We took advantage of the long Fourth of July weekend to make a trip out to visit my Grandma Rossing in Ellendale. It's about a two-hour drive, and Jonathan handled it fairly well. The only downside was that he didn't fall asleep for the one nap he takes during the day until we were about twenty minutes from Grandma's. I thought he'd sleep through us bringing him inside, but nope. He woke up and was not interested in resting anymore.
We visited for a little while before Chris and my uncle Mike (who was Jonathan's new buddy for the day) took Jonathan up the street to the park so that Grandma and I could do some work pulling together the family history and scanning stacks and stacks of photos. Grandma will be 88 this October, and she has so many precious stories from the Rossing, Anderson and Jacobson sides of the family that I don't want to be lost when her time on earth is over.
Thankfully, she had already put together comprehensive family trees years ago, and we saved a lot of time by just making copies of those. But it took hours to scan photos and document who was in each one, and I still wound up taking a couple armloads of albums home to continue scanning. At least now I can identify who the people are.
Chris, Mike and my honorary aunt Renita did a wonderful job of keeping Jonathan occupied after his trip to the park so he'd stay out of our temporary work area. Jonathan's John Deere Tractor movie helped for a while as well. And I guess he did eventually take a better nap, too.
There aren't enough hours in a day to complete a task like that, though, and I feel like I've only explored the tip of the iceberg. In addition to being able to recognize some ancestors, I also managed to capture a few memorable family facts and events, but I know Grandma has thousands of stories of her childhood, her parents, and my grandpa's parents, so I'll probably need some more trips and/or phone calls to feel like I've got a good grasp of them.
Grandma Rossing, Uncle Mike, Jonathan and Mindi
Grandma Rossing, Mindi, Jonathan and Chris
Although we could have made it back home the same night, I knew there was a Holiday Inn with an indoor water park in Owatonna, and I thought that would be a fun experience for Jonathan. We haven't stayed over at a hotel with him before, but I have a couple of friends with kids who are about the same age, and they've said their kids think it's such a treat to stay over somewhere. With that, I had kind of high expectations.
I was surprised that Jonathan did not want to stay in the room. As soon as we entered, he kept trying to escape back out the door. We had brought his pack'n'play, but since the room had a king-size bed, we ended up just letting him sleep between us instead of hauling the pack'n'play in and messing around with putting that together. We don't have a king-size bed at home, so I have to say those things are huge! While telling Chris goodnight, I felt like I was calling out to someone in a different zip code.
The next morning, Jonathan still just wanted to leave. We had breakfast in the restaurant attached to the Holiday Inn (which had the best pancakes I've ever tasted, and I still cannot believe Jonathan wouldn't eat them), and then finally got Jonathan to settle down with the promise of going to the water park. I hadn't mentioned the water park to him yet, because I knew he'd be antsy to go there, and he was restless enough as it was.
Well the water park redeemed the experience for him. I was a little surprised that he didn't want to go into the deep end of the pool with us, where we could toss him in the air and let him splash as we caught him again. Any time we strayed away from a depth where he could touch, he'd say, "No! I walk!"
It was the first time trying out the new swimsuit I bought him, which has flotation strips sewn into the top, so he had a little more freedom to move about on his own without us "saving him" all the time. We still had to stay near him and keep him generally upright when he tried to swim, but he could at least jump around to his heart's content without mom and dad ruining his fun.
"No. I walk!"
On our way home, we stopped in Kasson to visit with Chris' sister, Dawn, and her kids. Jonathan enjoyed seeing his cousins, Brandon and Brianna, and got a kick out of playing with Brandon's tent in particular.
You would think a little guy would be worn out after all of that, but he was still full of energy when Chris decided to get a bon fire going. Chris treated him to a few rides in the wheelbarrow and let him haul a couple of small logs (or big sticks, depending on how you look at it) over from the wood pile.
Jonathan spent the remaining daylight running around the yard and squealing with all the delight and enthusiasm you could ever hope to hear from a toddler -- mostly while Chris chased him and occasionally tossed him in the air. When the sun finally set, we sat around the fire and ate some popcorn while we waited for the fireworks to start appearing.
By the time we began hearing the fireworks (we couldn't necessarily see all of them, since they were being set off from down in the valley in Lake City), Jonathan was so wiped out, he was actually asking to go inside and go to bed. That's a first! In all honesty, the only ones we could see very well from our place were the biggest ones that made it above the bluff, but once those started popping up, Jonathan was willing to fight to keep his eyes open, and he kept asking for more. He eventually fell asleep on Chris' shoulder, though. What a night.
Now for the barrage of photos ... Maybe I'm posting too many, but I get the mother's kick of endorphins when I see that unabashed smile and the unrestrained joy in his eyes. So call it self indulgent.
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