Drummond Island: A Family Vacation

Since my siblings and I have all moved away from home, we don't get to spend time together very often. So, my parents and siblings all decided to get together for a week-long vacation this summer -- a real vacation, where we go somewhere and no one has to worry about working or cleaning the house or any other commitments that come with staying at your own home. Somehow (and truly I am not sure how this happened), we rented a house on the southeast corner of Drummond Island, Michigan:

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For those not familiar with Drummond Island, it is the easternmost part of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, approximately two miles from Cockburn Island, Canada. And it is VERY sparsely populated.

We stayed in a lovely house, a 100-plus-year-old-house called The Stone House (and everyone on the island knew of The Stone House). The eight-bedroom Stone House sits on 45 wooded acres, with the house right on Scammon Cove (Lake Huron), and with its own private beach. It was a wonderful location to spend a week with the family!

The house was just perfect for our vacation. We had privacy (we never saw any neighbors, and only saw other people when we ventured out into town), enough bedrooms for everyone, our own private beach, a firepit for evenings, and lots of space to play in the yard.

With us on the vacation were:

Mikel ("Poppa"), sitting on the steps with Adelaida.

My Mom ("Nonna"), sitting inside with Adelaida.

Bill, wading out into the lake.

Rachel R, with her dad on a beautiful day.

Michael, helping Adelaida ride Henry.

Sami, relaxing on the beach with Henry.

BJ ("crazy uncle BJ") playing "voice modulation" with Adelaida.

Rachel M, sitting on the porch with Adelaida on a chilly morning.

Henry, Michael and Sami's dog, who has grown from a 6-lb ball of fur at Christmas to an 80-lb ball of energy!

Duffy, BJ and Rachel M's dog, who tried so hard to keep up with Henry!

I'll post more about our various adventures on the island later -- we certainly had a lot of fun!

Sitting on the Sofa with Daddy

For the past several months, Adelaida has delighted in mimicking us. This takes many forms -- when she sees us eat, she will move her jaw up and down as if eating; when we give her food that is too hot and blow on it to cool it off, she blows on her food; when we jump, she jumps. This has even extended to something as simple as sitting. Several times, when Adelaida has seen Dale sitting on a sofa, she has asked to be picked up onto the sofa, then arranged herself next to him, in the same position. I've managed to get photos of this a couple of times:

She starts by sitting next to him ...


... but soon bores of sitting and wants to stand up ...


... and finally get down and play. Adelaida likes to sit on the sofa with Daddy, but only for a few minutes :)


Snuggling on the sofa -- look at the grin on Dale's face! He loves it!


She stayed on the sofa with him for quite a while, watching a World Cup game. Dale has been teaching Adelaida to say "Goooooooooooaaaaaaalll!!!" whenever a soccer goal is scored. She loves to say it with him, but she can't pronounce her Gs very well and always stops a word after the first vowel sound, so it comes out more like "Dooooooooooaaaa!!!!"


Dale put his hand near Adelaida's belly and she reached up to hold his hand.


Adelaida and her Daddy ... aren't they adorable!

pictures!

I know you all (my loyal readers) love to see pictures of Adelaida, and I'm not the best photographer in the world. So, when I learned that a friend-of-a-friend, who happens to be a professional photographer, was going to be visiting Albuquerque and looking for clients during her visit, I convinced Dale to do a photo shoot. (I had to promise not to buy the cheesy school pictures for Adelaida this summer, and it was only kind of hard to pass them up!)

Tracy came to our house in June and did an hour-long photo shoot with our family, even getting a couple of pictures of the dogs! Adelaida smiled through almost the entire session -- there was a bad setup where we were looking directly into a bright, hot sun that she wasn't a fan of, but other than that she was smiling and laughing the whole time. (Thanks to Libby for keeping Adelaida's attention focused in the general direction of the camera, and for the adorable pictures of Adelaida covering her face and putting her arms up!)

Enough words -- I know you want to see the pictures :)

You can see all of our pictures by going to this website http://fullyalivephotography.smugmug.com/Family/Parkes-Family-2010/12729703_yqNPE and entering password Parkes2010ABQ

If you are in Albuquerque and looking for a photographer, I highly recommend Tracy! She is easy to work with, very sweet, great with kids, and reasonably priced. Oh, and the pictures are pretty good too :) Tracy lives in Illinois right now but is planning to move to Albuquerque in the next year and may even come out for another photographing visit before she moves here. Check out her website at http://www.fullyalivephotography.com/

A Rough Night

Last night started like any other night -- we put Adelaida to bed around 7:15 (our goal is 7:00, but she sometimes goes to bed as late as 7:30), then had a quiet evening to ourselves before going to bed around 10:30.

