Vacation!

Since we hadn't taken anything resembling a "real" summer vacation since before Max was born, we thought we owed to the kids to make an attempt to go somewhere and do something. Given that the little kids are still too little for Dad and Mama to travel with enjoyably and given that the sky-high gas and food prices are putting a crimp in our budget, we thought a visit up North to see the Papas would make for a nice little trip. Although I spent the weeks leading up to the trip making lists, doing laundry, and shopping for vacation items, the packing wasn't all too bad (of course, that might be because Dad and I left a lot of it until the morning that we left ;). As the little kids get older, we don't need to drag around quite as much stuff. We left the stroller at home, grabbed a potty insert, threw in the Pack and Play and we were good to go! We actually managed to get all six people and all of our luggage into the car without too much pain and suffering.

The kids were pretty good on the ride up, thanks to lots of snacks and the portable DVD player (although I had songs for "Madame Blueberry" stuck in my head for days). They were overjoyed when we got to Papa's house and were able to say hi to everyone, reacquaint themselves with Papa's house, and discover all the fun toys that Grandma had brought out for the occasion. We had a nice afternoon and evening, but, since neither Max nor Molly had napped all day, it soon became apparent that they needed to go to bed pronto! Unfortunately, they had other ideas.

Since both kids were staying in our room, we brought a Pack and Play for Molly to sleep in and made Max a little bed on the love seat. I figured that they'd be so tired that they'd zonk right out ... no such luck. After all of the usual shenanigans (screaming, crying, flailing, throwing lovies/blankies out of bed and then sobbing for them, etc.), I ended up having to lie down in bed with Molly until she drifted off, while grouching at Max to settle down and go to sleep. An hour and a half or so later they finally went to sleep. It would have been fine if they had stayed asleep, but Molly woke up a couple of times at night and began to fuss. Her crying woke Max up, who began crying because he was in a strange place. Molly ended up in bed with us for a while and both kids were up at the crack of dawn. Since I had been up with them in the night, Dad got up with them and took them downstairs to watch a video and let me get a little extra shut eye.

We had planned to take a day trip to Lake Michigan, but had decided to see what the weather forecast looked like before we set out. Unfortunately, Tuesday was looking fairly gloomy and rainy, so we opted to stick close to home base. Since Dad and I were wiped out after a night of crying babies, this was probably for the best anyway. We were able to visit with Aunt May and Uncle Michael, chat with Grandma and Grandpa, take a nice little walk, and even squeeze in some visiting time with my uncle, my cousin, and her husband. Although Molly took a nap, Max would not and by the end of the day he was SO tired. We gave them an early bath (which was a bit of a fiasco since Molly was so wiped out), tucked them in bed, and were relieved when they fell right to sleep.

As it turns out, they missed all the excitement. Dad was sitting around watching a movie when a bat came flying into the living room, circled around a few times, and flew out ... the bat must have been impressed by the film, because when he returned he'd brought a buddy with him. ;) After we assembled a proper bat council (consisting of me, Dad, Grandma and Grandpa) to determine how to escort the bats from the premises, we spent the next hour or so opening patio door in the room leading to the basement and creating elaborate barriers over the doorway/pass through that led to the rest of the house. We figured that the bats, having nowhere else to go, would fly out of the door during the night and go on their merry way. After all that excitement, I had to head off to bed and Dad soon followed.

The next day looked promising for a lake trip, so we gathered up all of our gear and headed over to the lake. As it turned out, the amount of stuff we deemed necessary for a day at the lake was pretty overwhelming: a big bag of snacks, the diaper bag, my camera, beach towels, a spread, a large water jug, a sun canopy, hats, sunglasses, a whole bag of sand toys, and a little hand cart to hold it all. This might not have been a big deal, except that the beach we were going to sported a 1.3 mile trek from the parking lot to the lake ... with a not-quite two year old and a three year old. It's one of my favorite beaches because there are never many people there (probably due to the hike) and I never really minded the walk. Max and Molly are both good walkers, so I thought we'd do ok.

As forgot (as I always do), that although one of the trails to the beach is only 1.3 miles, I don't think I've ever actually walked that trail. For some reason, the trail map and the actual trails don't seem to match up right and I always seem to end up on the trail that is 2+ miles. Thankfully, Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Michael, Aunt May, Big Brother, and Big Sister were all along for the trek, so we had lots of extra hands to help out. Max had spotted the sand toys I bought a couple of days before we left and he was overjoyed when he saw us loading them onto the cart. He managed to make off with one of the buckets and shovels and insisted on carrying "my bucket" himself. Needless to say, this slowed him down a bit, since he kept trying to stop and "dig" in the dirt on the trail. All in all, the little kids were actually great sports -- Max walked almost the whole way himself and Molly walked more than half. We took turns carrying Molly when she started to put her little arms up and demand that "I hold you." I think Dad had the worst of the deal, since he ended up dragging the hand cart along and hand carts and sand don't play nicely together. We did eventually make it to the beach, found a nice spot, and set up "camp."

