This is the first year ever where I have sat down to make summer vacation plans ahead of time, other than for our yearly trip to Utah. It began when I realized there is a possibility this will be our last summer living in Washington and we really haven't explored all that much. (We could be here a few more summers, but we are always keeping our ears open for Utah jobs.) There are quite a few nearby beautiful places on our list we haven't seen yet, including Mt. Rainier, Olympic National Park, Forks, Victoria Canada, and Seabrook. It feels like we were constantly exploring when we lived in Wyoming but we haven't as much here, even though there is more to see here. We are chalking it up to me being pregnant/sick and us having a car-hating newborn for most of the time we've lived here. This summer is our time to make it happen, so realizing that vacation rentals fill up FAST, I started considering all our options for a low-key 2-night Washington family trip.
Our first plan was to rent a rustic cabin on Mt. Rainier. But in June it can still be snowy there, in July we will be in Utah, and August is an expensive month to rent on Mt. Rainier. Plus Alice is at an age where we likely wouldn't be able to hike much. So we ditched that plan and shifted our focus to Olympic National Park. We found a cute little lake with some VRBO lake houses to rent near the park entrance. But this vacation option would require a LOT of driving. It would take 3-4 hours to get there from our house, and then each day would require hours of driving to see all we want to see in that part of Washington. Alice isn't ready for that kind of vacation and it would likely be miserable. So we pivoted to something not on our exploration list at all but that I'm really excited about: a staycation on a small lake 10 minutes from our house.
Staying in a house right on a little lake with a private dock is at the very top of my Washington must-do list. Although I initially thought it would be nice to stay on a lake in a new area of Washington so we could combine the lake experience with exploring somewhere new, I realized that with young kids, staying at a home base will give everyone the best chance at being able to actually relax and enjoy ourselves. We can hang out on the dock while Alice naps, play on the beach and take turns paddle boarding, and if for some reason Alice has a terrible time sleeping in a new location at night, we won't have to abandon the trip or be sleepless zombies--we can just have one of us zoom home for her to sleep at night and then zoom back first thing in the morning. It's a peaceful little lake I have always loved. Very excited to have a baby-friendly family trip on the docket for this summer.
We are also working out the logistics to book a one-night stay in a fancy spa hotel in the mountains to celebrate our 10-year anniversary a year late. 10 years just came at a weird time with a nursing baby, and we still don't feel comfortable leaving Alice longer than a night or two. So instead of a long or exotic anniversary trip, we're going to do a short but fancy one somewhere we'd never be able to justify the price on otherwise, but in the name of "10 year anniversary trip" it will be a really cool experience. (You can look up "Posthotel Leavenworth" if you're curious. It's giving "Harry Potter Prefect Bathroom" vibes and that's why we picked it haha. It's also in a Bavarian town, and since we met in German class and honeymooned in Germany, this option felt cute for our 10-year anniversary.)
It will be good to have something to look forward to each month of our summer this year. Last summer dragged onnnnn and onnnn and was kind of brutal to be honest. We'll see if planning out some trips and a one-week sports camp for Jack will be the magic recipe for a happier summer. As always, I'll keep you posted.
Happy spring! We are starting to get blossoms and buds on our trees and bushes. We even had temperatures in the 70s over the weekend. Most of the forecast for this next week is low 50s with constant rain so I'm going to bask in the last day or two of sunshine we have. Nothing crazy to report from our week. Jared has a really nasty cough that he can't seem to kick. I can't remember a winter when he's had so many annoying little constant sicknesses. Jack and Alice are great and adorable. I thrifted my first giant original painting. It's not signed and the frame is seriously awful (plastic that looks like fake orangey wood, nailed right into the canvas). But the painting itself is really lovely. It's moody earth tones of a river winding through a forest and reminds me of Granite Falls where we live. Eventually I'll get it reframed and it will live in our entryway. Anyway, here are some pictures from our week:
^^Alice blowing a kiss in her adorable new spring dress on Sunday
Daylight savings! We did it. We saved the daylight. I'm happy that I can take Savvy dog for a walk while it's still light outside now instead of the creepy damp dark walks I've been doing for the past 4 months. Jared usually gets home from work kind of late (but he only works 4 days a week so it's a tradeoff). By the time he gets home it's a quick dinner and then the kids' bedtime. Jared does bedtime so he can have a little time with the kids while I take Savvy dog for her walk.
