Saturday, July 11, 2009

Petoskey Weekend (6/27/09 - 6/28/09)

After getting up early on Saturday morning and packing, we departed for my parents’ house to make the long journey to Petoskey for Matt’s high school open house. This was approximately a four hour drive for us while the longest car trips Lily has taken thus far have lasted about an hour. This was also Lily’s first overnight trip away from home. We took so much stuff for Lily that we ended up having to take my dad’s truck to fit all of her stuff and all of our stuff. The supplies for four adults combined did not nearly equal that necessary for one baby! The men sat up front while my mom and I kept Lily entertained in the backseat. I had no idea how the trip would go as, in the past, Lily started getting fussy after almost an hour in the car. She was a perfect angel, though. She was a really good car baby and slept for almost the entire trip.

We checked into the hotel, got ready, and then went to the open house. When we first got there, it began raining so everyone crowded under the tent but the rain subsided and it ended up being a nice night. Lily got to see the Masons again and meet the Greers and Cooks. Here she is with Jenny.

Even after all her napping, Lily got sleepy at the open house. Here she is rubbing her eyes.

And snuggling on her Grandma.

I changed her into her adorable Pooh sleeper and hat after dark since it got cold.


We went back to the hotel fairly late and Lily settled down for the night quite well in the Graco travel lite pack and play that I had bought my parents for Christmas. This was its first use. I was worried that Lily wouldn’t sleep well at night since she had been asleep for most of the drive up but she did just fine, only getting up twice to feed as usual.
On Sunday, we had breakfast at the hotel then took a leisurely drive to Charlevoix. It is such a beautiful city. On the way we stopped to hunt for Petoskey stones.



Lily playing in the car.

In Charlevoix, we drove past the storybook homes of Earl Young which I love. Some of them remind me of Hobbit homes. Our next destination was to have lunch at Paul’s parents’ house in Lovells. The Garmin directed us to take the Ironton Ferry on our route. That is a small four car cable ferry that crosses a narrow point on the south arm of Lake Charlevoix. It is really unique. While we were waiting in line for the ferry (which doesn’t take long since the trip takes about two minutes), Lily had a giant poo-poo blowout. I grabbed Lily and all of us leaped out the truck, threw down the tailgate, changed her diaper and outfit super quick, put up the tailgate, disposed of the offensive diaper, got back in the truck, and strapped Lily and ourselves back in just in time to pull forward onto the ferry. We worked seamlessly like a champion pit crew. I am sure we were quite entertaining for the car behind us! Here is the view from the ferry.
When we got to Paul’s parents’ house we had lunch. Lily watched us from the high chair.
After lunch, we got ready to take a walk through the woods to the creek. Here is Lily in her cute sunhat with my dad.

Lily rode in their Baby Bjorn and we all enjoyed the wild daisies along the way.


Here is Lily with her grandmothers.
The walk exhausted Lily.
When she woke up, she played with her Grandma Maureen.






Here is Lily with her grandfathers.
We took a picture of Lily with her Grandma and Grandpa Rysso before leaving.
We ended up staying there pretty late in the evening. We tried to have dinner at Frankenmuth on the way home but we got there we found out that Freeway Fritz went out of business. How sad! We went into town to try Zehnders but it was 8:45pm and they apparently close up early on Sunday night. Having totally struck out, we dined at the McDonalds in Frankenmuth instead. By the time we stopped at my parents’ house, transferred our stuff back to our car and drove home, it was almost midnight. We were tired but had a wonderful weekend. I was so grateful that Lily was such a good car traveler and was amazed that she slept so much yet still did fine each night.

Exersaucer Time (6/26/09)

Here is Lily enjoying her exersaucer. This was a shower gift from Kathy and Karen. Thanks, ladies!


