It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times
Dickens' famous line is the best way I can think to sum up our vacation! Very fun, and at the same time something I never want to repeat. Ever.
It was the best of times: We got to see plenty of family all week long, and catch up on their lives and do quite a few things with them!
We got to meet Brianne for the first time. She is so precious and tiny! Noah was never that small. :) She sleeps a lot more than Noah did, and is very "squawky". Cute little squeals and grunts all over the place! I've been able to hold her some and feed her a bottle and I really loved that.
We did most of the fun things at the Wilds: we went on the land trolley (a zip line), the paddleboats, two major hikes, made a necklace at the craft shop, enjoyed StarBucks-esque coffee drinks at a fraction of the price, had great food, enjoyed the speaker Jim Binney very much, had a joint birthday party for myself and Joel's wife Hannah, and really had a good time fellowshiping with the family.
We had free babysitting for all the sessions and every morning until lunch!
We enjoyed the absolutely breathtaking scenery here and the beautiful weather the Lord allowed! Seriously, everyone that has been here in this similar week in years past has said that it is usually a Hot One, but for some reason this year the Lord cooled things off for us, and it has been so wonderful. Sweatshirts in the morning, then warm in the afternoon with cool breezes abounding. We couldn't have asked for better weather!
Josh and I were able to talk about some areas of our marriage and personal lives that were starting to show cracks and we saw some resolution and restoration in those areas. Praise the Lord!
It was the worst of times: And now, the bad news. Each and every night has been a horrible night in terms of sleeping. Horrible. I estimate that for the last 4 nights I've had 16 cumulative hours of sleep. I'm beginning to feel like I will never sleep again, and it's a terrible way to live, especially here where so much energy is required (there are 99 steps on the stairway from the athletic field and lower camp up to the lodge and dining hall). It seems like everything is against me in a perfect storm of No Sleep. I either have trouble falling asleep, or I have awakened at some wee hour of the morning and cannot for the life of me go back to sleep.
Josh has had some sort of throat problem the entire vacation, beginning the day before we left which has given him a dry tickley cough and has made him snore (!). I don't think he'll be embarrassed that I am posting this, since we all know (hope?) that this is a temporary problem. This snoring/coughing has kept me awake a lot this week.
Noah has not helped matters either. Where normally he awakens between 7 and 8am each day, he woke up at 6am several days in a row at the beginning of the vacation. When I was just starting to think that was bad, he started waking up even earlier, like around 5:30am. AND! (this next part is gross) He was waking up with THE Smelliest, THE Worst poopy diapers I have ever seen (and smelled).
Last night had to go down in history as the worst night we have ever spent with Noah. I got him to bed at 9pm, and laid myself down at 10pm. It took me an hour to go to sleep (which actually isn't too shabby considering a few of these nights I have stared at the clock until 2:30, unable to sleep though exhausted). Josh and I were awakened at 2:45am by Noah, who was crying. The crying quickly escalated to screaming, and he didn't stop until 5:45am. We tried everything: we rocked, I nursed him, we gave him a drink, we gave him something to eat, we changed his diaper, we walked around outside with him, we tried letting him sleep with us, we gave him Tylenol, we gave him Orajel, we let him cry, we picked him up. It was so awful. At one point Josh had to send me out to the car because I was falling apart. I came back to bed at 5:45 after Noah had gone back to sleep, and then it took me til 6:30 to fall asleep myself. Needless to say, we all missed breakfast and the morning session today.
Summary: This was a Very Fun Vacation, but at this point I never want to do it again! Maybe give me a few weeks of good sleep and I might change my mind, but right now, all I want is to climb into bed for a year.
Pictures to follow when we get home and I've had a good night's rest!
It was the best of times: We got to see plenty of family all week long, and catch up on their lives and do quite a few things with them!
We got to meet Brianne for the first time. She is so precious and tiny! Noah was never that small. :) She sleeps a lot more than Noah did, and is very "squawky". Cute little squeals and grunts all over the place! I've been able to hold her some and feed her a bottle and I really loved that.
We did most of the fun things at the Wilds: we went on the land trolley (a zip line), the paddleboats, two major hikes, made a necklace at the craft shop, enjoyed StarBucks-esque coffee drinks at a fraction of the price, had great food, enjoyed the speaker Jim Binney very much, had a joint birthday party for myself and Joel's wife Hannah, and really had a good time fellowshiping with the family.
We had free babysitting for all the sessions and every morning until lunch!
We enjoyed the absolutely breathtaking scenery here and the beautiful weather the Lord allowed! Seriously, everyone that has been here in this similar week in years past has said that it is usually a Hot One, but for some reason this year the Lord cooled things off for us, and it has been so wonderful. Sweatshirts in the morning, then warm in the afternoon with cool breezes abounding. We couldn't have asked for better weather!
Josh and I were able to talk about some areas of our marriage and personal lives that were starting to show cracks and we saw some resolution and restoration in those areas. Praise the Lord!
It was the worst of times: And now, the bad news. Each and every night has been a horrible night in terms of sleeping. Horrible. I estimate that for the last 4 nights I've had 16 cumulative hours of sleep. I'm beginning to feel like I will never sleep again, and it's a terrible way to live, especially here where so much energy is required (there are 99 steps on the stairway from the athletic field and lower camp up to the lodge and dining hall). It seems like everything is against me in a perfect storm of No Sleep. I either have trouble falling asleep, or I have awakened at some wee hour of the morning and cannot for the life of me go back to sleep.
Josh has had some sort of throat problem the entire vacation, beginning the day before we left which has given him a dry tickley cough and has made him snore (!). I don't think he'll be embarrassed that I am posting this, since we all know (hope?) that this is a temporary problem. This snoring/coughing has kept me awake a lot this week.
Noah has not helped matters either. Where normally he awakens between 7 and 8am each day, he woke up at 6am several days in a row at the beginning of the vacation. When I was just starting to think that was bad, he started waking up even earlier, like around 5:30am. AND! (this next part is gross) He was waking up with THE Smelliest, THE Worst poopy diapers I have ever seen (and smelled).
Last night had to go down in history as the worst night we have ever spent with Noah. I got him to bed at 9pm, and laid myself down at 10pm. It took me an hour to go to sleep (which actually isn't too shabby considering a few of these nights I have stared at the clock until 2:30, unable to sleep though exhausted). Josh and I were awakened at 2:45am by Noah, who was crying. The crying quickly escalated to screaming, and he didn't stop until 5:45am. We tried everything: we rocked, I nursed him, we gave him a drink, we gave him something to eat, we changed his diaper, we walked around outside with him, we tried letting him sleep with us, we gave him Tylenol, we gave him Orajel, we let him cry, we picked him up. It was so awful. At one point Josh had to send me out to the car because I was falling apart. I came back to bed at 5:45 after Noah had gone back to sleep, and then it took me til 6:30 to fall asleep myself. Needless to say, we all missed breakfast and the morning session today.
Summary: This was a Very Fun Vacation, but at this point I never want to do it again! Maybe give me a few weeks of good sleep and I might change my mind, but right now, all I want is to climb into bed for a year.
Pictures to follow when we get home and I've had a good night's rest!
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