Weekend with the Donnenwerth's

It was a good weekend....mostly because we got to spend it with some of our favorite people - the Donnenwerth's!  I was reading through some of my older blog posts (like from 2008 and 2009), and they were included in so many of our memories.  Since they've moved away from Des Moines, we haven't been able to see them as often.  But this weekend, spending time with them, we remembered that they are the type of friends that you can see not very often, and still feel like you've never missed a beat. 
Mike is in residency in LaCrosse and he only has a few weekends off, so this weekend had been reserved for a get-together for awhile.  (Of course we would have loved for the Murphy's to join us, but Jenny is about to have baby Harper any day now, so we knew they couldn't leave town.)  We decided to meet in Dubuque, about halfway between Des Moines and LaCrosse.  The day started at noon with lunch at Red Robin.  Then we headed to the cable car area of Dubuque.  Carter and Macy loved this!  Anything with railroad tracks is awesome to Carter!!!  We rode the cable car up and down twice and took some pictures at the top.  What a great view!

Look at Drew!  He stands all by himself and is starting to walk too!

On the way up.  He's so happy!

The whole gang!  Both of their kids are 5 months older than our's.  Is it okay to have 2 arranged marriages? :)

After the cable car rides, we checked in at our hotel which had a waterpark inside.  We hung out in our adjoining rooms for a while, snacking and letting the kids play, before we headed to the pool area.  Carter and Macy had a ball running from one room to the other, eating puppy chow, watching the boats go down the Mississippi River, and giggling the whole time.  Carter was even calling Macy "Mace." So cute.  Drew was crawling/walking all over the place and being as cute as can be.  Brynn was happy to be stretched out on the bed and not in her carseat anymore.  And the adults were very content with beer and wine!

The waterpark was really fun.  There was a big climbing area with two big slides, a bucket that dumped water every so often, and lots of spraying water.  The water was COLD - and so the dad's were much better at that than Amy and I!  :)  We played in the water for about 3 hours and by 7:00, the kids were tired and the adults were hungry! 

The guys went out to pick up pizza for dinner and some cough syrup for Carter.  He coughed alot the night before, so we were trying to be proactive for the night in the hotel.  While Cary and Mike were gone, Drew laid down for the night, Brynn played, had a bottle and went to bed, and Carter and Macy ran and played in the room. Amy and I caught up on our lives and had fun just chatting and reminiscing.  I miss her. 

After we ate some pizza and decided to put the kids to bed, things went downhill for us.  Carter started coughing at 2:00 am.  We gave him some more cough syrup, but he kept coughing.  I laid with him. Cary laid with him.  We gave him some water.  We worried that we were keeping up the Donnenwerth's in the next room and the neighbors on the other side.  We were shocked that Brynn was sleeping through this.  At 3:45, Cary decided to run to the store to buy some Vick's Vaporub to put on his feet.  (Weird, I know.  We read it online as a possible solution.)  At 4:15 the Vick's obviously had not worked and we were all three still awake....and were worried that others around us were cussing at us all night long.  So Cary took Carter to the car to sleep.  At least if he coughed, he wouldn't be bothering others.  And then I could get some sleep so I could drive home.  I slept until about 5:00, when Brynn started kicking the side of her pack-n-play.  At 5:50, she woke up to eat.  And at that point, I decided that it was time to just go home.  Cary had texted that Carter had just fallen asleep, meaning he'd only slept 4 hours all night.  I couldn't imagine Carter at the water park on 4 hours of sleep.  And then we had a 3 hour drive ahead of us, and both Cary and I were exhausted.  We felt like our day was unsalvagable at that point. So we were on the road shortly after 6:00.  We were so sad to leave early...especially since we'd had such a fun day the day before.  Luckily, Mike and Amy were up with Drew when we left, so they helped me pack up and I was able to tell them good-bye.   

It was such a fun day and I feel like we were being teased a little.  Like, here, you can have your friends for 12 hours and then now you can't see them again for 2 months.  But those 12 hours were a blast and we can't wait to plan our next get-together!