they keep me laughing: up at wayne's river

We went up to Wayne's River (a.k.a. Little Muskegon River) this past weekend. Just a short little get away. Tisha and I took the boys up on Thursday with my parents and Josh. Chris and Nathan were going to join us the next day after they got out of work. So, we headed out an hour after we had wanted to. That wasn't the first wrong thing on our trip though. Tisha forgot the Blueberry Pie at home. Oh well.....We were on the road. We made it to Chesaning before we had to stop. Cole hinted to grandma (he was riding with her) that he wished he had batteries for his walkie talkies. So, what does a grandma do? Stop at the first store she sees that sells batteries. We were there forever!! They had to take the walkie talkies inside the store so they could open them up with a screwdriver to see what kind of batteries it took. My dad and I and the boys sat out in the car and ate snacks while we waited. We finally made it to the river around 7:30. We unpacked, had a little dinner and let the boys play outside. While playing outside, Mason did a no-no and drop kicked the ball he and Jonah were playing with into the river. Jonah was heart broken! We couldn't get the ball. No one was dressed to climb into the river to get it. We just watched as it floated away. Mason wanted to know when we could get the ball and I told him it was gone forever. The current was so strong in the river that there was no way to find the ball. Jonah cried and cried! You would have thought he just lost his best friend the way he carried on!

Finally it was time to put the kids to bed. That was fun! NOT! The boys were too scared and didn't want to be alone in the room. I was trying to play a game with my mom and Tisha, but I had to get up in between every hand, it seemed, to go and tell the boys there was nothing to be afraid of and to go to sleep! We did NOT sleep well that night. I don't know if it was because we were all out of our element and missing our own environment and our own beds.....I don't know if it was because there were three of us sleeping in a double bed.....I don't know if it was because I was sleeping in the middle of the boys who don't sleep still....I don't know if it's because Aunt Tisha fed Mason M&M's on the way to the river - either way. Me and Mason did NOT sleep well. He woke up every hour I think. He would whine, cry, flop his body all over mine. Try to sleep with his face right on top of mine. It was awful. I don't think Jonah slept well either. I could hear him crying in the night too. 8:00 Friday morning came and we woke up and had breakfast. It didn't take Josh long to get out in the river. Before long he found a baby snapping turtle.

After breakfast, the boys wanted to go out in the river to play. So, we got them all ready so grandma (blessed grandma!) could take them out into the freezing water.

I sat on the river bank with dad and Josh and watched my mom and Tisha take the kids out in the water. I don't think I had ever seen Josh sitting down to read a book. He was reading a book full of the most useless information you will ever read. The title of the book was really close to that.

Poor Josh and his burnt hands and his Michael Jackson glove.

Mason did NOT want to go in the river! He was so scared! He stood on the block in the water and kept begging grandma to hold him.

grandma got Mason in the water for a little bit. He didn't last too long though.

He was happy and content to stand on the side and watch Jonah and Cole have fun. He never stopped asking grandma if she would carry him though. :)

The next glitch in our trip was Cole got a fever later that morning. I wasn't too surprised because Mason had a fever on Wednesday. It ended up being a 12 hour bug and that's all it was. I gave him some Tylenol and he broke the fever within 12 hours and was fine. So, I gave Cole Tylenol, but all he wanted to do was lay down and he kept saying how cold he was. I started getting a little worried by that because this was not how Mason acted. Mason was fine and got up and played. As the day went on, Cole's fever kept increasing. We kept medicine in him and kept putting cold wash cloths on him, and hoped and prayed that the fever would break soon.

When Mason's nap time came around, I stuck him in the room and left the door open a crack. About 10 minutes later I went and peeked in the door to see what he was doing. I figured he hadn't fallen asleep yet. I was right. He was sitting up in bed looking at a book. He was being so quiet too. He just sat there indian style and flipped quietly through the book. It was so cute. I just left him and figured he would give up soon and go to bed. I knew he was tired. I checked on him in another 10 minutes or so and this time he was laying on his side, supporting his head with his hand and using his other hand to gently turn the pages in his book. It was so funny. About 5 minutes later, this is how I found him.....

About 7:00 Friday evening, Chris and Nathan finally showed up. It didn't take long for Chris to get to fishing with Mason after unloading the car and checking on Cole.

It also didn't take long for Mason's hook to get stuck in a tree.

