We arrived home on Sunday. It was only 2 weeks, it felt like longer. Fortunately, this wasn't all bad, since we had a mostly great time.
We spent the last week at a resort in a small town in northeastern Wisconsin---close to the upper peninsula border. "Resort" makes it sound more glamorous than it actually was. This resort was founded (I believe) in the late 1800s, and many of the cabins were built then. The cabin we were staying with had a butler's pantry and the maid's room off the kitchen. On the other hand, they recently added a dishwasher. I'm not sure any house with a dishwasher can be called a cabin, but this is a definite improvement over the previous sink, which may have been the original equipment.
We spent the week with my grandma, her kids, their spouses, kids and grandkids (got that?). We were 23 for dinner when everyone was there, including 5 kids (Eleanor was the oldest and Luke was the youngest). Luke was charming almost all of the time, learning how to say "Gra ma" for my grandmother.
The kids and I drove to Menomonie on Saturday, a 3.5 hour drive that went without incident. Luke very wisely decided to sleep most of the way, one of the grandmas helped amuse Eleanor and Amanda. Eleanor and Amanda mostly amuse themselves these days: Eleanor was reading a "Child's history of the world. She's up to chapter 39 and 800 AD, so far. I was a bit the worse for wear because Luke decided the night before to be awake for 2.5 hours. Of course, he started his wakefulness approximately half an hour after I got to bed...
The real fun came when we got into the plane the next day. We decided to try to make the flight in one hop: based on tailwinds, we hoped the flight would be 5.5 hours. The key to being cooped up with kids for that long is to divide and conquer: break it up into 3 hours, eat dinner, and then have 2 hours. The 3 hour block is half an hour (or so) of climb, 1 hour of movie, some snack, more movie, book... Each half hour is made up of 3 10 minute blocks, each 10 minutes can be broken down into 5 minute blocks... It is a mathematical fact that if you have a finite amount of time, broken down into distinct blocks of time (all of which are greater than some minimum time, 1 minute, say) you will eventually get through the entire block of time, even if it seemed impossible at the outset.
We got back at 9, 15 minutes earlier than scheduled thanks to great tailwinds (I highly recommend flying with a tailwind =). After the county sheriff came by by to make sure we weren't stealing the engines of the airplanes, we drove to the grocery store and then home. Amanda was asleep. Luke and Eleanor were awake. Daddy and Mama, asleep soon after the kids. It's good to be home.
We spent the last week at a resort in a small town in northeastern Wisconsin---close to the upper peninsula border. "Resort" makes it sound more glamorous than it actually was. This resort was founded (I believe) in the late 1800s, and many of the cabins were built then. The cabin we were staying with had a butler's pantry and the maid's room off the kitchen. On the other hand, they recently added a dishwasher. I'm not sure any house with a dishwasher can be called a cabin, but this is a definite improvement over the previous sink, which may have been the original equipment.
We spent the week with my grandma, her kids, their spouses, kids and grandkids (got that?). We were 23 for dinner when everyone was there, including 5 kids (Eleanor was the oldest and Luke was the youngest). Luke was charming almost all of the time, learning how to say "Gra ma" for my grandmother.
The kids and I drove to Menomonie on Saturday, a 3.5 hour drive that went without incident. Luke very wisely decided to sleep most of the way, one of the grandmas helped amuse Eleanor and Amanda. Eleanor and Amanda mostly amuse themselves these days: Eleanor was reading a "Child's history of the world. She's up to chapter 39 and 800 AD, so far. I was a bit the worse for wear because Luke decided the night before to be awake for 2.5 hours. Of course, he started his wakefulness approximately half an hour after I got to bed...
The real fun came when we got into the plane the next day. We decided to try to make the flight in one hop: based on tailwinds, we hoped the flight would be 5.5 hours. The key to being cooped up with kids for that long is to divide and conquer: break it up into 3 hours, eat dinner, and then have 2 hours. The 3 hour block is half an hour (or so) of climb, 1 hour of movie, some snack, more movie, book... Each half hour is made up of 3 10 minute blocks, each 10 minutes can be broken down into 5 minute blocks... It is a mathematical fact that if you have a finite amount of time, broken down into distinct blocks of time (all of which are greater than some minimum time, 1 minute, say) you will eventually get through the entire block of time, even if it seemed impossible at the outset.
We got back at 9, 15 minutes earlier than scheduled thanks to great tailwinds (I highly recommend flying with a tailwind =). After the county sheriff came by by to make sure we weren't stealing the engines of the airplanes, we drove to the grocery store and then home. Amanda was asleep. Luke and Eleanor were awake. Daddy and Mama, asleep soon after the kids. It's good to be home.
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