Wisconsin Vacation Recap

Photo heavy vacation recap coming your way.... We spent last week at our family cottage and it was packed full of running around after the kids and enjoying lots of our favorite cottage activities.

Cora doesn't really remember much from our last vacation up here, so it was fun watching her rediscover how much she loves this place. We arrived around 9ish in the morning, had breakfast, then jumped right into all of our favorite activities. Cora wasted no time in catching her first fish and kayaking with her Uncle (remember when Cora was tiny and kayaking?!). Ida tried out the kayak, but was more content with dipping her toes in the water and lounging on the dock.

Around nap time on our first day, Cora asked my brother how long we'd been there and couldn't believe it when he told her we got there that morning. She said she felt like it's been forever.

During our first days there, it was Iron River's famous Blueberry Festival. We have never been in town during the festival, but have heard about it from family members. Sunday morning, we headed into town to enjoy the Blueberry Festival parade. I was expecting something similar to our hometown's 4th of July parade (firetrucks, kids biking, old cars, etc), but this was much bigger. There were horses, lots of trucks, decorated ATVs, giant pirate ship float, candy, and even people handing our cheese curds. Only in Wisconsin...

On vacations, I love our slow mornings. In our regular life, I'm usually running out the door right when I wake up, so I really enjoyed sleeping in, getting cuddles with the girlies, walking down to the lake, and having slow breakfasts.

When the weather allows, we spend the late morning and afternoon on the dock. Cora really got the hang of swimming this week. She was such a water baby and progressed so quickly in such a short amount of time. Ida liked the water some days and didn't like it others. She spent most of her dock time splashing around in buckets of water and making sand pies.

Cora heard the mention of s'mores and would not stop asking when she would get to try her first s'more. It took a couple days, but she finally got her chance and she loved them. She kept telling me "they're even better than they sound!" and "I never thought these could be so good!"

Looking back, I can't believe how much we fit in that one week. We also enjoyed a potluck with a lot of extended family, a hike, kayak and boat rides, a thrift shopping date, a visit to my aunt's cottage, and much more. I wasn't in the best mood a lot of the trip due to a bunch of different factors, but overall we had a great time. We loved spending time with my parents, brother, aunts, and uncles and Cora loved meeting a lot of her third cousins. It was fun to watch Cora fall in love with the cottage and see how much Ida enjoyed her time there. We're already looking forward to our next trip back.

Swimming Lessons

We thought it would be fun to sign up for toddler/parent swim lessons to get some time in the pool learning the basics and meet some other babies and parents.  Cora is one of the youngest kids in the class and it might be a little advanced for her age, but she still seemed to enjoy it...  and she's basically a pro at floating on her back.

I think my favorite part so far about being a parent is watching Cora learn and master new things.  I'm looking forward to the swim lessons to come and watching Cora love swimming like I do.

P.S. I've kind of put blogging on the back burner for the last couple of months since we've been pretty busy keeping up with the the day-to-day changes that come along with having a baby... no two days are the same.  I've got some great projects and ideas coming up and will hopefully share some kind of project list or previews tomorrow or early next week.  I'm also excited to share some non-baby related things on the blog since it's been a while.  Spring always brings me renewed energy, so I can't wait to take advantage of the nice weather and get on some of these big projects that I've been procrastinating on.  Stay tuned!