Michigan & Wisconsin...Bits and Pieces
I have kept delaying putting together a post about our trip to Michigan and Wisconsin at the beginning of August, in hopes that I would collect all the pictures I am missing from others who were also on vacation with us. I realize that it might be a while until that happens so I am just going to post what I have and maybe add more pictures later (emphasis on "maybe.") We feel so fortunate to have been able to take two vacations this summer. Colorado was a trip for just Peter and I so it was really fun to have a big family vacation with Peter's family.
The girls were supposed to both leave on Monday morning (August 1st ) with Peter's parents, brother James, and sister Lucy (Peter and I both had to work so our plan was to leave on Tuesday night after he was off of work.) However the night before, Olivia woke up in the middle of the night with a fever of 103.8. Not exactly stellar timing on her part (not that she could help it.) So we decided to keep her home with us so I could take her to the doctor the next day. Peter's parents were already here and stayed with the girls (since I couldn't take Olivia to daycare) until I got home from work at noon. They then headed out of town with Abbie and I took Olivia to the doctor later that afternoon. We found out that one of her ear tubes is no longer in place. It is still in her ear but not in the right spot. Her doctor decided that since we were going out of town that it would probably be a good idea to start her on some antibiotics since we were going to be gone for a week. Her ear wasn't fully infected at that point but it looked to be heading in that direction. Had we been staying around town, her doctor said she would have just rode it out for a few days to see what happened but I agreed that the antibiotics were a better idea with us traveling so much and away from our healthcare provider.
(Here is where pictures of Abbie with Peter's family are to be inserted at a later time. They had horrible traffic in and past Joliet, IL and they said she slept through the whole thing. Abbie really is an amazing traveler and they said she was just great for them the whole time. They also camped out the first night in Indiana and had visits from family there. I wasn't worried about this since Abbie LOVES camping but I don't have any of these pictures yet since Peter and I weren't there.)
Tuesday Peter worked all day and Olivia and I had a quiet day prepping to leave that night. We were all ready to go when Peter got home and we hit the road about 7:45pm.
Here enters the difficult part of traveling at night with Olivia. As I have mentioned before, she is not the best traveler and NEVER falls asleep at night until it is dark and usually doesn't go down without a fight...aka a lot of crying. Well thankfully it is starting to get dark a little earlier - she was asleep by 9 and there was no crying involved. She continued to sleep the rest of the way which was AMAZING considering we drove through one of the worst thunderstorms I have ever been in. We arrived in Michigan around 2am (3am Michigan time.) We were SO tired but thankful for a safe trip and for a sleeping girl most of the way (she woke up for about a half hour around 1am.)
The next day Peter and I slept in since we went to bed at 3am and then we joined family for a fairly relaxing day. We hit an antique store, Meijers, had Pizza Hut for lunch and then went into downtown Spring Lake to see all the Coast Guard Boats for their annual Coast Guard Festival. We were close enough to naptime that we didn't get out and walk in the boats but we drove by a couple of times so that we could all see them.
Sitting out on Grandpa Jack's back deck (G'pa Jack is Peter's Paternal Grandfather.)
Abbie was having a quiet reading time (for the sake of trying to stay consistent while on vacation) and Peter went in to check on her. After about 10 minutes I went in to confirm my suspicions that THIS is what had happened...
That evening we had a nice visit with two of Peter's cousins that we hadn't seen in a while and a nice family dinner. Lucy and I were SO full that we decided to get out for a walk. It was a beautiful night and it was nice being able to catch up with her a bit. I then took Abbie on a little walk in the dark around to part of the lake where we could see the sun setting. I always love hearing what Abbie has to tell me - so many thought on this girl's mind. That night we got the girls to bed and then all watched 'Sister Act' together before heading to bed ourselves. The next morning we woke up, had breakfast and took off.
Our time with Grandpa Jack and Grandma Betty was too short but we had a great time and the weather was fantastic! We said goodbye on Thursday and headed up north along Lake Michigan.
We went to some sand dunes right before lunch time and rode in some pretty cool dune buggies. James (Peter's youngest brother) and I were the most excited...can you tell?
I don't think I have mentioned yet that Peter's sister Lucy was home from France during this time and it was so great to have her on vacation with us. The girls are STILL talking about her and loved having her home too.
