{"id":9753,"date":"2015-08-17T05:00:51","date_gmt":"2015-08-17T10:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crumbbums.com\/?p=9753"},"modified":"2016-09-07T11:37:39","modified_gmt":"2016-09-07T16:37:39","slug":"weekend-shenanigans-87","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crumbbums.com\/?p=9753","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Shenanigans"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DSC_0205\"<\/a>\"DSC_0192\"<\/a>Our weekend started early; thanks to Andrew’s arrival home to us and Oliver’s birthday, we had much to celebrate. I felt my mood lifting hour by hour, hug by hug, long conversation and laughing fit at a time. It may have been the funk of this summer or it may have been my deep longing for my partner. Whatever it was, it seems to be fading, at least.<\/p>\n

This weekend we celebrated Oliver’s sixth birthday with vigor. We spent hours together as a family, putting together lego structures and reminiscing about Oliver’s birth and first year of life. It feels like a lifetime ago, and just yesterday. Funny how time works.\"DSC_0085\"<\/a>\"DSC_0086\"<\/a>\"DSC_0087\"<\/a>\"DSC_0095\"<\/a>\"DSC_0100\"<\/a>Oliver requested a chocolate cake with whipped cream frosting. I made a box mix with a homemade whipped cream\/cream cheese frosting that tasted like a light cheesecake. Alongside homemade raspberry sauce, it was the best cake I’ve had in a long time! Success (finally)!\u00a0\"DSC_0104\"<\/a>\"DSC_0105\"<\/a>\"DSC_0112\"<\/a>Oliver received Star Wars Legos for his birthday. Clearly, all three boys found this highly desirable.\u00a0\"DSC_0218\"<\/a>\"DSC_0080\"<\/a>I took Emil to the zoo while Andrew took the older two boys to have some special time in lieu of a party. I loved having Emil to myself. We spent most of the afternoon camped out in front of the elephants. Emil was so smitten with the youngest calf, a female who entertained us by swimming and playing with a large stick in the water. We talked about how animals play just like human children, and how they learn during this play. He didn’t want to leave.<\/p>\n

Saturday morning, we woke up so early and all felt energized and ready to get some fresh air. Andrew suggested a walk in the woods. We found ourselves rushing out of the house at 7am with little more than two bottles of water, one granola bar, some binoculars, and a specimen jar. What I wish we had brought: a whole lot more food, a more comfortable pair of walking shoes, and a bit more toilet paper.
\n\"DSC_0115\"<\/a>\"DSC_0123\"<\/a>\"DSC_0131\"<\/a>\"DSC_0151\"<\/a>\"DSC_0139\"<\/a>\"DSC_0148\"<\/a>We mistakenly took a trail that was not 3 miles long but 5.3 miles long. We started out at 8am and stumbled back to the car at nearly 12pm. And though we have done these hikes before with the kids, being unprepared was kind of miserable by the end. Andrew and I took turns giving Emil piggyback rides and I ended up carrying my shoes and walking barefoot for most of the last mile to avoid having the blisters that had formed on my feet from bursting. We were all so, so hungry by the end. But I have to say, through it all, Andrew kept the troops happy and upbeat by distracting them every time a complaint was about to be uttered… which wasn’t often. Those boys are pretty tough!\u00a0\"DSC_0156\"<\/a>\"DSC_0157\"<\/a>\"DSC_0160\"<\/a>\"DSC_0162\"<\/a>I was probably the biggest wuss of all of us. When we passed the 3-mile marker and I realized we were still so far from the end, I felt like crying (this was supposed to be a little visit to the woods, not a five-mile hike!). Instead, I stayed quiet and realized I have become quite soft over the past few years. In my mind, it’s one thing to set out on a five-mile hike, it’s quite another to set out on a “little walk” only for it to become a five-mile hike. One needs to prepare oneself for these kinds of adventures. At least I do, ha ha!\"DSC_0164\"<\/a>This family is all adventure, let me tell you. We had a great weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our weekend started early; thanks to Andrew’s arrival home to us and Oliver’s birthday, we had much to celebrate. I felt my mood lifting hour by hour, hug by hug, long conversation and laughing fit at a time. It may have been the funk of this summer or it may have been my deep longing … Continue reading “Weekend Shenanigans”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,99,187],"tags":[70,93,90],"class_list":["post-9753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family","category-green-living","category-motherhood","tag-birthday","tag-oliver","tag-walk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crumbbums.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crumbbums.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crumbbums.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crumbbums.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crumbbums.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9753"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.crumbbums.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9766,"href":"https:\/\/www.crumbbums.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9753\/revisions\/9766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crumbbums.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crumbbums.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crumbbums.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crumbbums.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}