Looking at Mommy at our long stop
Playing with a toy Auntie Jen gave him
When we got to the driveway, we took Caleb out of his carseat and put him on Steve's lap to "drive" up the driveway. Our tradition is to honk the horn as we go up the driveway so everyone knows we are coming and we wanted Caleb to be a part of that!
The only people who were already there were Aunt Toni and Uncle Terry and Shawn and Camille and the kids. This is the first time I ever got there before my parents. They left Thursday around 6:30 pm but stopped for the night in Bangor. They arrived about 6:30 on Friday evening. We spent Friday unpacking and setting our cabin up. Caleb needed a nap while Steve was unpacking, so I just held him on my lap in the big cabin and he slept for half an hour.
After we were unpacked, I could tell Caleb was still tired, so I laid him down and he ended up sleeping for another 2 hours, which was great, because Steve and I took a little nap too. We went to bed early Friday night and were pretty rested by the next morning. Rad and Jen and Devin and Leigh and their family had arrived in the middle of the night Friday night, so we got to see them the next morning. Aunt Toni made a nice lunch for all of us and then Caleb took a nap and then I fed him and we went to our favorite walk location - Little Anse. Here is what Caleb looked like during his nap, although it only lasted 30 minutes.
He did fall asleep in the bjorn on the way back to the car, about 3 minutes before we got back. He woke up when I transferred him to his car seat, but then went back to sleep, so we drove the long way home so he could sleep at least half an hour, because he always wakes up when we stop the car. When we got back, Alison and Heath and Tyson and Westin had arrived, so we were excited! Shannon and Sean and Finley and baby Griffin arrived later that evening to complete our group! It was a small group this year (although still 28 people) because Corey and her family couldn't come because she is due to give birth on August 27, Ricky & Ana couldn't come, and none of the Walls could come. We missed them all very much, but were happy for those who were there!
Sunday was the day that Jen and I cooked the meal for everyone. We take turns making one meal a day that we all eat together and then we are on our own for the rest of the meals. Jen and I pretty much make the same meal every year - swiss enchiladas, peas, orange almond salad, and nectarine dessert. It is always a hit, which is why we don't switch it up. We like to bring all of our food up with us and cook one of the first days so we don't have to go to the grocery store while we are there. It is so nice to get the cooking out of the way on the first day as well so we can enjoy the rest of the week! Some of the men put the raft in on Sunday, which we always enjoy the rest of the week. Sunday night I finally played Dutch Blitz with Alison and Leigh. We really missed Corey, who is usually our 4th person. She better never have to miss Nova Scotia again!!
Sunday afternoon there was a game of croquet that happened right in front of our cabin, so Caleb and I sat on a blanket and watched. It was a beautiful afternoon.
The dogs love to just lay in the sun
Steve showing Caleb baby Griffin
Finley Mae
Holding Baby Griffin
Trying to crawl, but he kind of goes backwards
Bode loves to golf just like Devin
Matching mommy and son
It is hard to remember exactly what happened on every day, so I will just try to remember the best I can. I do remember that I was starting to try to unswaddle Caleb completely at all sleeping times, not just at night. He did pretty good the first couple of days when I put him back to sleep in the morning. However, his naps were only lasting about 30 minutes and I was not excited. It is impossible to get him to take 2 naps a day in his crib, so usually I ended up getting him to sleep while nursing him later in the day. Late Monday morning there was a kayak race. I decided not to participate, but most other people did. The teams had been picked randomly, although the men and women had been separated, and there was one team that seemed to be the favorite with a lot of the younger people. Well, as it goes in our family that is so competitive, there was a major controversy, because the paddle that the younger team was using was not put together correctly, so they seemed to be at a disadvantage. Halfway through the race, they had to stop and try to put it back together, but then the other team caught up to them, even after stopping for awhile. After the paddle was put back together, they started over with the remaining team members and the older team ended up winning, but of course it was under protest! Here are some pictures from this memorable event!