Lily’s 17th Week (6/22/09 – 6/28/09)

This week was super hot and as mentioned before, Lily does not like the heat. Without a working air conditioner, we had a pretty fussy baby for a while. I couldn't blame her though, I was fussy too as I can't stand being sweaty either. On Monday we went grocery shopping and ran errands after work so we were unable to get the AC fixed that day. We called the repairman on Tuesday but unfortunately he couldn't come out to fix it until Wednesday. Even with the fan on, I had a hard time sleeping Tuesday night. Wednesday was even hotter. We had Lily stripped down to a diaper every day and kept holding her in front of the fan to cool her off. The repairman came Wednesday while we were at work to see if he could find a problem outside but determined that it was inside. He couldn't come back to check out the problem inside until 10pm but I assured him it was not too late as there would be no way I could sleep that night without AC. The problem was apparently in the motherboard of the furnace which is not a good sign. He got it running but reminded us that our furnace will need to be replaced soon. Like we have the money to do that!

Meanwhile, I worked at our Brighton lab on Tuesday and Wednesday which is the first time I have been there since returning from maternity leave. It was good seeing everyone out there and a nice change of pace. Even though my schedule can be pretty hectic there some days, I still found it much easier to pump out there. They have had many employees out there in my same situation so they have laminated signs to put on the door. Instead of trying to find a place to pump, I can just put up the sign, close my door, and do my thing. It is so much faster and easier. On Tuesday, I drove Lily to Kirsten’s even though it is a bit out of my way (especially with the stupid detour that is going on until September to repair the bridge over the Huron River on Winans Lake Road) but Kirsten has our extra carseat base and I wanted to be the one to pick her up. I only had to drop her off about 10 minutes before my normal time to be at Brighton at 8:00am instead of the Hospital at 8:30am. Then I got to pick her up before 5:00pm since I get out at 4:30pm and am so much closer as opposed to our usual pick up time of 6:00pm. That extra hour with my baby is very precious to me!

On Wednesday, we had to put the carseat base in Paul's car but I still accompanied him to the drop-off. Lily had her 4 month doctor appointment that afternoon so Paul had to leave work early and pick her up to be at her appointment at 5:00pm. I can't leave work early at Brighton but since I get out at 4:30pm, I had no problem meeting them at the East Ann Arbor Health Center on time. I was assured when I made the appointment that even though it was a bit early and Lily wasn't quite 4 months old on her appointment date, it would be no problem giving her the vaccinations then. It turns out that this was not true. Dr. Sachdev said that she could give Lily the vaccinations if it was not convenient for us to come back in two weeks but that she would really prefer to wait a full 8 weeks between her 2 and 4 month vaccinations as this would decrease the likelihood of her getting the fever and diarrhea that plagued her last time. Even though another return visit isn't that convenient for us, we wanted to do what was best for Lily so we agreed to come back for the shots later. Meanwhile, she checked Lily over and declared her perfect. She was impressed by her strength and head control and said that she is ready to try rice cereal at 4 months. She weighed 15 lbs 4 ounces and was 25.12 inches tall. That is in the 89th percentile for weight and 87th for height. No wonder she is outgrowing everything so fast!

On Thursday, my parents came over while we were at work. My mom cleaned the house while my dad installed new lights in our basement. We just had a few bare bulbs with pull cords. He installed switched fluorescent lighting. It is so much nicer and brighter down there. Mom had delicious poppyseed chicken for dinner. After they left, Paul put together Lily’s exersaucer. By the time he got done, she was asleep for the night so she didn’t get to try it out until Friday after work. She really liked it. All the fun tired her out and we were pretty exhausted ourselves from a long workweek. We all took a nap then went to bed early.

On Saturday, we got up early to pack and get ready for a road trip to Petoskey. There were a lot of pictures from the weekend so that will be a separate blog entry.

Here are some pictures from this week.

Teething on mommy's finger:


Chillin with Amber:

All smiles in her Pooh outfit:



Baby girl sleeping in her diaper:
And in her swing:
Hanging with Papi Tim on Thursday:

Playing in her new exersaucer on Friday:



All the playing wore her out. I love her "angels are watching over me" dress:
Mommy and Lily crash:
Daddy reading Goodnight Moon at bedtime:
After bath time: