Summer Vacation 2012 - The Quad Cities

For summer vacation, Sarah, Josephine, Coriel and Ada explored the Quad-cities area.  We stayed in our camper at the Sunset Lakes RV Resort in Hillsdale, IL.
Mike and Hamlet accompanied us for the drive...

En route to the resort...

Then we set up shop in the camper with some toys...

Toys outdoors...

And toys indoors...

A brief moment of kindness between sisters

 After helping us get settled at the campsite, Mike and Hamlet headed back to Batavia and the girls began to explore the area.
Monday, August 6th we went to Niabi Zoo in Coal Valley, IL.  There were great activities for the kids (including a few water misting fans that the kids went nuts over), and a really nice petting zoo.  Josephine went for a pony ride, climbed on some concrete animals, and fed goats.

Josephine riding a pony.

Josephine's favorite chicken.  It's not really a visit to the zoo unless you've seen a chicken...or is it?

The babies...trying to stay cool in the rental stroller.

I spent 10 minutes waiting for this giraffe to stop licking his leg so that I could take a picture that didn't look totally ridiculous.  Here it is.

One of these parrots could say "Hello!"  I spent (and this amount of time I am not disclosing) many minutes going to each parrot and saying Hello in a parrot voice over and over again.  The things we admit on our blogs...sigh.

Josephine's favorite bird in the bird house.

Concrete rhino.

If I had mad photoshop skillz I would have put Josephine's face in both apes.

 We were pretty pooped after our day at the zoo, but that didn't stop us from visiting Monkey Joe's in Davenport, IA the next day.  I don't have photos from that because I was in the baby bouncy house with the twins practically the whole time (not a great place to bring an iPhone).  But here is the "After" photo:

Needless to say, they were tired.

So we didn't get a chance to go to the park.

Which is too bad - because I drove all the way there and it was a beautiful park with a fountain, playset, and everything.

On Wednesday, August 8, we went to Le Claire, IA, the birthplace of Buffalo Bill Cody.  We visited the Buffalo Bill Museum.  Josephine even got to do a photo scavenger hunt!

They had some neat historical artifacts.  Including a dog treadmill...

Attached to a butter churn.

I have no idea why this invention didn't take off...

After the museum, we visited Reusable Usables in Le Claire and got to do some Drop in Art.

She was rockin' this bunny smock...

We worked up quite an appetite that day, so that night we indulged in S'mores and Coke.

We had a real campfire and everything...I didn't even stoop to making them in the microwave.

On Thursday, we visited the Albany Mounds State Historic Site in Albany, IL.  It was quite a trek out to the mounds, but well worth it for this view:

This picture, taken by Josephine, doesn't quite do the spot justice, but take my word for it, it was a beautiful forest and meadow near the banks of the Mississippi River.

This is the girls at the entrance to the mounds "trail" which turned out to be a mowed swath of grass.  Anyone who has ever pushed a double umbrella stroller uphill through grass for half a mile in the summer will understand why I had to shower when I got back to the camper.

On Friday, August 10th, our last full day, we went to Clinton, IA.  It was a beautiful drive up the eastern bank of the Mississippi River.  We went to the Felix Adler Children's Discovery Center, a really neat place which is one big enclosed room with a toddler play area in the middle.  Josephine had a blast dressing up like a fireman, playing grocery store, and playing with tons of blocks.  The babies found a toy car to fight over.

Fire lady, Josephine, to the rescue!

"Buy some grapes!  Only 50 cents a bunch!"

Three seconds after this photo was taken they started slapping each other in a fight for possession of the car.

By Saturday morning, all four girls were very tired and ready to sleep in their own beds.  Next year, Daddy is invited...

McCormick's Creek State Park

The Pruss and Pinnick families joined together for a short, weekend trip to McCormick's Creek State Park in Spencer, IN from July 20-22, 2012.
McCormick's Creek was named after homesteader John McCormick, who obtained the land in 1816.  The park is known for its tranquil and restful scenery, where visitors can lose themselves (if you are Hamlet and Sarah, quite literally) on the long and beautiful hiking trails that the park has to offer.

Hiking to the falls with dogs in tow.

 We arrived late on a Friday night and were greeted by a couple of very generous park rangers and a few Pruss's and Pinnick's waving flashlights.

We did a lot of hiking.