Rad started out not headed in the right direction!
Putting the paddle together correctly
The "technical" winners
Right before Finley peed on Heath
My handsome boys!
Love this picture my mom took
Since I didn't participate in the kayak race, I wasn't in my bathing suit, but Steve was, so I just stripped Caleb and he went in with Steve for a little while because it was so nice. Then it was nap time and I'm not sure how it went because all of the days are jumbled together. Probably not too great! Monday night was the Bachelorette finale and several of us girls wanted to see it, but of course we don't have TV access up there, so Leigh thought it would be fun to get a motel room and watch it all together. We thought it would make a great memory, so that's what we did. There were 9 of us girls plus Rad and Griffin. Leigh had negotiated with the motel staff since we would only need the room for 3 hours and it only cost $50. We went to the Spud Wagon before hand and got snacks and we just had a good time. The outcome of the show was a little unexpected and disappointing, but we still had a great time and definitely made a memory.
Steve, of course, stayed home with Caleb who had gone to bed right before I left, and he did great and didn't wake up at all while I was gone.
Tuesday morning some people left pretty early to go stake out a camping site on the Cabot Trail. We had decided not to go camping but were going to drive out there for the day and then come home that night. Since we didn't need to stake out a camping spot, we didn't end up leaving until about 11:30. We thought it was about a 2 maybe 2 1/2 hour trip, but it ended up being close to 3 and I was not too thrilled to be in the car that long when we could have been enjoying ourselves back at our cabins. Caleb took two 20 minute naps in the car. Both times he woke up because we stopped the car. It is pretty annoying that he won't stay asleep when we stop! We eventually stopped for lunch when we were almost there and it was very nice to get out of the car.
After eating, we continued on to a hiking trail called the Sunrise Trail. We had the dogs with us and there was a sign that said no dogs allowed, but we didn't want to leave them in the car, so we brought them with us anyway. About 10 minutes into our walk, we ran into someone official who reiterated there were no dogs allowed because of so many moose in the area, so Steve went back to the car with the dogs and stayed with them and read a book while we continued on.
I started out carrying Caleb in the baby bjorn but knew I was going to be in trouble, especially since Steve was no longer with us. My dad offered to carry Caleb for awhile, so that was very helpful. I don't think I could have physically done it the whole way because it ended up being a 5 mile walk, round-trip, which is longer than I had remembered it being (we had done the walk a few years ago). It probably would have been too long for the dogs too, so it is probably a good thing they went back to the car (although we missed Steve). It was a beautiful walk and we enjoyed ourselves a lot.
On the way back, I carried Caleb because I knew he was tired and I wanted to get him to go to sleep. We started out all together but then saw a moose and people wanted to stop and look for awhile, but Caleb was getting antsy, so my dad and I walked back together. Caleb did go to sleep and slept about 30 minutes (the walk was at least 45 or 50 minutes) and I was dying from carrying him so long and so my dad carried him again when he woke up. When we got back to the car, I took this cute picture of Caleb in the front seat holding Steve's keys.
After everyone else got back, we drove back to the campground for awhile before heading back to our cabins. There is a nice overlook on the way back to the campground, so we stopped and took a few pictures.
The Braces were back at the campground as well, but the Copsey clan was still out on the Sunrise Trail because they had gotten a later start than us. It ended up that the Copseys got back to the campground just a little while before we left to go back, but oh well. Here are a few pictures from the campground, which is right on the water and so beautiful. There are also a few pictures that Aunt Toni took of her family on the Sunrise Trail.
We left a little after 8:00 to go back to our cabins and got there close to 11:00. Caleb did well and slept most of the way back, which I was happy about. I was very happy to get back, because it had been a long day and a lot of driving, but we saw very beautiful sights.