We shoved the girls on the inside and the adults on the outside and then took off on our ride. I didn't know how Olivia would do since it was a 40 minute ride but I think that she loved not having to be in a car seat so she never once fought to get out. I even asked her if she wanted to sit on my lap so she could see better but she said no. I think she liked having her own seat and holding onto the bar.
Mark and Peggy (Peter's Parents)
Ha ha...
We couldn't have had better weather for this. Blue skies, warm (but not hot) temps and LOTS and LOTS of sand. I have never seen anything like this before.
Lake Michigan
The back of our "ride."
This next sequence of pictures perfectly captures what it is like for us to try to get a family picture. I would normally not put so many similar pictures in one post but I thought this was funny. I don't even need to explain the conversation that was happening as the pictures will say it all...
We hopped back into our "ride" after 5 minutes of getting our feet wet and attempting a family picture and headed back to where we came from.
Abbie just naturally knew to put her arms up when we were going down the bigger hills. I even got Olivia to do it but didn't get a picture of it.
We stopped at a State Park in Luddington, MI to play on the beach for a while. Unfortunately, Olivia had only gotten to sleep for about an hour in the car when we got there and she was not to happy about getting her nap cut in half. On top of that, she got sand in her eye right when we got to the beach and she ended up rubbing her eye for the first half hour. She just wanted to be held the entire time and actually fell back to sleep for a while as I walked along the beach holding her (my workout for the day.) So all that to say, I hardly took any pictures at the beach because I was holding a toddler instead. But the rest of us had fun and it was a beautiful day!
(notice the eye rubbing...)
After the beach we drove over to where the ferry takes off for Wisconsin. It was a pretty cool experience to see the big boat and watch how they put all the cars on and off. There were tractors and semi's too and it is just crazy to think how much these boats can hold and not sink =).
Anyway, the real trick was that the ferry was leaving at 8pm which is Abbie's bedtime and past Olivia's bedtime. And guess what time the ferry arrived in Wisconsin? Midnight (which was actually 1am Michigan time.) But flexibility was the name of my game this vacation and we made it work. We all got some dinner as soon as we boarded the boat and walked around outside to watch the BEAUTIFUL sunset and get the girls good and worn out (as if they weren't already.) Then once it was dark, I wrapped Olivia up in a blanket and took her to the front of the ship and rocked her to sleep under the stars in the cool breeze off the lake - I will never ever forget that! I even tried to get up and walk with her a couple of times and she didn't want me to - she just wanted me to stay where we were. One of my favorite moments with her of the past 2 years!
This funny girl is starting to master the art of the "silly face."
We had actually heard many horror stories of people getting sea sick on this ferry ride, as Lake Michigan can often be pretty rough. But as you can see from this picture, it was the most calm, beautiful evening and God gave us an amazing sky to watch.
Olivia with Aunt Lucy
So once I got Olivia to sleep I didn't really want to be holding her for the next 2.5-3 hours so I had to come up with something. Laying her on the floor was not an option because it was FILTHY! So I decided to stick to chairs together, lay down a blanket and set her on that. We were all close by so I didn't worry about her falling out but it worked like a dream and she was tired enough that she never woke up!
Abbie thought she would try to sleep that way too but she was much too tall (notice the little bum sticking up in the air in the back set of chairs.)
Eventually this is how it went down. She went to bed pretty late but slept great the rest of the night. (notice Olivia snoozin away in the background =).)
Toward the end EVERYONE was tired...
I had to pass Abbie off after a while because my legs were falling asleep. I love how floppy she looks!
So the ferry arrived, we got in our cars and went to a nearby hotel for the night. We then got up the next/same morning and drove to Madison to visit some family on Peter's Mom's side and were going to camp the next (also our last) night. This was the scene when we got to the campground...
The tents eventually got set up and we had a great visit with family.
(More pictures missing here.)
Our night of tenting did not go so well as the four of us slept in our small three person tent. I won't elaborate much on that since it wasn't one of our happier family moments. Abbie slept great, Olivia slept great once she FINALLY fell asleep, I was just super hot and mad and Peter had to get up 3 different times during the night to go tell the teenage boys next to us to be quiet, which they never really did until the last time he went over there (5am.) So, all in all, not our greatest camping experience but it was only one night. By the next day we were all ready to hit the road and head home. We had breakfast together at a great restaurant in Madison, grabbed some bagels to take home with us from here and some of Peter's favorite beer and then headed home.
We are so thankful for Peter's parents and all that they did to make it possible for us to go on this vacation with the family. We had such a wonderful time! Read more...
