Northwoods vacation

Our vacation this year was awesome! We all had a really great time and are still talking about it. We camped for one week up at Buckatabon Lodge and Lighthouse Inn on Lower Buckatabon Lake in Vilas County, Wisconsin. If you look on a map, the closest big town is Eagle River and the lakes are almost in the UP of Michigan. Real northwoods action. Eagles aplenty. Fishing in the morn and eve. Marshmallow roasting. Smore eating. Summer Hummer drinking. Shooting guns at the range. Water skiing around the lake. Reminiscing and reconnecting with old friends.

That's great, you say, but what did Emma do? Emma loved swinging, climbing, sliding, and swimming. She got to spend lots of quality time with Nanie and Papa who were very eager to hang out with Emma while we played volleyball or went to the shooting range. Emma surprised us all by attempting and mastering the climb up the stairs to the slide all by herself. Earlier in the summer we had turned down a neighbor's swing set sale because we thought she was too little to handle it. (What a bummer that we didn't spend the cheap, cheap price and buy the same model that Emma scaled a hundred times up north!) She only had a couple of minor slips on the wooden slats that passed for steps/rungs, and those were mostly due to the slippery conditions and not her climbing prowess.

Emma's napping and night time schedule was completely turned upside down, but she did great with the changes! After the first day of no napping and a cranky afternoon we decided to try to get her to nap on the following days. The funny thing is that she pretty much wanted to nap on the other days! So much fresh air, sunshine and exercise! On some days she napped in the bright, warm tent and on other days she slept on Nanie and Papa's bed in the cabin. (Guess where she had "the best" naps.) As for night time sleeping routine, we tried a shower with Mommy for a couple nights but we quickly gave that up as a viable alternative to nightly bath time with Daddy like we do at home. Emma did not like showering! She screamed and cried and just about thrashed around for the duration of the scrubbing and rinsing time. And then she kept it up while I dried her and put on her pre-PJ clothes, except that she added plaintive cries for Daddy with every other breath. So, she went to bed dirty on some nights. What can you do? One morning I tried a morning shower but that was no better so on another morning I stationed Steve right out the door. As soon as we were all clean I bundled Emma up in a towel and passed her off through the door. (It was a one person shower/toilet room with a direct outside door.) That at least kept the screaming portion to a minimum.

Emma had only one person her age to play with- a boy named Christian. Christian is 2 and the son of a longtime friend of the family, Jennifer. Her parents (now both passed away) were friends of my parents long before kids, and both families plus a few more used to spend many weekends a year camping together all over WI and northern IL, including summer trips to Buckatabon. Christian and Emma started off by hugging and kissing each other, which was very cute and of course not captured on film. After an accidental hug-turned-pile-up on the ground, Emma was a bit scared of him and would let him get just within reach and then turn tail and run away saying "no" the whole while. Jennifer and I went to an old time photo place in Minocqua and had their picture taken in which they look like little gangsters. It is very cute aside from the lack of a smile on Emma's part. And both of them did very well through the whole process. Hopefully they will be friends as they grow up. Although not her age, the grandson of one of the original Buck families was really great with Emma. They became very fond of each other. He would make her smile and giggle and she would let him pick her up without hesitation. (She does shy away from unfamiliar people picking her up.) His name was Logan. Still, Emma will say, "See Logan. See Christian."

One tradition of the Buckatabon trips of late was an eating adventure at Paul Bunyan's on their all-you-can-eat ribs night. So on Wednesday night we filled up one long table and a small one and tucked in for some yummy grub! Emma had fun drinking water out of the metal mug and going topless to save her shirt from certain BBQ sauce stains. She seemed to love the ribs as much as her Mommy and Daddy. Afterward, Emma watched Mommy, Daddy and their friends ride go-carts around a few local tracks. Nanie and Papa kept her safe and had fun watching her climb the decorative stone walls in the parking lot.

The first couple of days were sunny and warm, which meant that we were able to enjoy the beach. Emma was suited up in a floatation shirt and was not afraid of getting wet or floating with Mommy and Daddy. What she spent the most time doing, though, was filling up pails of water and then dumping them out- on Mommy's feet, Daddy's legs, the sand or right back in the lake. She couldn't be convinced to participate in the "water fights" that went on with Christian and his family a few feet away, which was fine with us. The water felt a bit chilly when the sun went behind the clouds!

These are just some of the Emma highlights that come to mind. There is a small hope that I cling to that when she is older she will be able to remember this vacation and tell us what her favorite parts were. It never hurts to hope!

(Picture explanations in order from top to bottom: Emma kissing a baby tree after hugging it; half nakey at Paul Bunyan's; hanging on the screen tent; swining on the big swings with Christian; pretend kayaking; playing at the beach; swinging with Nanie.