Our Summer Vacation

You know you've been gone too long when worried e-mails start coming in from friends, inquiring after your health.

For the record: I'm healthy. Lo Gung is healthy. BBJ is healthy. Baby Boy is healthy. We are all still upstanding, active members of the Church. We still love all of our friends. We aren't (really) hiding.

There. I feel better. How about you?

Welcome, my friends to the End of Summer. How do I know it is the End of Summer? Well, for starters, Lo Gung, BBJ and I just returned from a REAL vacation, after flying on a REAL airplane to a REAL vacation destination! We had REAL fun and Lo Gung got a REAL tan. (Yeah, I know - it's hard for someone with dark skin. Let's just say he now very closely resembles a red potato! A VERY dark red potato. We're still waiting for some of the burn to fade!)

Come to think of it, it might be the End of the World, not just of Summer...Lo Gung invited friends over for a BBQ on Labor Day. My little introvert is all grown up and throwing parties! *sniff* If I don't post next week, you'll know it wasn't Lo Gung at all, and New England has fallen to the invading Aliens.

Anyways...where was I? Oh, right. Vacation. In honor of the anonymity that is so precious in the Blogosphere, I will simply refer to our destination as The Lake, somewhere near the Pacific Northwest. Vague enough, Wonder Woman? (However, I will add that if any of you are located in the Pacific Northwest and would like tips on an AMAZING vacation destination for next summer....e-mail me. We'll chat. ;-))

Since the people who would want a blow-by-blow account of the vacation were, you know, ON vacation with us, I'll give you just the highlights.

(Grandma didn't actually come to the Lake House with us, but we did get to go visit with her, twice, which was really great!)

On Monday, we loaded two adults, one 11 pound car seat, two carry-ons and a 28 pound toddler into a small plane, going out of a small airport. (One perk of a small airport - no lines, EVER. Getting luggage off the carousel is a SNAP as there are never more than 30 pieces of luggage on any one flight!)

We had a quick stop-over in Atlanta and then got onto a bigger plane for another flight. A flight that was much longer.

I should add at this point that BBJ took no naps that day. None. Not even for a minute. What she DID do was demand, somewhere over South Dakota, that Daddy open the door and Let. Her. Off. When we explained that opening the door and getting off the plane 30,000 feet in the air was not possible, she let loose. She was screaming, writhing, punching...basically just getting it all out. (When no naps are available, a ten minute melt-down seems to work wonders on our little girl's nerves!)

We made it to our Pacific Northwest destination in one piece, got our rental car and spent the evening at my parents' house. (A side note for Mommies traveling with milk-drinking babies - it IS possible for the flight attendants to heat a bottle for you. If they don't know how to do it, request that a carton of milk be placed in an airsick bag with enough hot water to cover it. After about 5 minutes, the milk should be the right temperature to put into said Toddler's bottle. Just a tip. Alright - moving on.)

We spent Tuesday - Sunday at the Lake House. Oh my goodness - what FUN, y'all! Seriously. My Dad worked so hard to make sure that everyone had so much FUN they couldn't move a muscle the next day.

We were boating. We were swimming, in the lake and in the multiple pools. (Have any of you ever wondered why little baby life vests have those big ol' pads behind the kids' heads? We got BBJ a life vest WITHOUT that pad, because she was so close to the weight limit between the one with the pad and the one without at the store...we thought it more prudent to go up two pounds. The thing I DIDN'T notice was that the jacket with the head pad ALSO lacked foam on the BACK of the jacket...while the jacket we got had foam all the way around. What does this mean? When my toddler waded into the lake past, oh, her waist the small waves picked her up and deposited her FACE DOWN in the water, since the back and front of the jacket were equally "floaty." Lesson learned.)

We were jet skiing. (Read: Those of us who aren't pregnant were jet skiing.) We were tubing. (Ok, I'll admit - I got this prego little body into a tube and idled down the lake. I couldn't resist!) There were tennis matches, tennis warm up matches, tennis games and tennis Throw-Downs.

My Mom and Dad took the two little girls for a day so my two sisters, my husband and one of my brothers and I could head up to my Grandfather's cabin for the afternoon. (Lo Gung had never seen it - it's sort of an initiation in our family. If the mosquitoes don't carry you away, you can stay!)

