Refreshing Vacation

*Warning: this post is super long.  I have to do it all now because I will never come back and finish.  However, I will try to keep you entertained throughout the post.*

We took our first family summer vacation.  It was heavenly.  We took a trip up to the U.P. of Michigan.  We even invited Jesse’s brother and his wife to come along with us.

Packed, loaded, and ready!  Some how we packed everything we needed for all three of us, food, coolers, pack ‘n play, Maggie, and a dirt bike. 

I don’t go anywhere without my bug spray!  They have been so bad this year that I have to put bug spray on just to go to the mailbox!  I wasn’t running the risk of running out so I brought two bottles  of it!

Mally’s ready to see what vacation is all about!

Oh yeah – did I mention that even Maggie got to go on vacation?  She was actually so good.  I’m not sure that I have ever seen Maggie so good.

We rented this little tiny cabin.

Our first day there we decided to go on a little adventure and go be a tourist.  We went into the next town and they had glass bottom boat tours of ship wrecks.  FUN!  We go and get tickets and hope on a boat for um… THREE HOURS!!!  Three hours with a wiggly 14th month old.  Three hours that runs right over your lunch and nap time.  Three hours.  Long story short – I didn’t see any ship wrecks.  So I can’t tell you about them.  I was up on top of the boat trying to wrangle a tired hungry 14th month old and feeding her so many goldfish crackers I thought she was going to turn into one.  Do you ever have those moments of… what was I thinking.  I’m a parent now.  I need to start thinking like one.  Why in the world did we think Mallory would want to sit on a boat (on our laps) for 3 hours!  Oh silly Mommy and Daddy!  Anyway – they told me the ship wrecks were pretty neat.  : )

I probably need to have a lesson with Jesse on the proper way to hold our baby girl for photos.  My goodness.  ; )

As we are taking off everything went well.  She stood here and looked over the edge and watched.

Then we had to start getting creative in keeping her occupied.  Jesse taught her all about belly buttons and let her play with my camera.  Sorry Mom – don’t look at this picture below.  He kept telling me she wasn’t going to hurt it.  I cringed!  So I looked away from my baby girl who had my precious camera in her hot little hands and saw this!  That water is such a pretty blue!

While everyone was down below looking at ship wrecks Mally and I were looking at sail boats.

After this outing it was a must to end the day with one of these…

A little cherry limeade mixed with a lime margarita.  Steph needed one too – we cured any desire that her and husband every had for children with this trip.  ; )

After the first day – I decided I wasn’t leaving the cabin on the second day.  Mallory was going to get all her naps and all her meals on schedule.  It doesn’t take me long to learn.  : )

The guys took lots of dirt bike trips.  At the end of the day they would hope on their dirt bikes and ride off into the distance.  This place was a dirt bikers paradise.  Lots of trails for them and they could ride on the road – so they didn’t have to trailer the bikes to the trails.

We took an afternoon trip to the beach.  It was chilly and reminded me of the Oregon coast. 

  Pay attention to how Jesse walks Mallory down the beach.  Hey look a ship wreck!  I actually got to see one.  : )  

Now look how I walk Mallory down the beach.  She loved it!  She would giggle every time the water would crash into her feet.

After the beach we drove up to this look out point.  Mallory had fallen asleep and I wasn’t real keen on waking her up so I risked it and let her sleep in the truck while we went to look.  It wasn’t hot out and we opened a window… however I feel like everyone is watching me leave my child in the car.  That someone will be standing there waiting to see what kind of person would leave their child in the car and give me a big lecture.

Looking down.  How clear is that water?!

Guess what?  No one was standing at the truck waiting for me to give me a lecture.  Whew.  She was also still sleeping.

We ended every night with a campfire.  After being with each other for a few days our campfires got kind of quiet so Jesse made up a game for us to play. 

You make up this fictitious person and pretend to be them.  The rest of us get to ask you a million questions and try to catch you in a lie.  So they ask you questions like how old you are, and then they ask what year you graduated high school and you have to answer it on the fly and if you get it wrong – game over!  However, I didn’t make up my people – I pretended to be the Pioneer Woman.  Hahaa!  I know!  But these guys don’t read blogs!  And she tells her whole life story that I was on a roll and could answer all the questions… except when they asked me what my husband name was and I busted into a fit of giggles and said “Marlboro Man” and I was busted and lost.

Here we are all relaxed and enjoying our vacation.

That is how we do a vacation!  We are ready to go next year!  Except next year I would like a little bigger cabin with less spider webs.  : )  Granted when we got home both of us kept saying our house feels so big.  our house feels so clutter free.  our house feels so clean.  That was a good feeling to come home to.

Caws go Mmmm

Mallory loves her cows.  She calls them caws (with a long ‘a’ sound).  I’m not sure where she picked up her Brooklyn accent, but she sounds like she is from the East Coast when she says car and cows.  Mallory what does a cow says… Mmmmm  

Do you see the ponytail I got?  : )  Do you also notice how her little baby rolls are melting away?  She is looking more and more like a toddler these days.

Oh and acting like one too.  We are starting to have melt downs.  She even got her first timeout yesterday!  She kept playing in the garbage while I was cooking supper and I told her no so many times by face was about to turn blue.  I slapped her little hand.  I moved her into the living room with her toys.  I asked her to find things from her kitchen.  I tried everything.  She would come back to the garbage and yells “Mom!  Momma!”  with this little shit-eaten grin (that she totally gets from her daddy) and puts her hand in the garbage can and messes with the lid.  I finally thought, okay maybe it is time to introduce a naught-spot.  I searched the living room and well – I don’t have a good spot (without distractions) so I just plopped her in front of the couch and told her she was naughty and she had to sit here.  She started crying.  I’m not sure if she knew what I was talking about, but I finally got the point across to her that she was naughty.  Of course she didn’t stay there for longer then 3 seconds and comes crawling into the kitchen a sobbing crying mess and clinging to my legs.  I kept putting her back in her naughty spot to which it made her an even bigger crying sobbing mess.  I felt like Super Nanny!  : )  However, she didn’t go back to the garbage can.  After it was all over, she hugged me and I made her say sorry.  LOL.  Okay, she can’t say sorry yet, but she put her head on my shoulder and snuggled for 1.2 seconds… and in Mallory World that is a big snuggle. 

Mommy = 1    |     Mallory = 0

: )

Garage – Phase 1.5

Saturday dump trucks were coming and going by 9am!  Now we look like this from the front.

With all the dump trucks going in – our real driveway took a beating and now we have to fix our real driveway!

Here is what it looks like from the back yard.  I’m not even showing you the massive dirt piles to the right and three big pieces of equipment to the left.  The neighbor drove past me and yelled “Looks like you have a construction business going on here.” 

We had to bring in a lot of fill and build the garage up so we don’t have water/flooding problems.  But it is so high now that we have to build a retaining wall back here so that it doesn’t wash away.

One project leads to another project leads to another project…