Caleb's Story: Nova Scotia 2015

We headed up to Nova Scotia 18 days after Kaitlyn was born. If I had gone until my scheduled C-section date, we would have been going up 8 days after she was born. I am so glad that didn't end up happening. I was in a much better position 18 days after her birth than I was 8 days after. We were originally planning on going up on a Thursday night but that would have been 3 days later than my parents took Caleb, and I was lamenting to Steve before he left that it was going to be so hard to be away from Caleb so Steve said we should just go a day early. I jumped at that, of course, so that's what we did. I had no idea what to expect from Kaitlyn during the trip. We left around 8:00 on Thursday night and I started out driving. I had a bad feeling about the trip when Kaitlyn started crying about 80 miles into our 800 mile trip. We were right in a heavy populated area, so we let her cry for a little while and ended up stopping about 20 miles later. We weren't even out of Massachusetts yet, so I thought it was going to be a bad trip. Well, luckily it got better from there and we didn't stop again until Bangor (almost another 200 miles later). We stopped another 2 times before getting there, which wasn't bad. All in all, it took us 14 1/2 hours to get there and we usually take about 13, so that was pretty good. It was such a relief to get there and to have the trip behind us.

We arrived to a mud pit in front of the beautiful new house. There is no grass because of the new construction and there has been some wet weather, so it was very muddy everywhere. Luckily I had brought my boots and Caleb's boots, but Steve didn't bring his which was too bad. Of course the first thing we did was explore the new house, which is amazing. It is beyond anything I could have imagined. Here are some pictures to show what it looks like.

Back of the house, facing the driveway

Front of the house, facing the lake

The amazing kitchen

The downstairs common living room

All the boots outside the front door

I will not talk about what happened each day because unfortunately, most of the days were the same. We had rain every day except for the very last day. It didn't rain all day every day, but it was bad enough that the kids were stuck inside most of the time, which made for a very interesting time. There were 16 kids up there and if you don't count Kaitlyn (since she was only 3 weeks old) or Mia (since she was 13 and quiet), there were 14 kids 8 and under (13 that were 6 and under) which made for a very loud environment. Here are some examples of what the chaos looked like.

Different people took turns trying to come up with group games for the kids to break up the incessant running around and screaming

One morning we took most of the kids to St. Peters, about half an hour away, because we had seen advertised that they were having a teddy bear picnic as part of a festival. They had a few cute activities, but unfortunately, we were only there about half an hour before they told us everyone had to leave because there was a water main problem and there was no water in the building. So that was too bad, but at least it got us out of the house for awhile.

While we were at the teddy bear picnic, Kaitlyn took the pacifier for the first time which is very exciting!

All of the kids were very interested in Kaitlyn and wanted to hold her a lot. Finley was especially interested and kept asking to hold her. I guess that is good since Finley will be getting a new baby brother pretty soon. She kept telling me that Kaitlyn was so cute and that she was the best baby Kaitlyn in the whole world. It was very cute. Bode was also very interested in Kaitlyn. He would make a good big brother if his parents ever had another baby.

Initially I thought that maybe I would try to sleep inside the big house with Kaitlyn because I knew the nights would be cold and I was also worried about her waking Caleb up with all of us in the same cabin. However, after seeing the house, it was apparent that there was no place to sleep that would be out of the way, so I decided to just try it out in the cabin and see if it worked out. Turns out it was fine. Kaitlyn slept fine in the cool weather and didn't wake Caleb up in the middle of the night. Occasionally if she woke up in the morning after 6:30 or so, Caleb would then wake up, but at least that was an acceptable time to wake up. Steve and I slept great on our new bed that we had sent up with the moving van. It was so much better than the air mattress we used to have.

During the day, I stayed inside the big house with Kaitlyn and of course spent a good part of the day nursing her. When she wasn't nursing, she was usually sleeping in her rock and play. Sometimes I would have her sleep downstairs but if it was too loud because of the kids, sometimes I would move her upstairs to where the parents' bedrooms are. And sometimes I would nap with her, which was nice.

One thing that we did differently this year is to have the kids eat before the adults. It was a good idea and worked out for the most part, although then that meant that the kids were running around the house while the adults ate. I pretty much never ate at the table because I needed to be sitting near Kaitlyn to make sure none of the kids would touch her or wake her up. Oh well. Caleb made a big transition and ate at the table every time instead of eating in a high chair (he still uses his high chair at home, though). For the most part he did well, but it is nice to have him contained in a high chair so he can't get down!

Because the kids were cooped up in the house so much, inevitably they wanted to be outside in the mud. Caleb did go out a couple of times and we let him do whatever he wanted. He had a lot of fun, but it was such a mess!

A tubby with Westin to clean up

This year David and Shannon built their cabins and it was quite the process considering it rained almost every day. Uncle Kevin helped David constantly and Heath and Devin gave Sean quite a bit of help so we hardly ever saw any of those guys because they worked all day. Sometimes Steve pitched in to help David and Uncle Kevin and either Yully or my mother would help me by watching Caleb. In fact, both of my parents were a big help to me with Caleb since I was pretty much tied to Kaitlyn the whole time. And Steve was very good at getting up with Caleb every morning and getting him breakfast. He also put him down for every nap and put him to bed every night, so that was good that I didn't have to worry about that.

He loved playing with Grampy on his keyboard

There was literally one sunny day and it was the last day we were there. It was quite sad that the kids, especially Caleb, weren't able to go in the lake every day like they were hoping. Steve took Caleb to the lake twice. Once when it was just cloudy and not rainy, and then on the last day when it was sunny. They had a fun time and also used my parents' kayaks, so at least they were able to go in the lake some, but I was really hoping Caleb could go swimming every day, since that is pretty much his favorite thing to do. Oh well. There's always next summer.

The view from the new deck

One thing we did that has kinda become a tradition is a lot of us girls rented a motel room for a few hours to watch the Bachelorette finale. It has fallen while we have been in Nova Scotia the last few years, so it is fun to all watch it together. Since we don't have access to a TV in our cabin, the only option is to rent a motel room. When we explain what we are doing, they think we are a little crazy, but then they only charged us $50 since we were using it for a few hours instead of the whole night. This year I had to bring Kaitlyn, but she was good and slept almost the entire time so I was able to enjoy the show.

We left to come home on Saturday evening and we were the last of the "kids" to leave. Some had left that morning and David and Yully had left just a couple of hours before us. We were just happy to have a somewhat quiet day and enjoy the beautiful weather on that last day. A few hours before we were going to leave, Kaitlyn started having some gas problems and was fussy, so I started really worrying about having an awful trip home. I was so stressed when we left, but luckily my fears were unfounded because she did great on the way home and we only stopped 3 times. I think the pacifier saved us from another stop because we were able to appease her with it and extend the time between stops. I think it took us less than 14 hours to get home, so that was great. I was so happy to be back home and to not have to stress about the drive anymore. It was sad to leave and it wasn't the greatest year due to circumstances, but I was just happy to be able to go because of Kaitlyn and happy that the house was ready for us to go up there. It very well could have not been ready and then we would have been devastated. All in all, it was a fun year, but different because of the baby and the weather. But I wouldn't have missed it for the world! And I can't wait until next year! Here are the rest of the pictures from the week.

Love this one!

I don't know what this thing was but it makes for a pretty funny (although cute) picture

This couch was where we spent a lot of our time!

Levi had a fun week playing on the floor with his toys

I love how Kaitlyn is looking up at Grammy

Case family picture

One afternoon Corey made a scavenger hunt. Of course it poured while we were out, but we tried to make the best of it. This is Caleb and I on a bridge to fulfill one of the requirements.