(The view on the way to Grandpa's cabin - My grandfather maintains that the North Cascade Highway is the prettiest stretch of road in the country. I haven't seen a New England fall yet...but he says I don't need to, since it's just like the North Cascades, but with more people.)

Dad finally succeeded in breaking EVERYONE down on Saturday, in honor of Lo Gung's birthday - he rented a boat, a tube, a wake board and two jet skis. We had these things all. Day. Long. At dinner time, we returned all the rented things and all the guys hit the tennis courts.

Oh, and we celebrated a few birthdays, too. We celebrated BBJ's (a month early) and we celebrated Lo Gung's (two days early.) (Happy birthday, Lo Gung!) I think the highlight of this trip, for Lo Gung, was a new tennis racket from Grandpa D. (Did I ever mention that Lo Gung LOVES to play tennis? No? Well, let me tell you now - the man loves tennis and plays every chance he can get! More on that later.)

(He's trying to put the bug in her early!)

A few more pics from the Lake House...




(I made matching dresses for BBJ, Cousin Ernie and Baby MiMi (she's the one still in Wonder Woman's tummy...but we all wish she'd come out and say hi already!))


(My Mom had too much fun doing the girls up in braids...every single day. She laid some sort of spell on BBJ so she wouldn't pull the braids out after 5 minutes! I sure wish she'd teach it to me...)

We spent the last two days of our vacation back at my parents' house, getting our fill of all the Asian foods we can't seem to find as readily out here. (Before you start in, I KNOW I can find all these things in Chinatown in NYC, or in a fabulous little market about twenty miles from here...the thing is I miss being able to WALK to all these places and have all these options!) Our to-do list for our vacation went something like this:

- Korean Kimchee Soup

- Sushi

- Bubble Tea

- Thai curry and noodles

We checked everything off the list, and then some! I stopped by a Ranch 99 market and picked up some Moon Cakes , a jar of seasoned nori packets and a sleeve of Digestive Biscuits. (Yeah, I know that last one is an English thing, but they're really popular in Hong Kong, super filling..and I thought they'd be good on the plane.)

The night before we left, Wonder Woman threw a birthday party for Lo Gung and invited all of the friends we could round up. (Thanks, Wonder Woman!) We had a yummy dinner, a bit of birthday cake, and a lot of laughs. It was a great way to round out our trip "home."

On Wednesday morning, we all woke up at 3:30 (yes, really) and caught a 6 am flight. (How on EARTH did BBJ know it was time to get up? She woke up at 3:23 and followed us around while we loaded our packed luggage into the car.) This flight went MUCH better. We decided to just check BBJ's car seat, as she hadn't used it at all on the flight out. She stretched out on her seat and took a nap somewhere en route to Atlanta and played for the remainder of the flight. She was still bored, but she wasn't off the wall like the last flight! The flight was fairly smooth.

(BBJ had ketchup for dinner at a diner in the Atlanta airport. Not really...but pretty close.) (Oh, and Tonggu Momma, do you see her outfit? Do you see what I let her travel in? She INSISTED, the night before, on putting her dress back on OVER her PJs. Since I had already decided to have her travel in her PJs (no toddler should be dressed at 3:30 in the morning!!) I just added the cardigan for a little more warmth....and there you have it. I promised you a post on my toddler's weird dressing habits...this is just a TASTE of the outfits we've seen this month. The best is yet to come!)

She fell asleep in the car on the way home from the airport, around 7:15, and stayed that way (after a quick transfer to her crib) until about 6:30 the next morning. (Good thing she was still in her PJs! Right?)

It was a fabulous trip, and we're all happy to be home. Lo Gung needed a break from work, and all his recent travels, and I needed to see my family. We were so pleased to come back to New England to find that Fall had started without us! The days are not NEARLY as muggy as when we left, the nights are in the 50's and the leaves are all starting to lose a little of their Summer green lustre. The turn of the season has always marked the beginning of celebrations in my family (birthdays, holidays...basically just a lot of excuses to eat treats!) so I always watch anxiously for the leaves to begin to fall.