Annual Tubing Trip!

The Hansen family enjoyed our annual tubing trip in Eldora, Iowa on the Iowa River!

This traditon started about 5 years ago and it proves to be a blast each year!

We drove to Iowa Friday afternoon, arriving at the camp site (The Benham's were our hosts!) about 6:00 and set up camp! ... excited for our tubing trip the next day!

With all our tubes blown up, coolers packed and our excitement on overload we hit the river about 11:30! There were about 30 of us, so it quite an ordeal to get all that orchestrated!

The trip is 4 miles long and ususally takes about 4 hours, but we stopped at a few of the sand bars and visited and ate lunch. All in all, it took us just over 5 hours for the float. And to boot: everyone behaved themselves! (and Hunter did not have any near death experiences like he did last summer!)

After we got back to the camp site, Graden and Chad left and headed for the Independance stock car races, where Graden would then head to Manchester for the night ... and then head to Prairie du Chein for a fishing tournament Sunday morning. It was a busy weekend!

Hunter, Dayne and I stayed at the camp site and enjoyed our time with our home town friends! Trista has two girls that Dayne *loves* to hang out with, plus little Lexie "LuLu" so she was in heaven! We called it a night just before midnight and got up the next morning to pack up our tent and belongings ... and head for my dad's house - to spend the day with him! Something I don't do near as often as I should!

The kids and I got to my dad's house about 10:00 Sunday morning and spent a beautiful afternoon with Dad and Susan. It is so relaxing at their home ... I just love being there.

About 2:00 Donna joined us for lunch .... then shortly afterwards we headed out, to pick Graden up from the truck stop in Elk Run (where his fishing buddy dropped him off, to save me a trip to Manchester! P.S. They won first place in their fishing "derby" - - including Big Bass!).

After getting Graden we headed to Gretchen's place to get TJ - who is staying with us for 2 weeks while Dayne stays with Nana for 2 weeks. We felt TJ would be good to get some "man" time since the poor kid is always around women, women, women!!

We finally hit the road for home about 5:30 ... and got home about 11:15 Sunday night.

We are looking forward to our time with TJ, but will miss our baby girl, Dayne!

Dayne's Birthday Party at World's of Fun

Dayne invited three of her friends to join us for a day at World's of Fun!

We (including Hunter and his friend, TJ) headed to WOF around 12:30 Saturday afternoon and prepared ourselves for a long day - lots of fun, but it lots of walking and lots of time spent standing around waiting in line!

Lauren's mom and dad met up with us at the park and strolled around with us. It was helpful to my sanity to have two other adults to help me keep an eye on four wild 10 year olds!

The weather was *perfect*! About 80 degrees with a slight breeze at all the right times!

Below is our day in pictures!

The girls "monkey-ing" around.

The Prowler is the newest ride at WOF. It is a wooden roller coaster - and much smoother than the typical wooden roller coaster. Dayne was quite scared at first ... but eventually gave in to the fun! The picture above (red box) shows her while still in the frightened stage!

The girls on the way down on the Monsoon Ride! That is them in the front row!

Funny story here: This is the girls in line to ride the Patriot (a floor-less roller coaster that turns upside down and has many loop-de-loops! It ROCKS!). We all wait in line for about 30 minutes and as soon as we get our turn, all the girls bailed on us and it was just me and Lauren's mom on the ride! Silly girls!

Taylor - Parker - Lauren - Dayne

The girls after enjoying a Blue Raspberry Icee!

The girls on the Skyliner Ferris Wheel. Two went in the cart on the top and the other two went in the cart on the bottom.

We left the park about 10:45 and got home about 11:30. Of course, the girls all fell asleep on the way home, but as soon as we got home they were ready for birthday cookie-cake and ice cream! I tried to convince them to just go to bed and we'd have cookie-cake and ice cream for "breakfast" ... but, I lost that battle. So, there we were .... singing "Happy Birthday" to Dayne at midnight!