Nathan's either.

Mason wanted me to help him fish while daddy was gone. So I helped him for a while. Then I guess he got bored of me and went and asked grandma to help him. So, she came over to "help" mason fish.

Notice he's not holding a fishing pole? He's not sitting like that because he's sad that grandma took over his fishing pole and wouldn't give it back......

it's because when grandma tried to give it back to him he said, "no, that's ok. I'll watch you do it."

Miraculously I got a picture with Chris actually smiling for real! :)

The next hurdle of the day was that Cole's fever would not let up. He really had us worried. By 8:00 that evening, his fever reached 103.1. At that point, I went and got the GPS from the car and found the closest Meijer or Walmart so I could go buy Motrin to give him along with the Tylenol. I didn't know what to do! So, I asked my dad to take me and we were off. An hour later we returned to a sick little boy who's temperature had now reached 103.8!!! We gave him the Motrin and an hour and half later, his fever finally broke! I was so relieved!!! I kept waking up in the middle of the night to check his temperature to make sure it was staying down. I slept with Cole on the air mattress and Mason slept with Chris on the bed. No one got good sleep that night either. :) Mason kept waking up and whining again - so Chris had to deal with him, and I kept waking up to take Cole's temperature. At one point during the night, I moved over to the double bed with Chris and Mason so I could get Mason to go back to sleep. After he fell asleep, I moved back to the air mattress. Oh! And to top all of this off - I forgot blankets!!!! I remembered sheets and sleeping bags to put under the sheets, but I forgot blankets to cover up with!! So, Nathan brought an extra blanket that Chris and Mason used, while I used a beach towel to cover up with and Cole used his little fleece blanket from home.
This trip was going so well! haha Finally in the middle of the night, I remembered that Josh didn't want to use his sleeping bag that Cole was covering up with during the day. So, I wandered out into the living room to see if I could steal it. Mom gave Josh a different sleeping bag so sleep with. I was in luck! There on the couch was the germ infested sleeping bag that Cole had been sleeping on earlier! I was so happy to find something to cover up with that I didn't care about the germs! I grabbed it, took it back to bed with me and Cole and I were able to cover up and sleep well.
The next day, Cole finally got to get out of bed and go fishing! That was the first thing he asked in the morning - "Daddy? Can you take me fishing?"

During the afternoon, grandma and papa took Mason and Jonah for a walk. While they were gone, the boys found some mud puddles. They came back to the house with their socks, tennis shoes, shorts, and shirts soaked and covered in muddy water! Grandma was going to pack them a sack lunch and they were going to go for another walk down to the other cabin on the property to eat their lunch by the river. Silly me - I changed Mason's clothes, put Jonah's extra pair of rain boots on him and sent him on his way! Well, I shouldn't have changed his clothes. The second pair came back just as dirty as the first pair! You can't tell so much because his jean shorts are dark, but let me tell you - they were soaked through!

They were so proud of themselves! It was too cute and too funny to be mad!

Nap time for Jonah and Mason! While they took a nap, Chris, Nathan, Josh, Cole, Tish, and myself decided to go down the river. Chris and Tisha took Cole in the canoe while the rest of us had our own kayak. We got in and headed down the river for our hour and a half ride. Dad was going to pick us up in our car with the trailor at the end of the ride. It was so nice and peaceful. There was a good current still so we didn't have to do much paddling. We were down the river about 15 minutes when all of a sudden, something caught my eye. I looked and, could it be? Was it the blue rubber ball that Mason had sent floating down the river? Yes it was!!! Low and behold, he blue ball was on the side of the river. Josh paddled over to it and saved it. We could not believe we found the lost ball! Jonah would be so happy!

Sunday afternoon, Tisha and Nathan took Jonah for a canoe ride down to the cabin where the shed is for the kayaks and canoes. They came back and decided to take the kayaks down too. So, Mason all of a sudden decides he wants to ride in a kayak. All weekend long we had been asking him if he wanted to go in the boat and he kept saying "no". Well, now he decides he wants to. On the day when the sun isn't out like the day before and I'm not in the mood to get down in the cold water. But, oh well. I really wanted Mason to try it out. So, we got all our swimming stuff on and we got into our kayak. Me and the two boys. I don't know if I was brave or plain stupid to try to kayak down the river with two boys, but I did it!