Let’s see where we were?  Oh, yes!  We left off at the park…   

 

After wearing Chloe out nicely at the park we headed home where we enjoyed lunch and then said our long goodbye’s.  We took a few pictures and then Kylene & Justin headed to their family reunion in Iowa and Chloe & I headed back north to Chetek. 

 

Chloe was out like a light within 5 minutes of our trip.  I’m so pleased that she slept both days on the car ride (even if it wasn’t long… any little bit helps!)  The trip home was exhausting for me.  Chloe was quite good, but by this point I was tired and there wasn’t anyone to talk to—I was also getting tired of sitting in a car.  I had forgotten when I travel, that I don’t sleep well with Chloe in her pack-n-play in the same room.  I wake up at every sound she makes and I worry that she’ll wake up crying b/c she’s in a new place.  She never did, but I still slept quite poorly both nights.  Also, as an aside, I think we’re at the end of being able to bring along the crib for her to sleep in… she can now just about touch her head and her toes to both ends of the crib when she stretches out.  She’s just too big!  It has definitely served us well though. 

The traffic was also crazy busy leaving the Milwaukee area all the way until I reached the Wisconsin Dells.  It made for anxious driving always needing to be alert of other stupid drivers.  Once we got past the Dells though, things really loosened up and we had smooth sailing all the way to my folks house.   This trip also was the first time Chloe got to use the portable dvd player to watch a movie (Milo & Otis of course!) in the car.  She thought that was sooooo cool.  🙂  

 

Once we arrived we unloaded again and set up for the night.  Mom was already at play practice but Dad was around so we enjoyed hanging out for a while until Chloe went down for the night.  Dad had to run some errands so I got everything set up and ready for Chloe to sleep.  However, she did not sleep.  She cried.  And cried and cried.  It’s highly unusual for her to not go right to sleep—I think she was scared of the new environment and overly tired from not getting a long enough nap.  Either way, she just screamed for a long time until I finally put her next to me on the bed and she settled down and fell asleep.  The good news is, once she fell asleep she was out for the whole night.   

The next morning (Saturday) we were up bright and early.  We ate breakfast and then Mom & Chloe & I went for a nice 50 min. walk.  It felt good to get out and really stretch my legs after riding so much in the car.  When we got back it was time to tackle the big morning project:  moving the trailer.  It’s a large old trailer without wheels that happened to be placed smack dab in the middle of the back yard.  It had been fine for the first year or two that my parents owned the house (it came with the house) but now it needed to be moved so they could put a chicken coop next to the old outhouse.    They had purchased a few baby chicks 2 weeks ago and they are big enough to need their own outdoor home.

 

I showed Chloe the chickens but she was afraid of them.  🙂

Here’s a picture of the trailer…

And then here is the SLOW progression of moving it from one spot to it’s new home.  We rolled it on big logs and towed it with the car.  It was a tedious process, that had two very sharp turns, but we made it!  Notice the large area of dead grass in the first photo–that marks where the trailer was.

 

 

 The hardest part about the whole endeavor was that Chloe was afraid.  I’m not entirely sure what exactly she was afraid of, but she would cry and yell whenever I had to put her down and help.  It made things a bit more frustrating… I will admit that it was a bit loud and unpredictable, since we had to crank the trailer up with the lift and shift the logs forward and then drop it back down and then jerk it forward with the car… so I guess I could see why she was scared.  But it was frustrating to me that she HAD to have me holding her.

After moving the trailer it was time for Mom to head back to play practice and Chloe & I packed up and hit the road one final time.  We made it back to Shakopee about 2:00.  It was then that I realized I had forgotten to water all my flowers before I left… many were crispy and brown.  Whoops!  I gave them all a good watering and then the rain last night seems to have helped perk many of them back up.

Today I spent a few hours getting everything put away and cleaned up again.  Now we’re relaxing in the delightful air conditioning as Chloe is taking a much needed long afternoon nap.  Happy 4th of July to everyone!