Behind Again...

Yep... it's been more than two weeks. I'm still not mastering this blogging on top of two kid raising. And the kid raising is more important, so this may be a sparse few years. But someday I'll appreciate the fact that I have at least recorded some of the craziness.

We had a really fun mother's day weekend enjoying the beautiful weather that has finally arrived in the upper peninsula. It's been a long wait for spring, but it's finally springing up all around. Yesterday the girls and I spent a lovely afternoon planting things in our garden and pulling up weeds. We added a mature poppy plant (who wants to wait 2 years for flowers?!?), a hydrangea, and a wide assortment of annuals, thanks to Abby's great flower picking skills. She loves red. A lot. But she also got pink, purple, and yellow flowers, so it's going to be a very colorful garden this summer.

We also enjoyed a free trip to Mackinac Island on Saturday. The Star Line ferry company was offering free trips to the island for Chippewa and Mackinac county residents, so we took advantage of that and enjoyed a beautiful walk along the waterfront and into the woods on the island. We even enjoyed some wildflowers and a squirrel who was pretty friendly. And Abby enjoyed eying up the horses, without getting to close of course.

Floating On A Boat

After she got over hating her life jacket, Abby decided that riding on a boat was pretty fun. She especially liked when Grandpa Scott showed her how to drive the boat and she spent a lot of time practicing driving while we were anchored for the fishermen. She also tried some fishing, but we didn't catch anything with her "Dora, Dora, Dora" pole - she sang Dora three times each time we got the pole out.
She had a lot of fun on the boat. She enjoyed checking the pail for the fish that were caught and practicing saying fish and counting to three, which was the most fish we ever had in the pail at once. Abby can count to three now, thanks to Grandma Jennie for helping her learn that. The only problem is that she can't say one yet, so someone else has to start the counting for her.

Along with the fishing and boating, Abby had a good time swimming in the Blind Sucker River, which we camped along. She jumped right in with her clothes on at least once. She is getting really confident with water. She even righted herself after she tumbled in while walking in knee deep water. She got totally soaked, but didn't even cry.

Today we are still working on cleaning up and unpacking. It is a load to do with a super helper. Hopefully by the end of the day we will have the laundry done.