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.