Relaxing at the Lake House

Eli and I spent a relaxing six days at the Lake House. For the beginning of the trip, Grandpa Paul (Ba-Bo), Uncle Brian (Benbi), and Grandma Sallie (Grammie or Za-Za) were there with Aunt Seana (Ah-Ya) and the two of us. For the last two days it was just Aunt Seana, Eli and me. We did most of our usual favorites (except no hike this time), but as I said before, the Lake House is getting more fun and less stressful every time we go up. Eli is getting more and more independent, and more into the different activities -- especially the water.

On Saturday, the first full day that we were up, we spent most of our day down at the little beach. Eli enjoyed watching and playing with the other kids. Once he was out of the water, it was fun for me to sit back and watch him play.




One of his favorite things to do at the Lake House is go on "Ba-Bo's Boat Ride." He loves to help drive. One day we went out with the whole family, and rode to a marina to get ice cream. Of course, every boat ride after that he thought should end with ice cream too. Uncle Brian, Grandpa Paul and I all went tubing. At first, Eli was a little concerned, he hid in Grandma Sallie's lap. I think he thought we were being tortured. But, after watching me for a while, and realizing that I was smiling and laughing, watching us tube became one of his favorite things to do on the boat.









On Saturday night, Grandma Sallie and Grandpa Paul treated us to a delicious dinner at Pazzo's. Pazzo's is a nice italian restaurant with gourmet pizzas and pastas that is a short walk down our little lane. Grandma Sallie and Grandpa Paul held Eli's hand for most of the walk and I had to include the picture even though it's a little grainy. Grammie brought a little bag of diversions for the time at the table (their service tends to be a little slow.) The hands down hit were the alphabet cards. As you can tell from the pictures, Eli loved them.





Something really nice about the Lake House is that Eli's feeling more comfortable there. Left to his own devices I think he would actually spend most of his time inside. He loves to play on the screened porch. I set up his sun shade tent again as a little play destination. He happily played with his puzzles or "What Happened?" for long stretches of time inside the tent. "What Happened?" is a Duplo game that Scott, Eli and I made up. The front of his Duplo trucks flip up to expose the engines. So, the game goes like this: we drive the trucks around, they stall, we ask, "what happened?", he says that the engine has dirt or salt in it or it's too hot, then we flip up the hoods and we use some of our "tools" to fix them. And the whole game starts again.




Eli developed a new love at the Lake House -- parmesan cheese. I think it's mostly about being able to shake it on his noodles all by himself. But, as you can see from the pictures he does get quite a bit in (or on!) his mouth.




Last summer, Eli was not very comfortable in the water. Thankfully, this summer is a very different story. I think a lot of it has to do with our frequent pool visits. It was very obvious how much differently he felt on the beach at the lake. He would "swim" up to his neck in the water. One evening we went down to the lake and Eli happily wore only his swim diaper. That night Eli loved it when Uncle Brian "threw Ewi". Additionally, his favorite water toy right now is his watering can.







The only part of the trip that wasn't relaxing was the amount and quality of sleep that Eli and I got at night. He's teething, and right now he's getting three of his two year old molars. That doesn't lend itself to much sleep. Luckily, we had some good naps.




We spent our last few days with Aunt Seana. It was a quiet, relaxing way to end our trip. We spent a lot of down time inside reading and Seana had fun "exercising with Ewi."