Very shortly after cookie-cake, the girls settled down and called it a night. They slept in until almost noon! Guess they were tired little girls!

Thank you to Lauren, Parker and Taylor for joining the party!

The Haps in the Hansen Hacienda

Not much really happened this week ... pretty boring, really.

The only little bit of excitement was having Chad and Kylie with us through Thursday afternoon. Dayne and Kylie got to hang out ... and Chad and Graden got to hang out.

Tuesday the guys took the girls to a local fun spot - - Paradise Park for a few hours. They all enjoyed a round of minature golf!

Chad and Kylie headed home on Thursday ... Kylie was missing her house and her animals : (. Dayne can understand that, I think!

Thursday night Dayne stayed the night with her friend Lauren. Well, was supposed to stay the night. 12:38am ... my phone rings and Dayne is in hysterics, "Can you come get me? There was a noise and no one was in the room but Lauren and I .... ." "Yes, Dayne .... I will come get you. I will be there in a few minutes." When I picked her up, she was still crying (almost uncontrollably!). Whatever happened was very real to her and very scary!

Friday night Dayne had Lauren stay the night ... and all was well again, until 12:38am! The girls said they heard a big bang (twice!) and came running into our room. They ended up sleeping on our bedroom floor (Dayne does that frequently!). What are the odds that two nights in a row at the same time they get spooked!? At two different houses?! Girls = drama.

Saturday afternoon Graden headed to Truman Lake for a tournament he is fishing on Sunday. He sold his boat earlier this week, so he is boatless. It makes him a little sad I think! Luckily, his new one is already been ordered so it won't be long before his boat blues are cured!

Hunter headed to Worlds of Fun with some of his friends for the day on Saturday and Dayne had a friend over. I took Dayne and her friend, Parker, to the pool for a little while. Our visit to the pool was short lived though. Right after we got there Dayne got all pumped up to do a front flip into the pool ... and cracked her head on the side of the pool! Ouch! Her face when she popped back up to the top of the water was very frightened! There was no blood and she wasn't feeling sick ... her pupils were normal ... she was going to be okay, but pretty shaken up. She rested for about 10 minutes then decided to swim for a bit. As soon as we got home we put some ice on it and that was the end of the headbanging drama!

Sunday has been pretty quiet ... kids slept in (Hunter is still sleeping as I type this!) and I have been doing some scrapping of our Dog Island vacation. I love to look at the pictures over and over and over ... Sadly, none of them truly capture the essence of Dog Island.

4th of July weekend events!

Our friend, Chad, and his daughter, Kylie, joined us for the holiday weekend!

Chad arrived Friday evening and the boys enjoyed a few "pops" (beer) ... and decided on the next day's events.

Saturday we went to the Royals vs Sox baseball game - tickets were only $6! It was a great deal and a wonderful Family Day! The game was at 12:10 and, amazingly!, the Royals won!! After the game we went out for a late lunch/early dinner to a local BBQ joint ... then headed home for a nap! What day isn't great when you fit in a baseball game, BBQ and a nap!?!?

Saturday night was spent in the driveway watching all the (neighborhood) fireworks!

Dayne has been scared to death of fireworks forever, until this year! She was excited to light the firecrackers and smoke bombs! ... we couldn't get her to stop once she started.

Sunday Graden, Chad and Dayne went to St Louis to pick up Kylie, where she had spent the week with her grandparents. They got home about 7:30 ... other than that, a pretty uneventful day. Cleaning, laundry, blah blah blah.

Monday - Dayne's 10th birthday! - we went to the KC Zoo! We saw lots of neat animals, but mostly it was nice to get out of the house and enjoy our company!

We got home about 5:30 and shortly afterwards got ready for dinner: Dayne requested steak and mashed 'taters ... and puppy chow in lieu of birthday cake! She opened her family birthday present - a slushee (shaved ice) maker and an outfit!

