Get Away

Five years ago, I was VERY pregnant with Landon, and Chris was in the middle of his "training for Iraq". His superiors sent him with a few other fellow soldiers to Fort Drum, to "teach" them how to use the new army computer programs. During those two weeks he spent several days out of the office and on a boat. He's always wanted to go back and take me with him. The past couple of weeks we've been feeling a little down and in much need of a battery recharge, we decided to finally make the long drive to Clayton, New York, and rent that boat.

The plan was to wake up very early Monday morning and get on the road by 4:00 AM. We decided to change our plans when 2:00 AM rolled around, and Chris and I found ourselves frustratingly wide awake. So instead we left at the reasonable hour of 9:30. We drove all day, and the boys were surprisingly good natured most of the day, though I think the Dramamine helped a little in that department. We arrived in Clayton around 6:30 and found a motel that Chris had looked up online, it was cheep and had a little kitchen, so we thought it might be a good place to stay, but when we looked inside the room we decided that, though the linens looked clean, it didn't feel clean. So we moved on and ended up staying in the same little motel that Chris was in five years ago.
We spent all of Tuesday in a old boat, speeding up and down and through the thousand islands region. The boys loved it!! When we stopped to see the Castle on Heart Island, Landon found a pirate flag and just had to have it. He spent the rest of the day waving it in Sam's face and running from the front of the boat to the back trying to find the best wind for it. Sam's favorite spot on the boat was the drivers seat, until he discovered how fun it could be to sit in the very front and bob on the waves, getting splashed. I was amazed at how much they both loved their life jackets. I hate wearing those things, but Landon and Sam never wanted to take them off.

Around 2:00 the boys got tired so I put two towels on the bottom of the boat so they could lay down. I didn't expect them to fall asleep but they did, so I covered their faces up so the sun couldn't wake them up.
We finished with the boat around 5:00 and got back into the car. We decided that we'd had our fill of boats for the week, and so drove an hour and half and spent the night in Syracuse.

On Wednesday we drove over to Palmyra and spent a few hours at the various Church history sites. The Sacred Grove was peacful but, our favorite was the Hill Cumorah. We walked to the top and while I was trying to take this picture of the boys sitting by the monument
Landon announced that he needed to use the bathroom, so Chris and I turned to walk back down the hill. I was distracted by a beautiful flower and when I looked around I found my four-year-old with his pants down by his ankles, peeing off the side of monument. Chris and I were baffled as to why Landon thought this was appropriate, but I was relieved that we were the only people on the hill to see. We scolded Landon, but we laughed about it for the rest of the day, and I'm sure we'll be laughing about it for some time to come.
We originally thought that we would stay in Palmyra for the night, but when we were there we decided that it would be better to sleep in our own beds. So we gave the boys their dramamine (to prevent any motion sickness), had some lunch, and then drove the 8 hours home. We arrived around 10:00 PM and went straight to bed. Our vacation was a bit shorter than we had planned, and we probably shouldn't have taken the sixteen hour drive just for one day on a boat and a bathroom break on the Hill Cumorah, but it was SO worth it.