Our campsite, #56, was terrible.  If anyone reads this blog and is considering a trip to this park, avoid that particular site like the plague, Rinderpest, Dengue fever, and Malaria carrying mosquitoes.  The entire site was inclined so severely that we needed to borrow additional blocks from a family member because the rear stabilizers couldn't touch the ground.  The power hookup was on the same side as the picnic table, and, in hindsight, we should have just faced the camper the other direction and used an extension cord to go underneath the trailer.
We brought Hamlet with us for the trip, and managed to avoid major dog-nature, dog-camper, dog on dog mishaps which was great!  He slept for 4 days straight after we got home.

These prices will probably seem hilarious in 2035

 Josephine and Anna went on a pony ride.  Charlotte opted out citing the pony's mild left forelimb lameness and a suspicious lack of girth-tightness as her reasons... (or she was just scared and I completely misinterpreted the meaning of "No horsie")

Josephine pictured on "Freckles" who would have been named "Distended Abdomen" if he had been named for his body shape instead of his coat characteristics.

 Mike and Sarah went on a 45 minute kid-free horseback ride through the park while Kate and James went for a dog-hike.  Mary and Steve were kind enough to watch ALL the kids in our trailer while the couples had some down time.  Here's something John McCormick forgot to mention:  the park is much more tranquil when there aren't any kids around.
Oh yeah, and...

Who could forget the token "Lichen on tree with family member walking, out of focus, in the background" photo?  Not me.

We may not get a chance to go back to McCormick's Creek for a long time, but I would highly recommend it to those of you who didn't realize that Indiana had trees that weren't serving as windbreaks for cattle, hogs, or cornfields.

Father's Day Weekend 2012

For Father's Day Weekend we headed to Wisconsin for our trailer's maiden voyage. 

The car ride was pretty tough on us campers, particularly those forced to sit in silence without the benefits of modern conveniences.

Are we there yet?

Our first night (Thursday night) was at Jellystone Park in Fort Atkinson, WI.

This is Josephine at the entrance to the Fort Atkinson Jellystone.

We didn't see any real bears but here is what we would have looked like if we had.

On Friday morning we arrived in Fremont, WI, ready to start making memories at Jellystone RV Resort. We were joined that morning by Nathan, one of Mike's friends from K-State, his wife Meggan, and their son Oliver, who is about Josephine's age.

Unfortunately, we lost cell service there, so the only memories we made were those which could not be instantaneously uploaded to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.  Sarah was crushed.

Here is a photo of Boo BoOliver that Sarah couldn't tweet.

Here is a photo of the kids getting ready to go swimming that never made it into Sarah's facebook feed...

Here is a photo of the exhausted duo that Sarah couldn't upload to Instagram.

Here is one of Mike and Ada involved in some type of recreational sport that involves a ball's trajectory towards a baby's head.

Josephine and Oliver coyly saying goodbye at the end of the trip. They had loads of fun.

It was finally time to head home...




We are looking forward to our next trip July 20th, 2012 in McCormick's Creek State Park (lions and tigers and no sewer hookup, oh my!) with Mike's family.


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Location:Wishing Well Ln,Fort Atkinson,United States

Our new Keystone trailer!

We are very excited to report that we have a new recreational vehicle. It is definitely an upgrade from our 8' pop up!

Here is a blurry picture taken in the dark on our first night with the trailer. We picked it up at Tom Raper RV in Richmond, IN.

On our way back to Batavia we stopped to camp at Caboose Lake Campground in Remington, IN.
We were pretty exhausted from the exciting day at the RV dealership, but we still managed to hook the right hoses up to the right places!

Here is Mike explaining that there is a pressure regulator on the end of this hose...
Unfortunately we were to busy eating and sleeping for the rest of the night to remember to take pics of the interior! But hopefully this will soon be remedied as We have plans to go camping with the Bilotte family in Wisconsin later this month!!
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Our new camp grill

Here is our new grill:

Yes I admit this post is lame but I'm testing Blogpress!Camp grill
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my iPhone

Outdoor Adventures

This is where we went camping from May 18, 2012 to May 20, 2012. The campground is Outdoor Adventures Lake Shore in Davison, MI
We also made a stop at the Michigan Maritime Museumin South Haven, MI. There, we learned about the War of 1812, and a little bit about what the life of a fisherman was like in the 1940's.
We were joined by Steve Pruss for part of the trip and camped in our 2007 Viking epic 1706 trailer!
Here are the photos from the trip.

I feel that no caption is really neccesary here.

Peekaboo, Sailor man!

This is a lot like what Fort Detroit looked like in the 1800s.

It's...my ship in a box!

Three armpits.

Ada, left.  Josephine, right.

Looking down on the Coast Gaurd exhibit.

Josephine at our campsite.

Our campsite.  Notice pack n play and Steve Pruss's head on the left side of the photo.

She even signed herself in!