It was disgusting.  Jayden swore he was never going to hike on that trail again.  I'm pretty sure all the ticks traumatized him.


Chapter 7 : Swimming
The weather on Saturday was not that nice.  It was barely 70 and it was cloudy and windy.  But Jayden was bound and determined to go swimming.  He kept asking and I kept saying, 'No, it was just too cold', but he kept asking and asking and asking, and finally I was like 'You know what?  We are camping, if you want to go swimming, go for it!"  So the kids changed into their swim attire and we walked to a section of the lake with a beach.

Although there was a moment of hesitation..."Are there tisks (ticks) in this lake?"  "Nope", "Are there sting razors (sting-rays) in this lake?"  "Nope", "What about sharks?" "No sharks", "Alligators?"  "Nope", "Just fish?"  "That's right, just fish and now you too" :)

"Well alright!"

It was chilly out and Willow put her feet in and pretty much said she was done.

But after a little convincing from Jayden...

She changed her mind and went right in.

Jayden sometimes takes the most hysterical pictures.  This one crack me up!

Chapter 8 : Bedtime
Holy pain in the rear.  I knew bedtime was going to be hard.  Different beds, sleeping together, excitement from camping, no nightlights (must remember for next time!) etc...  So the first night I didn't even try to put them to bed on time.  We stayed up running around.  But still going to sleep took a good 2 hours.  Willow woke up around 3:30am declaring there were scary bugs (perhaps ticks???) in her bed, so she crawled in bed with us.  Jayden joined us around 6:30am and then we were pretty much up for the day.  The 2nd night, the kids were way over tired from lack of sleep then night before, the refusal of quiet rest times during the day, and walking/hiking/swimming all day.  I put them to bed before their regular bedtimes figuring it would take forever again.  And I was right.  Willow was up 5 different times in 30 minutes to use the bathroom, taking turns with Jayden of course, Jayden kept singing songs which made Willow angry, Sam was snoring which Willow kept blaming on Jayden and telling him to be quiet.  So after her 100th (or so) time of coming out of bed, I put her up on the other top bunk, because I knew she couldn't get out.  30mins or so later, she finally fell asleep.  Hallelujia!  Once she was asleep, we moved her back to a lower bunk so I didn't have to worry about her falling out of bed.  The kids slept great this night and didn't get up until around 7!

Chapter 9 : Broken
Well, it was bound to happen.  This was a big purpose of the trip.  Discover what wasn't working properly on the trailer.  And it just happened to be a pretty major thing...the kitchen sink.  Turns out they didn't tighten the pipe to the bottom of the sink, so after I flooded the cupboard below the sink after doing the dishes, Royal figured it out and thought he had it fixed.  Then later, when I turned on the sink to rinse something out and all the sudden water was pooling out underneath the cupboard on the floor, Royal finally removed the paneling and discovered they had piped it all wrong and could wipe the pipe goop off with this fingers.  So the kitchen sink was out.  Thankfully we have an outdoor shower with hot water.  Royal just took a big bowl full of suds and our dishes outside and washed them with the outdoor shower nozzle.  :)


Chapter 10 : Fishing
Sunday morning, the sun was shining, the air was warmish, the wind calm, so the boys headed out fishing.

Willow sang songs....

and threw rocks.

Chapter 11 : Oh Crap
This very well was the worst, yet funniest part of the trip.  On our way out this morning, we had to stop by the dump station to flush out our black (toilet waste holding tank) and gray (sink, shower waste holding tank) before heading back home.  I knew the theory behind how to do it, I'd watched my dad do it dozens of times when camping as a kid, but I read and re-read the manual to memorize what we had to do.  Royal has zero experience in this category, but figured with my manual memorization, what we learned during our walk through, and common sense, he could figure it out.  We only have a 10 ft sewer hose, so we pulled up real close to the dump hole.  The kids really wanted to be out watching, but I didn't want them underfoot, so I told them they could stay in the bed of the truck.  Jayden stood back there, peering over the side yelling, "Where's the poop!  Where's the poop!"  Royal dons his gloves and sewer hose and bends down to connect it to the trailer.  We remind ourselves, black tank first, then gray to help clean out the black tank and the pipes.  What we did not realize was that the tank valves were never pushed back in after the dealer cleaned and flushed them out before we picked the trailer up.  So Royal twists the cap off and everything comes pouring out.  I. Mean. EVERYTHING.  All the while, Jayden's yelling, "Where's the poop? Where's the poop?!?"  Royal jumps back with reflexes I've never seen and I'm standing there thinking, "Oh my gosh!  Oh my gosh!  That's toilet paper!  There's the poop!  Oh my gosh!"  Thankfully Royal and I both couldn't bring ourselves to doing our #2s in the trailer, so we used the state park bathrooms, but you know how the kids were with their business during this trip.  The chemicals we used in the black tank were bacteria and enzymes that pretty much turn any solids into liquid, so thankfully most things were all liquid, but obviously not everything and of course the kids had done some business right before we left and obviously those were the little "logs" rolling down the street.  I quickly turn on the hose that was at the dump station and start spraying our "business" towards the dump hole.  Royal actually grabs a couple "pieces" with his gloved hands that were out of my reach and throws them towards the hole.  We are both standing there mortified when I just start laughing and I can't stop.  Royal is inspecting his shoes that are drenched in sewage, pants with poop splatters, and all the mess we've left on the road around us, and declares he hates camping!   I seriously can't stop laughing.  And really we are so lucky this hadn't happened earlier.  With the pressure of 2 full holding tanks sitting on that cap, we are lucky that cap didn't blow off while we were still parked.  I mean, when Royal pulled that cap, it came shooting out like a fire hydrant!  And now we're trying to figure out if this was a prank/hazing the service department was playing on us, by leaving our tank valves open.  Like we, as rookie RVers would even think to look if the valves were pushed back in.  But I can tell you now that I'm pretty sure we will check every time we go somewhere!  Pretty soon, I seen another truck pulling a 5th wheel, headed for the dump station.  I yell at Royal, who was in the trailer changing his clothes and washing and sanitizing his hands one more time, to hurry up and get in the truck.  Because we had to get out of there ASAP before someone got out of that truck and asked what in the world we thought we were doing.  I'm pretty sure we are now just one step closer to being Uncle Eddie....

Wheatland Warrior of the Week

Jayden popped in the car this afternoon and said, "I'm the Wheatland Warrior of the Week!"  So, I made him take a picture real quick on the computer so I could post this before we left to go camping!

(sorry it's backwards, no time to fix anything!)
It says :
"Jayden has a wonderful attitude.  He does a great job during centers.  Jayden is a good friend to all of his classmates!  Jayden you are AWESOME!"  Mrs. McEwen

Yay Jayden!!!