So, Wednesday was kind of quiet since more than half of the people had stayed and camped (the Edwards and Uncle Terry also came back late Tuesday night). Most of them also decided to continue driving on the Cabot Trail instead of coming right back. Shawn and Camille did come back early afternoon, but the rest didn't get back until the evening. Since there wasn't a lot going on, Jen and I went out for a little while to make up a scavenger hunt for later in the week. That is a tradition that we do usually every year. Some years it is a photo scavenger hunt, sometimes it is a physical scavenger hunt, and sometimes we do a road rally. This year we decided to do a combination of a photo scavenger hunt and some questions that they had to answer. In the afternoon, we did go out on the lake and Caleb had a blast. He really seems to love the water, which is great, since we live on Cape Cod! Because so many people were gone, our meal was canceled for the day so we were on our own for eating. Wednesday night we went to the Spud Wagon to get some food (ice cream and appetizer-type food) and my parents stayed home and listened on the monitor for Caleb, but he was ok. Here are a few random pictures from Wednesday.
Thursday morning Steve went golfing with some of the other men. They had to leave around 7:00, which was fine, since Caleb had been waking up around 6:00 most mornings. After Steve left and I had to put Caleb back to bed it was kind of a struggle for him to go back to sleep and then he only slept half an hour and I was so frustrated because I had wanted to go back to sleep and I really couldn't (most of the other mornings he did really well going back to sleep). When I brought Caleb into the house and was talking about how he didn't sleep very well, my mom took him from me for a little while so I could have a break and she discovered that he was getting his first tooth! I can't believe I didn't notice!! It had been white for awhile, but you couldn't feel it. Well, that morning, you could see it and feel it, so maybe that was bothering him and that's why he didn't go back to sleep for very long.
Before Daddy left for golfing
What they were doing when Grammy discovered the tooth
Anyway, Steve had a great time golfing and said he would have regretted not going. Because Caleb had been up earlier than usual that morning, he was showing signs of being tired earlier than usual as well, so I didn't want to take any chances that it would be a 30 minute nap and I swaddled him and he slept 2 hours. So, I decided that there is really no harm in continuing to swaddle him for nap times and I am going to just keep doing that as long as I can. I will continue to unswaddle him at night so he gets used to it. So, Caleb was asleep when Steve got back from golfing, but this is when he woke up.
Shortly after he got up from his nap we put him in a little pool play area that Devin had brought up for Bode and the other kids. He had a lot of fun.
After our main meal of the day, we then went swimming in the lake with most of the group. Again, Caleb had a great time and loved splashing around.
Thursday evening just before Caleb's bedtime, we had Shawn do a photo shoot with us down by the lake. Shawn takes awesome pictures and we wanted some good family pictures. Caleb was not as cooperative with the smiling as I would have liked, because he constantly wanted to put his fingers in his mouth (darn that tooth!), but hopefully Shawn got some good shots. I am looking forward to seeing them.
Steve found a snake in the pathway on the way down to the lake
Before the photo shoot
One of the things that was done this year was to build a new walkway. Our old one was so bad that we were actually telling the kids not to walk on it because it was dangerous. My parents decided to sponsor the project and Sean Frost and my dad did most of the work. Heath also made the new steps. Here are a couple of pictures. It turned out really great and I am so happy it was done since Caleb will be walking next year!
On Friday we woke up and it was kinda rainy, so we knew it would be an indoor day. Luckily, it didn't rain all day, though. We did our scavenger hunt in the afternoon before our meal. A lot of people ended up not participating for various reasons, which was a little disappointing, but the ones who played had a great time. The team that won was my dad, Aunt Toni, Shawn, and Camden.
Friday night there was a bonfire outside, but many of us actually didn't even go out to it. We decided to go to bed at a reasonable time since we would be driving all night on Saturday night. Also, I didn't think our monitor would get good reception out at the fire. That is one of the main complaints I have is that it was really hard to get service on our monitor in the main cabin. It seemed like other people's did better than ours, so I'm not sure what the problem was. We made it work, but sometimes I had to put the monitor in a weird location just because I got service there.
