jumpers

Jump!!

michigan travelers

Jamie and the kids set off on a road trip adventure to Michigan and made it to the cabin! Mommy had a few days of a quiet house, seeing friends, and work stuff and will join the gang in cabin-land tomorrow.

cabin-time

michigan

For those following along .. Jamie and the kids made it to Old Mission today.  Cousins Emily & Natalie were there to welcome them.  Mommy is at home missing the gang, but also enjoying some quiet, relaxing me-time, and will be in Michigan a week from today to catch up on all of the beachy adventures.

 

"vacation"

It must be stated that an 800 mile road trip followed by 11 days of rustic cabin experience followed by the return 800 mile road trip with a 3 year old and an almost-1 year old is not really what you would find in the dictionary when you look up the word "vacation".  Was it a change of pace from our normal routine?  Yes.  Did it allow us to escape the heat and humidity of home? Yes.  Did we have lots of new experiences and sweet moments? Yes.  Was it easy and always fun? No.  Now that we're home, do we feel relaxed and rejuvenated? Not really.  But we do want to share some of the fave memories from the trip with you, our faithful blog readers.

Abby takes to the waters and loved the canoe!

Lots of fun beach time, with G&G too.

Nate loved to splish splash in the water....

Lots of sunsets post-kid-bedtime (usually accompanied by good wine or local Michigan beer).

This peek-a-boo chair never got old.

Nate LOVED sitting in this retro laundry basket.

A chair in the water - why didn't we think of this sooner?

Family portrait, with Abigail blinking (photo blinks remain HILARIOUS to Abigail) and Papa's feet.

With no dishwasher in sight we enlisted a pantsless 3 year old to wash our mountains of dirty dishes.  Results were better than expected but probably not up to public health standards.

Storm is brewing...

Playdate with some (3rd? 4th?) cousins.... Zoe and Hazel

and Charlotte too...

Hitching a ride with Papa and munching on berries.

Swinging at Uncle David & Aunt Ingrid's cabin

lily the cat

One of the biggest highlights of vacation for Abigail was meeting Lily the farm cat.  We were given the heads up that Lily was quite friendly and might follow us home.  That was a major understatement!

Pausing only to sprawl out on the ground begging to have her tummy rubbed.

She did in fact follow us all the way back to the cabin, where she proceeded to walk perimeters and meow loudly outside the whole time we ate our lunch....

When lunch was over, she went down to the beach.

For Lily is not just a farm cat, oh no.  She is a beach cat too!

Later that afternoon it seemed like it was time to walk Lily back to her house....so Abigail and Papa set off in the stroller with Lily by their sides.

Abigail even conquered her fear of all things animal and gave Lily some pats, proclaiming her to be "super, SUPER soft"!

Little did we know that we would spend large parts of the rest of our cabin-time wondering where Lily was, what she was doing, and WHERE WE COULD FIND HER!

Oh Lily, you tease.

But seriously - this is Lily's yard. If you were Lily, why would you leave?

Until next time sweet cat!

more mich

Beach fun continued....and Grandma & Grandad came for a visit (and posted some fun photos on their blog).

Pink, pink, pink, beach.

Abby prepares for her beach nap/quiet time....

....in the tent!  Not much sleeping happened during naptime, but Abby did have fun.

Natester chills out.

Abigail was a very brave swimmer and had lots of fun in the water, with various floaty things, papa, grandad, grandma, etc....

old mission

A few snaps from the first few days chez cabin.

Abigail and Nate negotiate sharing while Mommy catches up with Grandma on the phone.

And we're off for a walk.

In the woods.

The jolly dude discovers a peek-a-boo hole in the beach chair.  This would prove to be a never-ending source of amusement throughout the whole visit.

Hey, where's Nate?

Peek-a-boo, I see you!

Abby sets up a choo-choo train configuration of beach chairs while Natester continues to play peek-a-boo with himself.

Abigail (aka the train driver) and veteran cabin-goer.  She's on her 3rd visit.  Check out previous visits here and here.

This was Nate's first visit....someone is going to be 1 soon!

Abigail + beach

The boys.