Fourth of July

For the 4th of July weekend this year, we decided to make the trip up to Leelanau Pines to visit Brad's family. This was BB's first time up and LP's first time up since he's been "mobile." Brad has many, many memories from when he was a kid that involve Lake Leelanau, Cedar, Traverse City, and "Up North" in general and we both knew how much LP would enjoy it up there as well as spending time with grandpa and grandma.

Not knowing how it would go with two little ones under two, we made the drive up on Friday night not making any promises as to when we would arrive. We actually made it all the way to Cadillac before we had to stop to get dinner and feed LP. We stopped at the state park on Lake Mitchell and let LP run around for awhile before continuing on.

We arrived pretty late, but daddy and LP still found time to play on the new play structure at the park and mommy and BB settled in the trailer. LP slept great in the trailer and we had a pretty good night with BB too!

Because LP was up so late the night before, he slept in until 9:45 on Saturday morning! As Polka Fest was going on in Cedar, we decided to take LP to the Polka parade. It took him a bit to figure out what was going on, but once he did, he LOVED getting all the candy that was being thrown to the kids. While we were there, grandma and grandpa took care of BB for us. Because grandma and grandpa were watching BB during a feeding time, they fed him formula as I didn't have any pumped milk. This was only the second or third time he has had formula and it didn't set well with him at ALL! He projectile vomited many times and even started dryheaving. It was so sad to watch his little body going through so much. He was really lethargic and had very few wet diapers. We had to keep a close eye on him to make sure he didn't get dehydrated. Thankfully, he was back to himself within a few days and we didn't have to take him to the ER.

After the parade, everyone was ready for a nap. After the nap and happy hour, we had dinner and went to see the fireworks. LP really didn't care too much about the fireworks. He liked seeing them, but probably couldn't have cared either way about seeing them. BB slept through the entire evening.

After a somewhat sleepless night with a sick baby, Brad decided to take LP to Northbar Lake and Sleeping Bear Dunes. His parents, nephew, and sister and brother-in-law went with him. I stayed back with BB and headed into Traverse City to get a thermometer for BB. I spent a little time hitting the outlets as well. Then BB and I headed back to the trailer for some R&R before the rest of the crew came back.

Brad and LP had a wonderful time at the Lake. Brad said LP played and played and had such a fun time. The lake really tired him out because he was so tired that we had to wake him up from his nap! After dinner, I took LP and Eli to see the ducks. They were so cute and walked hand in hand the entire way. We ate yummy pizza from the Cedar Tavern and grandma got the boys red, white, and blue popsicles for the 4th of July. Lp LOVED his! He was covered in red and blue dye, but I think he ate every last drop of the popsicle. After baths, we busted out the sparklers. Daddy seemed to have the most fun with the sparklers as LP didn't seem to care about them a whole lot!

We headed home the next day and both boys were perfect on the way home. We made it all the way to Comstock Park before Luke had to eat.

Even though it's a lot of work to get everything together and head up there, I know the boys had a good time and made many memories together. We all had a really nice time!