Max and Molly were so happy when we broke out the sand toys and happily started digging and playing. We dragged them both over to see the lake, but I think they were both a little intimidated by the "big water" and quickly went back to making sand castles. After a little while we thought we'd break out some snacks, since everyone was a little hungry. The little kids made a beeline for the food and were happy to eat some bananas and crackers. Max must have been hungrier than I thought, because after everyone else was finished noshing, he sat under the sun canopy and methodically worked his way through almost all of the remaining food. I guess all of that walking worked up a good appetite.

Once the resident seagulls realized we had food, they started gathering around the tent, much to Molly's delight. She spent a good part of the day running after seagulls saying, "I catch it! I catch it!" and being terribly disappointed every time she got too close and forced the seagull to fly away. Molly was braver about the water than Max and actually was willing to walk in it with us (and got her first official Lake Michigan dunking when a little wave caught her off guard (I was holding on to her)). Max liked to run along the edge and I coaxed him in a couple of times, but mostly he was content to stay on shore. He was delighted to discover that not only could he throw sand in the water, but he could fill his bucket full of water and pour it on the sand. He'd go over to the lake, fill up his bucket, and then walk very carefully back to his sand castle, holding his bucket in both hands and trying not to spill the water. It was so funny watching him walk with the bucket, because he'd hunch himself all over and walk like a little old man.

Uncle Michael was a good sport and let everyone bury him in the sand, which Max and Big Brother thought was a riot. When the little kids started getting tired, hungry, and crabby, we decided to pack everything up and head on back to the car. The walk back to the car was much harder than the walk to the beach. Max was happy to walk ... at a snail's pace. Molly didn't want much to do with walking at all and wanted me to hold her. So, we took turns with the babies and the hand cart and eventually made it back to the car -- hiking while carrying a 30-pound toddler on your shoulders is definitely one heck of a workout! We stopped for dinner on the way home and Max and Molly had their first experience with a public restroom (and, happily, both of them peed!). On the last leg of the journey we did run into a big rainstorm and I almost had to pull over a few times to wait it out. I was happy that the rain had waited until the evening and hadn't spoiled our lake trip. It was so nice to spend some time at the lake -- I love it and we hadn't been able to make it there since before Max was born.

When we got home we got everyone bathed and ready for bed, and Max and Molly were only too happy to fall asleep. After the big kids went up to bed, Dad and I sat around to watch a movie and unwind. I don't think we'd been sitting there for more than 10 minutes when a bat flew in ... followed by another bat. I have no idea how they made it past our bat barriers, but they apparently hadn't left the house the previous night. We opened up the doors again and this time we really did manage to shoo them back outside.

Everyone got a good night's sleep on the last night of our visit and we were all up bright and early the next morning. After breakfast, we all piled in the car and headed out to my uncle's house -- he lives in the country and has some nice land and a pond and Grandpa wanted to take the kids out and show them how to catch some frogs. Max was happy to be going for a walk and was very interested in the pond and the frogs. We caught a little leopard frog right away and then found a bunch of big green frogs in the pond. The kids had fun looking at them -- Molly kept saying, "I touch it! I touch it!" and trying to touch the frog's eyes. We had to convince her to pet its head instead.

We all got a good laugh because while she was petting the frog, Molly leaned right over and gave it a kiss. She must really be her mother's daughter, because when I was little, I had horrified a neighbor girl by doing much the same thing. When I was young, we used to catch frogs or toads or whatnot, keep them in an aquarium for a couple of days, and then release them. Apparently, I was showing the girl the two toads we had caught (which, if I remember correctly, I had named Starbuck and Apollo, being a huge Battlestar Galatica fan at the time), and, after picking up one toad in each hand, gave them each a big kiss. I'm not sure the girl ever quite recovered ... ;)

As an added treat, Grandpa also found and caught a little ribbon snake. All the kids got a good look at it and Max held it for a minute. He liked the snake, but thought holding it was a little weird -- he said it was "too stinky." Molly would have loved to hold it, but we couldn't trust her to be gentle enough. The kids all got to try their hand at frog catching -- Molly gave it a good try, Max preferred to watch, and Big Brother almost caught one before it gave him the slip. After the frog outing, we headed back to pack up the car and hit the road.

The trip back was LONG -- the little kids didn't sleep much and we managed to run into some awful construction that added about 45 minutes on to an already long trip. Molly pretty much fussed and screeched for the last half hour. It was a nice little vacation and it was fun to see everyone, but was good to be home. It was nice to have an easy bedtime and some sleeping babies!