So hard to think that my baby girl is in double digits now! We plan to have her birthday party on July 18th with a slew of friends at the local water park and a slumber party!

Busy, but fun, day!

Dog Island 2009

The Hansen family enjoyed a heavenly week on Dog Island! Below, our travels detailed and some photos to capture some of the beauty!

*****

Saturday 6.20

Alarms set for 4:00 am. Well ... supposed to be set for 4:00 am. However, I guess the day setting (M-F versus weekend) is important ... causing the alarm NOT to go off and us not getting up until 4:30am! Considering we didn't go to bed until 12:30am, we were pretty tired and slept pretty hard for those few hours!

Amazingly, the Hansen's were out the door just after 5am and on our way to Joplin to meet up with Uncle Dick & Aunt Marilyn & Cousin Zoe! We arrived in Joplin around 7:30, finished loading the Ruestman truck ... transferred Kylie and Dayne to their truck ... and started our 18 hour journey to Dog Island, Florida. The Ruestman Crew stopped for breakfast and the Hansen Crew kept driving so we got separated early on in the trip, but we met up in Montgomery, AL about 9:00 Saturday night. It wasn't the nicest of hotels, but it was a place to sleep ... so we didn't do much more than shower and sleep!

Sunday 6.21

We hit the road Sunday morning about 8:00 and drove until about 1:30 ... when we stopped for lunch at Boss Oyster. We ate lunch on the deck and watched the fishin' and shrimpin' boats whiz by! It was cool that we were eating lunch right next to the very boats that caught our lunch!

Lunch took longer than we had wanted it to, we still had a bit of driving til we were in Carrabelle, FL (our pick up point for the ferry) AND we still had to get all our groceries for the week. As it turned out, our timing was just about perfect! We stopped at the local grocery store and bought all our food and water for the week (once you get to the island you don't want to leave! The ferry fare is $70 each way!). While the girls went to the grocery store, the boys went to the bait shop and to buy *fresh!* shrimp! We finished shopping and headed to the dock about 4:30 and waited for our Captain to arrive!

Graden and Zoe (his cousin's daughter)
Graden - looking relaxed and adorable

TJ, Nana, Tiffany and Kylie

We finally arrived at the island at 5:37! Heaven had arrived! Sunday proved to be a very busy day ... lots of driving, then meal planning, then shopping, then loading food for 11 for 7 days in the trucks, then loading all that food and our other stuff on the ferry, then unloading all that stuff from the ferry and hauling it to the house (luckily, our house came with a 4 Runner!). We really got to relax about 7:00 Sunday night! Vacation had finally begun!

The view from the deck. The entire back side of the house was sliding (glass) doors with a panoramic view of the beach and ocean (well, gulf technically).

Monday 6.22

The morning started with a little bit of sleeping in ... then headed to the beach after breakfast! We sat on the beach, read books, played in the water, played in the sand ... and served AS LUNCH for the flies! There wasn't enough buy spray to keep the darned things away! That was very discouraging ... so we just hoped for them to go away!

Monday night we had Shrimp Scampi, mushrooms and salad -- yummmmy! The Ruestman family joined us for dinner ... and made it a great night! All the kids settled in for a movie while the adults chit-chatted!

Everyone getting ready to enjoy dinner!

Tuesday 6.23

Graden and Hunter headed out early Tuesday morning for a day out with a fishing guide for some off shore fishing. They fished until about 1:00 that afternoon. They caught: red fish, blue fish, Spanish mackerel, lady fish, flounder ... and maybe some more that I can't recall the names of! They also saw a 7 foot bull shark swimming right next to their boat!

While the boys fished, I spent the morning on the beach ... reading and playing in the water. I headed in for lunch, and a break from the sun, about 12:30. After lunch, I went on the deck to read and enjoy the sounds of the beach! So relaxing! Gretchen and I played Rummy 500 for a while, too!