At 11:30, Adelaida woke us up crying. She sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night, but almost always goes right back to sleep. Last night, however, she kept crying, so I went in to her room to check on her. She stopped crying immediately when I went in, and I held her for a few minutes, then put her back in her bed. She laid down readily, clutching her sippy cup, and was quiet until I started to leave the room, when she started crying again. I stayed with her for a few minutes, rubbing her back, and she seemed ready to sleep -- until I left the room, when the crying started again. I left anyway, thinking that she'd quiet down soon, but she didn't. This was repeated several times over the next hour -- Adelaida crying whenever we weren't in the room with her, then quieting down and going to sleep when we were there.

About an hour into this process, Dale and I decided to give her some pain reliever (she is teething, so maybe her mouth hurts?) and change her diaper (not dirty, but wet, which could be bothering her?). This was apparently Adelaida's cue that it was play time. I went back to bed at this point, while Dale laid down on the floor in her room to try to sleep while she played around (and on top of) him.


After an hour, Dale decided he needed sleep, so we switched roles -- Dale slept, while I laid down in the bonus room and let Adelaida play in that room. I rarely see her as happy as she was in the middle of the night -- she was dancing, and playing with her puzzles, and putting plastic rings on her arms, and laughing so much! It's unfortunate that this was all happening between 12:30am and 2:30am! I laid down on the sofa and tried to sleep, but it is hard to sleep when you are laying down and a toddler runs up to you, pokes you in the eye, and loudly declares "ee-ye." She also found my nose ("noooo") and mouth (she open her mouth and says "aah" to mean mouth) and hair ("ha-eyre," accompanied by Adelaida pulling my hair). After a very long hour, I tried to put Adelaida down to bed again. She cried for about a minute when I left the room, but ended up sleeping the rest of the night, and well into the morning (we finally woke her up at 8:00, to help prevent another occurrence of last night's lack of sleep).

We had planned to take Adelaida swimming today, but last night's lack of sleep coupled with a late nap today (she again didn't want to sleep and kept climbing out of bed!) prompted us to change our plans for the day, and we all three napped this afternoon!

Tonight has been normal so far -- bed at 7:10, and she went right to sleep without fussing at all. We're getting ready to go to bed now, looking forward to an uninterrupted night of sleep!

Getting taller

This picture, taken last September, has always been one of my favorites of Adelaida. She couldn't walk yet but loved to stand, and we often stood her up in front of this walker. I caught her looking at me, smiling, with her dress falling off one shoulder.


Last week, Adelaida was playing in the living room, in front of the same walker (she now walks well and was dragging the walker from one area to another so she could distribute the blocks throughout the house), wearing the same dress. I thought back to the picture from September and knew I had to get a photo!


Did you notice that her dress is ankle-length in September but knee-length in June? Adelaida is getting taller!

Adelaida is a year and a half old!

This is the most recent pink-panther-picture of Adelaida, who is now eighteen months old and unmistakably longer than Pink Panther!



It is hard to notice, day to day, how much Adelaida is growing. But, when I look at pictures of her as a newborn, I realize just how big she has become! Below are pictures of Adelaida from newborn, three months, six months, nine months, twelve months, and fifteen months:

newborn


three months


six months


nine months


twelve months


fifteen months


eighteen months

Vacation in California, part 3

The remainder of our California vacation involved small get-togethers with our close friends.

We spent Saturday afternoon with the Johnsons and Roccas at a backyard pool party (with several of Connor's friends from school).

Adelaida didn't care much for the inflatable pools and water slides, but she got a permanent smile on her face when they brought out the bubble machine!


This is one of my favorite pictures of Adelaida from this trip, completely happy surrounded by bubbles.


Liz and Matt, with Connor sporting his goggles in the foreground.


We also spent some time at a park near our hotel, hoping that if we tired Adelaida out at the park, she'd be ready for a nap. We were wrong.

Adelaida likes the slide.


Once I demonstrated for her, Adelaida really enjoyed crawling through the tunnel (with her hat off, of course!).


She made it through the tunnel!


Fun on the swings


Sunday afternoon was a traditional Philippino feast, hosted by the Williamses. It lasted long into the night, although some of us probably don't remember that late :)

Connor found a luggage cart and thought it would be fun to push it around the driveway. Adelaida thought it would be fun to sit in it.


Connor's turn to sit on the cart.


A rare face shot of Adelaida, with red sauce all over her face.