This was our 22nd year to go to northern Michigan...and we had a wonderful time, as always. :)
PROS from this year:
1)
NO MORE FLYING SOLO! - J flew with P and me so I didn't have to fly alone with a toddler!!! HOORAY!!!! (And a big "thank you!" to my mom and dad for making the 22 hour drive and taking all of our stuff up there!)
2)
AIRPLANES ARE "SO COOL"! - P absolutely LOVED being on the airplane. His best lines were "SO COOL!" (which was what he said as we took off for the first time) and "Up, up, up, sky!" (in reference to where we were and what we were doing). :) Every time we took off and landed (a total of 8 times that week), he looked at us with sheer joy and this face that said, "Do you all realize what's happening here!!?!?" So fun.
3)
P IS A ROCK STAR. - P was a fantastic traveler...virtually zero fussing (thanks to the ridiculous array of snacks that I packed for the kid, as well as his favorite books - including
Ten Little Lady Bugs, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, If you Give a Pig a Pancake, No,No, Yes,Yes, No, David! mini books, and
Goodnight Moon, some stupidly expensive yogurt pouches with Sesame Street characters on them, as well as his new Water Wow! Paint with Water book by Melissa and Doug and my phone :)). We even got several compliments on how well behaved he was. :) He really was a rock star.
4)
ZZZZZZZZ... - P slept SO well the whole week. Like
ridiculously well...he went to bed pretty easily every night and slept through the night and woke up at 7:00 or so each morning. He was also a fantastic napper. In fact, there were several days where he took 3 hour naps that we had to wake him up from!!! Quite the departure from our first year there with him when he would wake up 5 AM, and we'd have to carry him in the Bjorn down to the big beach. Mom and Dad were tired that year! It turns out that if I could just have a lake near by that he could play in every day that he would sleep well. :)
5)
MEALS - P got to eat with us in the dining room this year, so no one had to miss out on dinner like last year when we took turns staying with him. We went ahead and tried to keep him on "Texas time," so we ate dinner at 7:15, which worked out great. He was one of the only kids at this later dinner, and he really did SO well.
6)
BLUEBERRIES, Blueberries, blueberries. - More details are with the pictures below, but we ate LOTS of them. :) One night at dinner, I told P that they were having pizza and that he should tell our waitress what he wanted. He looked at her and said, "Blueberries?" :) Another blueberry story: the first morning we went to breakfast the guys were golfing, so it was just my mom, P, and me. We all ordered blueberries, and while waiting for our food to come out, P ended up eating all three of our cups of blueberries. When my mom and I requested more to go on our oatmeal, P proceeded to eat my mom's second bowl...inappropriate amounts of blueberries were consumed by this child. I suppose there are worse things. :)
7)
COOLER WEATHER! - God totally smiled upon us, considering the fact that we week before we went, the highs were in the 90's in Michigan...and they don't have air conditioning! :/ This was by far the coolest weather we had had in years. The lows at night were often in the 50's, and it turns out that we sleep better when it's not 72 and humid at night. :)
8)
SWIMMING!!! - Again, more details below, but P LOVED the beach and going swimming...
9)
READING - J and I were actually able to read some books this year since P was such a good napper! J read
And the Mountains Echoed, and I read
Bittersweet and
Shadow Divers.
10)
SWINGING! - P LOVED swinging at the little park this year...especially if his Papa was pushing him. He would count, "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9..." really fast and then on "10" my dad would grab the swing, bring it back, and then let it go. P would just giggle and squeal and laugh. He couldn't get enough. He even got bruises on his back from falling backwards into the swing...it was intense fun.
CONS from this year:
1)
NO KIKI and B - since K was so close to her due date (Aug. 26!!!), she was not able to travel. Even though we had a great time it absolutely wasn't the same without the dynamic duo...although I do think P slept better having his own room.
2)
COOLER WEATHER - there were a couple of days where the high only got up to the 68 degrees (I know, I know, so sad...), but a cold big lake + 68 degree temps + wind blowing = chattering teeth of a 2.5 year old who was desperate to go swimming! We managed, and P figured out that if he would submerge himself up to his neck in the little lake by sitting down that it was much warmer. :)
3)
SMALL BEACH - the water was really high this year which made for a small beach and no rocks to hunt for (to my mom's dismay :)). There were also a lot of little, dead fish on the beach...yuck!
4)
BYE-BYE PORCH - when you start bringing little tiny people to Watervale, you are banished to the main dining room to eat. It really wasn't
nearly as bad as we were remembering/ anticipating, though. :) It probably helped that we went to the 7:15 dinner and not the 6:00 seating!
4)
HEY? WHERE ARE YOU GOING WITH MY BLUEBERRIES!? - Turns out that the dining room experience can be a little confusing for a 2.5 year old. Dinner at Watervale always consists of soup and salad and then your
entree. The first night they brought P's dinner out with everyone
else's entrees, and while they were bringing us our soup and salad P was
saying, "My turn? My turn? My food?" Poor little guy was feeling
neglected! (even though we brought him his own snacks to tide him over
until his meal came). We fixed that the next night, requesting that
they bring his meal with our soup and salad, and all was well with the
world. P also struggled with the silver dessert tray (as we all did...but his was for a different reason). :) They bring out four dessert options on this little silver tray, and one of the options is always fruit of some sort. P would always want the blueberries, but after we ordered and the waitress went back into the kitchen to place our order, P would get so upset, not understanding why the blueberries that were just offered to him were then taken away. :) Life is tough when you're 2.5.