That night we had Shrimp and veggies and rice and salad for dinner ... and again enjoyed the company of the Ruestman Crew! Sad to see another heavenly day go by, but thankful we had 3 full days left!

Wednesday 6.24

As with many days on the Island, the boys started the day some early morning fishing from kayaks Graden had rented for a few days! I got up to watch the sun rise and watch the boys reel in some fish ... with hopes of adding their catch to the menu that evening!

I headed out to the beach about 8:30 and stayed until 12:30 ... then headed in for lunch. Luckily, the evening before had brought storms and had washed away all the flesh eating flies!

As with most afternoons, I spent the next few hours on the deck reading Twilight, and catching a cat nap every now and then! Life was good on the island, I tell ya!

That evening we joined the Ruestman's at their cottage for a variety of seafood: Shrimp (of course!) and the fish the boys had caught that morning and during Tuesday's fishing expedition

Thursday 6.25

Thursday morning started off the same as most others: boys went fishing from the kayaks … then from the shore, I headed to the beach after breakfast ... read and swam until about 12:30 then headed in for lunch, reading and cat naps!

Gretchen took the kids for a walk on the beach Thursday late afternoon ... it was nice for them to explore and wear off some of their energy!

Thursday evening we hosted dinner at our place ... with the Ruestman's brining over a wonderful pot roast and veggies! We added some left over shrimp and pasta, salad and other misc. veggies and had another great dinner!

After dinner, Donna and I went for a short walk on the beach. It had been 30 years since she had been to Dog Island, so she really enjoyed seeing how much had stayed the same ... yet, how much had changed, too!

Friday 6.26

Friday morning started the same as the others: early morning fishing for the boys! … and one last morning on the beach for me!

Later in the afternoon, the big boys took TJ out for some fishing and he caught a baby shark!
The day was spent just lounging around … hanging out at the beach and absorbing every last minute of it! Dinner consisted of leftovers from the week – and what a variety we had! It was so delicious, too! After dinner, we headed to the bay side of the island to look for shells and to watch the sunset. As beautiful as the pictures are, they don’t come close to capturing how perfect the evening was!

We replicated a photo of Graden and Gretchen (taken in 1979-ish) with Hunter and Dayne.

Kids at the sunset at the bay.

Sunset at the Bay

Saturday 6.27

Saturday was a bitter sweet day … the day to pack it all up and start the journey home! It’s good to get away, and it’s good to go home!

Graden and Hunter got in one last morning of fishing while I started the process of organizing cleaning the house, washing the bedding, doing laundry, etc. It was a lot of work, but so worth it! We all worked together to get the house cleaned and back in order and headed to the dock to load back on the ferry at 3:00! Dayne and Kylie joined the Ruestman Crew earlier that morning.

Graden and I on the deck of the cottage.

Hunter on the ferry boat back to the main land. Good bye, Dog Island!

We got back to the mainland (Carrabelle, FL) and made a quick stop at a gift shop and to visit the smallest police station (which consists solely of a phone booth!) … then hit the road for some serious driving time!

We drove until about 11:30 Saturday night, stopping in Jasper, AL. It had been a very long day!

Sunday 6.28
Sunday morning we slept in just a little … waiting to hit the road until 8:30, after enjoying a continental breakfast at the hotel. We drove and drove and drove … finally stopping for a small break – and an ice cream treat! – in Hardy, AR. Dick and Marilyn stop at this ice cream parlor when they pass through, so we had to stop to see what all the fuss was about! … and it was refreshingly delicious!

We finally arrived in Joplin, MO around 6:15 Sunday evening to get Dayne and Kylie; they arrived a few hours earlier. Dick was kind enough to have grilled some hot dogs, so we joined them for one last meal before hitting the road and arriving back home about 9:30.

Long drives, lots of people in small spaces, but overall a great vacation! I’d be very happy if we had the opportunity to visit Dog Island again!