At the end of May we took a week to head back to Wisconsin to see family and to get some fresh air.
For 3 days we rented a house on Vance Lake in Manitowish Waters. It was nice house, they had kayaks to explore the lake and river, and it was within walking distance to the small town. The weather was wonderful, highs close to 80 and lows in the high 50’s. Unfortunately, the mosquitoes were vicious, so we didn’t get outside as much as we would have liked!
Sonia enjoyed toddling around the house, working on mastering her new two-legged mobility. We were quickly reminded how nice it is to not have to worry about her with stairs at home. She really loves to tackle them, and right now she’s pretty good at getting up stairs, but horrible at getting down! She also picked up a new favorite “word”, fish, which she “says” by mimicking a goldfish mouth movement. :-O. I was impressed how quickly she learned that it applied to goldfish in a tank, as well as trophies mounted to the wall, and drawings in a book. It was also pretty adorable that she even started making the face when I would say a word like efficient, just because it had the right sound in it.
While Up North, we took a number of fun excursions, including:
- Hiking at the North Lakeland Discovery Center – quickly, so as to try to outrun the mosquitoes,
- Lunch at Lazy Aces Saloon in Manitowish – delightfully amazing in-house slow-cooked pulled turkey BBQ, cheese curds, and pinball 🙂
- A short stop at the Little Bohemia lodge to see the remnants of the infamous gun battle between the FBI and John Dillinger (also the set of the 2009 movie Public Enemies)
- A trip to Minocqua and the Wildwood Wildlife Park – Sonia’s first zoo experience. She seemed a little overwhelmed by it all.
Eric and I also got a night out at one of the few nice restaurants in the area – Aurora Borealis.
Back at Grandpa’s house, Sonia had fun playing in the garden and toddling around the park.
While it was a fun time, it was still a bit of a rough week for Sonia, and for us. It started off on the wrong foot when Eric and I both got food poisoning from dinner the night before we left, and so were miserable on the plane, while Sonia was more rambunctious and restless than any trip before. Thank goodness we had gotten her her own seat at least. Sonia also got a very runny nose on the second day there which continued the rest of the trip – allergies? Between that, all the new stimulation, and not getting to sleep in her own bed, Sonia was on a hair trigger all week. She started to want her lovey more and more often, and even found a name for it “yaya.”
In the end though Sonia walked away with a lot of great new experiences – literally – up and down the aisles of the plane 🙂