Farm Market, Maya's first train ride

Wednesday morning we went downtown to get some fruit and veggies. We ended up going for a train ride too, we have only gone a couple of times so far this summer. Alex has always loved the train but this was Maya's first ride so it was exciting to watch her response. She loved it! She laughed and babbled and clapped the whole ride!
We also stopped to watch some firemen for a while that were trying to clear a huge fallen tree out of the Boardman river. The tree was huge and they had two men in a little rubber raft cutting branch by branch and one guy pulling them to the side with a rope.

Amazing beach weather

We've had almost perfect weather every day this week. It's only rained at night.

Finally!

Alex finally felt comfortable enough to let Maya get in the tub with him. She was extremely excited!

Beetle hunter

(Imagine dramatic voice over with British accent)
"The fearless hunter enters the tent with nothing more than a tweezers and a bug box........mindless of the dangers that could befall him while hunting such a fierce predator........."

We set up our older car camping tent to make sure it was still usable. The kids thought it was great fun to play in until a large rather angry looking beetle moved in with us.

Caught up - now back to real time

We have been home for almost a week now. I don't have any pictures to show for it because I ran into my first issue with my new camera - something goofy happened yesterday while I was taking pictures at a picnic and when I went to load all the pictures from the last week onto the computer today it had saved all the pictures on top of one another. I certainly hope that doesn't happen again.
Anyway, we've been trying to establish some sort of routine. We hit the beach one day, had a babywearing meeting one day and library story time one day.
Alex is settling back in well.
Maya can crawl a few paces as of yesterday. I don't think even she realized that she did it and most times she still does her weird subtle scooting method of moving. This morning though she was trying in earnest to pull herself up on the entertainment center.
She is eating food well. We are still struggling a bit to help her stay regular.
Also struggling with the idea of milk. I have a few bottles of pumped breastmilk left in the freezer and quit pumping this week - I was hardly getting anything anymore. She loves to have about 5-6 oz of milk before bed. The first time we tried goat milk (more easily digested than cow milk) she didn't go for it, same with soy. So in desperation I tried cow milk and she seemed to do ok for a few days. Then she started getting progressively crabbier and clingier during the day and sleeping less and less at night so we quit that and decided to try goat milk again. We are mixing a few oz of breastmilk with the goat milk to get her use to it and it is working fine. The jury is still out though on how well she is tolerating it. I'm going to give it a couple more days here and see. She slept terribly last night and cried a lot this morning. If that continues then we will give soy another go and see if that helps.

Boat ride home

This time I decided to fork out the extra $40 to get a stateroom. It made a huge difference for us - much more relaxing trip. The room had two beds, a chair, a sink and a small bathroom (toilet) and a good size window that opened up all the way with a fan blowing fresh air in.
When Maya fell asleep I was able to lay in one bed with her and Alex could spread his toys and games all out in the other bed and play. It was actually pretty relaxing with the sound of the water and all the fresh air coming in.
This trip was significantly rougher than the first crossing. I took ginger capsules and they seemed to help - it was very rough and I didn't get sick at all.
Alex decided he wanted to try out the "Badger Bingo" this time too so that was a good way to kill some time.

It's interesting to me that when you come back into port in Ludington, you come in at a totally different angle than when you leave. And the light is totally different too since we left early in the morning and came back at 6pm. When we were leaving Ludington I didn't even notice the sand dunes along the shoreline but they were very prominent when you are coming back into port there.

Movie night

We had two movie nights that last week with the neighbors. The first was to watch Alex's new Backyardigan DVD. The second one we talked them into watching Cars but when that was over we ended back with the Backyardigans "Super Secret, Super Spy" complete with group dancing. We all had crazy dreams that night from the bizarre combination of snacks and treats (and beer and wine for the grown ups) we all ingested. Sweet onion chips and carrot cake seemed like a good idea at the time!

Waterski show #2

This time we went with Sylvia, Ethan and Elliot from a few doors down. We made a quick stop and the "Musky Shop" on the way. That place is a haven for little boys - enormous fishing lures, neon huge squishy lures, all sorts and sizes of live bait - they had a blast.

Dolphin boat nap

"Photo shoot" on the dock

Sunset between two storms

Waterski show #1

Alex was all excited to check out the Min-Aquabats (the cabin is in Minocqua, WI) water ski show. Yes, "Min-Aquabats" - I guess we should cut them some slack since it was named in the early 1950's.