We took Ethan to the Potawatomi Zoo in South Bend. It was Ethan's first zoo trip, and I think he enjoyed it. He was pointing at animals with smiles.
Then we went camping two weekends in a row; once without Ethan and once with Ethan. We went to the Potato Creek state park with our friends over our anniversary and the following week was the church camping at the Chain o' Lakes state park. We had a lot of fun both weekends, and Ethan did amazing at his first camping! He woke up a little earlier both morning, but did great overall (and I guess waking up at 6:45 isn't that much earlier than his usual 7:15).
Over the labor day our friends from college, Jason and Lisa, came in town. We were able to visit with them which made me realize how much I miss them. I get to see Lisa and other girl friends in October for our annual girls' get together, which is really nice to have something to look forward to. But I don't mind if my girls friends came back in Goshen :-)
I worked more in the early September as September 15 is another busy time for us public accountants. Thankfully Grandma Claassen was flexible and watched Ethan 4 days a week. It is nice to have loving grandparents who are willing to watch Ethan (and also a child who loves his grandparents so much)!
We were able to fit in another camping trip with our small group at the Dunes. I had been wanting to go to the Dunes with Ethan, so it was a treat. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate and rained until Saturday evening (we did not go up until Saturday late morning due to Jeff's studying and the weather). It was miserable. It was fun to be around friends, but sure is not fun to camp in rain. At night it got cold enough that it woke Ethan up. We tried to wrap him up in a blanket but it only made him curious (because he had never seen a blanket) that it didn't work. We ended up putting him in our sleeping bag and he slept well in it. We kept saying that we'd never let Ethan sleep in our bed, so I don't know if this broke that attempt...
Last weekend we were planning to go up to Michigan City for the outlet mall, but our little guy woke up with a fever. He had 100-102 degrees for three to four days, but other than fever and being tired, he was fine. He was getting 5 teeth (2 of them being molars) so we thought maybe it was related to that... but as soon as his fever went down on Tuesday, his face started getting some spots. Luckily I had read in Japanese magazines for young mothers that there is a thing called "roseola" and is very common (I think something like 90% of Japanese get this). So I looked it up and it sure did sound like Ethan had roseola. It is not harmful other than the high fever possibly triggering seizures, and once the spots appear it is almost done and not too contagious (and it mainly affects kids). It gives a life time immunity, so we are thankful that Ethan had a very mild case of it (his spots were gone already by Thursday).
This weekend we went to the relief sale both on Saturday and Sunday. It was fun walking around with Ethan :-) They had an elephant ride and a pony ride, but we opted out yet. Maybe next year. We had a haystacks dinner, pancake and sausage breakfast, some eggrolls, soft served ice cream, donuts, apple fritters, cheese, and tamales. We missed the pulled pork sandwich this year though. I think this was the first time I've missed it :-( I also think this was the first relief sale I've been where there was no rain! It sure was a lot of fun visiting with friends and families there. We bought a toy from the ten thousand villages for Ethan that was a hit! It is a wire framed person riding a bicycle and the tires spin when you push it around. Ethan fell in love with it there, and managed to drive the bicycle in front of him everywhere we went after that.
Pfew, I think this is all the update for the past few weeks. I do need to try to keep it up a little better than this next time!