And now for the pictures...
Here's P's first venture into the big lake. The water was freezing, but he was desperate to be in it. I wish I had videoed him...he was more or less squealing with joy with every wave that came in.
I believe this is photographic evidence of said squealing.
On Monday, we headed out to pick our own blueberries, which we did last year.
This year, P quickly figured out how to find the big, blue berries, pick said blue berries, and eat them.
Here he is with an unripe green berry...it only takes eating one of those to convince you to focus your energy on the blue ones. :)
We would ask P to pick the blueberries and then add them to our bucket.
Instead, this was his response. :) I think he probably ate 98% of the berries he picked...and I'm afraid he picked a lot. J had to put in a little bit of extra money at the self-pay place because of how much produce this kid inhaled.
Running through the blueberry bushes.
Cheese!
Best we could get of the three of us...
Playing with P.
The only picture of the two of us all week. :)
And, for what it's worth, this year we picked 4 lbs. of blueberries (at $2.00 a lb...a 25 cent increase from last year) and ate them in 2 days.
On Tuesday a front came in, and it was UNBELIEVABLY windy. The wind was consistently gusting at 25+ miles an hour...making it a stay-inside-the-cottage day. My dad and I went to the big beach in the afternoon to check out the waves.
Winds from the north.
White caps on the lake.
A deserted beach.
You know it's windy when the little lake looks like this!
Thankfully, we had quite the assortment of toys and books with us, so P was still entertained while being confined inside.
Reading one of his favorite books of the trip...No, No, Yes, Yes.
Two rules he seemingly feels extremely passionate about:
1) Don't color on walls.
2) Don't put your finger in your nose...use a Kleenex please!
Wednesday morning they guys went out to golf at
Arcadia Bluffs, and mom and P and I hung out and played outside. P loved going to the park, blowing bubbles, and hurling himself down the small hill in front of our cottage.
Taking a break from running down the hill.
Whew. This is hard work.
Here's a pic of one of the holes at Arcadia Bluffs...pretty incredible place and my understanding is pretty incredibly challenging, too.
I wish I had pictures of it, but Wednesday night was the BBQ, and after dinner, P went on the hay ride with my mom. It's supposedly a little under-whelming, but P was in heaven, and when it was over, you could hear him crying 100 yds. away..."Bye horsies!" :( Poor kid. Life's tough when you're 2.5.
On Thursday we headed back down to the big beach since it was nice and sunny.
Once again, P loved every second of it...although he did figure out that you could stay warmer if you didn't go in as far. :) J was a great sport and braved the cold water with P.
"Waves comin'!!!" P would say...
Think he's happy?
Oh boy!
Are you guys seeing this???
Ready to get wet.
The picture is too small to see it, but he's covered with goose bumps. :/
Strolling in the water.
Holding on tight to daddy.
Walking down to the outlet with Share Share and Daddy.
My boys.
Tiny footprints in the sand.
Some decent-sized waves.
Looking cold.
Checking out the sand...
Hooray for handing the camera over...photographic evidence that I was there, too!
Making our way down the beach.
Ahhh...we made it to the outlet which is SOOO much warmer than the big lake.
This is like a big bathtub.
Such a Peanut face.
Love the clear water!!!
When it was time to get P to walk back down the beach towards our cottage, he wanted nothing to do with it...so Papa began to pick up rocks to hand to P, who would then throw the rocks into the water. There was a forward motion to this rock throwing, which slowly got us out of the outlet. (Editor's note: I wish I had a better picture of my dad handing the rocks to P...it was like Hansel and Gretel following the breadcrumb trail...)
P quickly realized what was happening and got REALLY upset...as you can see on the zoomed in picture below.
Not a happy camper. :(
To make matters worse, he was really cold. :(
Thankfully Papa was nice enough to share his shirt.
He more or less cried all the way down the beach. :(
Again, life's tough when you're a 2.5 year old...that's kind of our mantra right now.
I have no photographic evidence of our day on Friday, but I do remember that it was supposed to rain all day, but it didn't! We started off our morning with our traditional "Fried Dough Friday" donut breakfast in town, where we eat a ridiculous amount of fried dough from a fun little bakery. After breakfast, we were able to hang out at the little beach, which we were SO happy about...and so was P.
Here he is playing with one of his favorite puzzles with one of his favorite people. :)
Share Share loves P!
We always do a lot of exercising while we're in Michigan...golfing, bike riding, running, walking. We definitely take advantage of the weather and love to be outside in it. These are some pictures that I snapped one morning when my mom, P, and I went on an "Uncle Wiggly's Adventure" (as my grandma would say) through a trail at Upper Herring Lake. It was beautiful and so fun to see something new after 22 years! :) Unfortunately, some of it was some pretty rough terrain, and I ended up popping the front tire on the BOB stroller by catching it on a tree root. :( Oh well! At least it happened at the end of the week!
Our last night there it was raining, but mom insisted that we snap some pictures.
(And I'm glad she did!)
Share Share and Papa. :)
A spunky Peanut.
A sweet Peanut.
And just for fun...
Our little family in 2011.
In 2012.
And this year! :)
We had a wonderful trip and are excited for the years to come when the cousins will be running around and enjoying Watervale just like K and I did when we were little. :) Until next year... :)