So, Sabbath was our last day there, which is always sad. It poured like crazy on Friday night and Sabbath morning, which wasn't too bad, because we had really great weather other than that and a little rain earlier on Friday. The days were all nice and sunny and the nights were cool, perfect for sleeping. It was probably one of the best weather weeks we have had in awhile.
We had our own little Sabbath School and church and Aunt Melanie did a little story time for the kids during the adult church time.
Usually we do a potluck lunch on Sabbath, but Shannon and Camille cooked because they were the ones that were supposed to cook the day everyone was on the Cabot Trail. After lunch, most people were finishing up packing because almost everyone was leaving Saturday evening or night except for Alison and Heath and all the parents. Here are a few pictures from Sabbath before everyone left.
We also attempted a little photo shoot with Caleb and Westin, because most of the pictures I had gotten during the week were just of them candidly playing on the floor, etc. and I wanted some good ones.
Those ones on the couch bring back memories, because that couch has been around for so many years and we have pictures like that of us on that couch as babies, so it is cool to have the next generation posing on the same couch.
Rad & Jen and Shawn & Camille were the first to leave. They left together because Rad and Jen decided to stay at Shawn & Camille's house Saturday night instead of going all the way home. Devin & Leigh, Shannon & Sean and us all left around 8:30. Caleb had done so well on the way up that I was assuming he would do just as good on the way home. Boy, was I wrong. I started out driving again because I didn't want to be driving in the middle of the night and Caleb fell asleep pretty quickly but then was pretty unsettled. He started out waking up every half hour or so and fussing and Steve would put the pacifier in and he would go back to sleep. Then he started crying more and sleeping less. I ended up driving all the way to the border, which is 400 miles, and by the time we got to the border around 2:45, Caleb was crying quite a bit. We decided to stop for awhile and I tried to feed him, I changed his diaper and I put him in cooler pajamas since he gets hot in his car seat. I was hoping one of those things would help him, because I really wanted to sleep since I had been driving all night. Well, he was still very upset when we got rolling again. Eventually he went back to sleep for about an hour but then was awake crying again. We stopped at a rest stop in Maine around 5:00 and again I fed him, changed him, and we just kept him out of his car seat for awhile but he was still fussy. We were at that rest stop for over an hour and finally, after that stop, he slept for an hour and a half or two hours, which was great, because he needed it. I mean, the whole time he was fussing, he had his eyes closed because he wanted to be sleeping, but it was like something was preventing him from sleeping. We got home around 9:30, which was about 14 hours after we left and we easily had 2 hours of stops, so I would say we made pretty good time when we were actually driving. Needless to say, we were all very happy to be home and Caleb actually slept 4 hours later in the day, so that was great.
He finally gave in to sleep!
I will close with several more pictures. All in all, it was a great vacation and I can't wait for next year!
I got some great early morning shots from when I would get up to feed Caleb and go in to the main cabin to use the bathroom
Playing our favorite game - Dutch Blitz!
More Dutch Blitz! - Miss you Corey!!
5 of the 6 Copsey grandchildren - baby Griffin is not pictured
These two are trouble!
This picture needs an explanation - this is Acadia's doll Emily. She loved to put Emily in all of the baby things - the Johnny jumpup, the high chair, the bouncer, etc. You never knew where Emily would show up and it especially creeped Uncle Terry out.
The older boys
Until next year Nova Scotia! Thanks for the good times!
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your blog! I've been waiting to read it so I could get the details on the week. I HATED to miss it but reading about it makes me feel a little better at least. I lived vicariously through your blog! Anyway, I loved it all. I will NOT miss being there again.
ReplyDeleteGreat blog Kel!! What a great time we had!! The pictures were fantastic & just warning you, I have already stolen quite a few for my blog!! (= I'm sorry to hear that Caleb was fussy on the way back! I hope he won't be a bad night traveler like my 2 are!!!!
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