Living where you work...

We love Joe's Place. It is an amazing program that we are so proud to be a part of. It's actually hard to believe we've been here almost 3 1/2 years! We've learned a lot since we've been here... one of the main things being the importance of recharging. Saturday is our one day a week that we get off... and we protect that time as if it were a million dollars. It's hard because even though Saturday is our off day... that doesn't mean that Joe's Place life stops. Kids will still want rides places, forget things here at the house, people will stop by to see how the program is going, random donations will get dropped at our door, our phones will still constantly ring, etc., etc. We got to the point a few years ago where we had to unhook our doorbell because it would ding so much. There are times now where we just don't even answer the door on Saturdays if we don't know who it is. In order to be good houseparents we need to be able to recharge... it's just something we have to do.

So... as we approached Spring Break this year we decided we needed to get away just the 3 of us. Sometimes getting out of this house is the only way to really relax. We'll usually have a grandparent come in to watch Carter so the two of us can get away... but we were pretty limited this year with me being 32 weeks pregnant... and we wanted some time with Carter with just us... a last hurrah of sorts. So... we decided a few weeks ago to go out to our favorite MO campground this week and stay in one of their camper cabins. We reserved the most secluded one, packed up our car last Saturday with a weeks worth of clothing and food and headed out. It rained the entire drive there... which didn't totally bother us... but really it was a sign of what was to come...

1. After arriving at 8pm on Saturday we learned that the water to the entire campground was turned off (no flushing toilets, drinking water or SHOWERS).
2. Dan and Carter both had colds before we left that ended up getting a lot worse Saturday and Sunday (Dan couldn't sleep because he was coughing so hard).
3. Carter ended up with 3 spider bites... one that started getting larger each day.
4. The special wine that we brought for the trip was sitting next to the heater in the back of the car for the 2 1/2 hour drive. The cork was halfway out when we unloaded it... and it was totally ruined. :(
5. It ended up being so cold that even Carter didn't want to play outside.
6. The forest rangers decided to set up shop with their chipper right outside our cabin Monday morning.

So... after all that we decided to pack the car back up Monday morning and head home. :( Not exactly the Spring Break trip we were hoping for. As soon as we pulled into town on Monday afternoon we stopped at a Walgreens Clinic so Dan and Carter could see a nurse practitioner. Dan is now on an antibiotic for 10 days and Carter has a prescription cream for his spider bites. The plus side to all of this... everyone thought we were out of town! We parked our car somewhere else for the week, kept our shades closed and haven't answered our phones... so even if kids were walking by... no one would know we were home. It has been nice to be home. We've gotten to do some fun stuff just for Carter... which has been great.

I did get some pictures of our time camping last weekend... not that we'll really need pictures to remember it. :)

Carter was supposed to be sleeping. We looked up from the campfire to see him checking out the view with his headlamp on. He looked so cute it was kind of hard to be mad.

Carter's room. I was nervous about the opening... so Dan set up a gate with some of his climbing gear.

We're looking forward to going back sometime soon under better circumstances! :)