The first week or two of this month, Jack was having a really rough time with sleep, which hasn't happened in years so it caught us off-guard. He was scared and would call out to us all evening until he fell asleep, and then he'd wander into our room sometime after midnight every night, scared, and spend the rest of the night with us. It got bad enough that Jared was having to lay in Jack's room until he fell asleep, which could take a while. This last week I had an epiphany and offered to take over the nightly "check-ins" instead of Jared and it immediately fixed the problem. When Jack was having his last bout of sleep issues nearly three years ago, what finally fixed it was doing regular check-ins (every 15 minutes in the beginning, then every 20 minutes, and finally every 30 minutes for the past two years). It's usually between 1 and 3 checks before he's asleep so not a huge deal. Jared would do the weekday check-ins, and I would do bedtime and check-ins on the weekends. When it's my turn, I always have Jack help me set a phone timer so I can be right on time for the next check. He has a clock in his room he can see from his bed, with dots at the 15, 30, 45, and 60 minute marks. This helps him to visualize when he'll see mom or dad again (on the top dot and bottom dot).
Unfortunately, Jared has historically been kind of spotty about his check-ins. He has a harder time remembering to set his timer, or check a clock to be there on time. It's been a sticking point because not only is it frustrating for Jack, but it's frustrating for ME because when it happens multiple times Jack will get scared and leave his room to go looking for someone. Usually it's me he goes looking for, and then I basically have to do bedtime all over again when it's supposed to be my evening off. So anyway, Jack was getting deeper into this cycle of being scared alone in his room in the evenings and in the middle of the night, and it occurred to me that since he's still so young, having the routine of one of us being there reliably when we said we would be there might be more important than we realized (Jack's typically pretty flexible as far as routines go, but he's still just a young guy and having some reliability in a day is important for him). So we tried switching things up for a week--instead of Jared doing bedtime and check-ins on weekdays and me doing both on weekends, now Jared is doing bedtime every night and I am doing check-ins every night. Again, this fixed the problem pretty much immediately, and we'll continue with this pattern until it's time to tweak again. I love a quick parenting win.
Well that was a long sleep tangent. Maybe it can help someone who has a young kid with sleep issues. The check-in method has helped us out of rough bedtime phases multiple times now. Worth a try. In Alice news, baby girl is communicating better and better every week. She is obsessed with the web swing we installed in Jack's playroom for his birthday. No real swing-related injuries so far, but we're going to put a hook on the ceiling to hang it up when both the kids are home together. They do great with the swing one at a time, but when they're both in there the chances of little bumps and toddler fits go up. Very cute when they're both on there and I'm pushing them, but if I can't be in there to supervise it feels dicey. It's been a fun week though. We love our happy babies.
We are battling off some residual sicknesses that have been running rampant through our town this week. On the plus side, that has meant a couple sick days for Jared, and it's been so nice to have him around at home. On the minus side, he had to flake out on the Party Dad birthday party he set up for Jack and I had to jump in and make the cake, manage the party, entertain the parents (we were hoping we'd reached the age where parents would just drop off their kids, but two parents opted to stay mostly because they were worried their kids would tear our house apart without their supervision). Jack had fun so we're calling it a success, but Jared has gotten sick the last several Februaries so next time I'm going to push for a fun little birthday trip instead of a friend party. We have a hard time making family trips happen anyway (other than visiting family in Utah), so it could be a good two-birds-one-stone strategy.
Jack impresses us often. He can be a handful at home, but after spending time in primary and at his birthday party and witnessing how truly wild most of his peers become in public/social settings, I find myself counting my blessings that we really never worry about that with Jack. He is wonderful at church, and he was given an award at school for being the most respectful and quiet in his class while they had a substitute all last week. As a submissive people-pleaser peace-keeper of a child (and adult) myself, it is an absolute joy to watch this respectfulness go hand-in-hand with a strong sense of assertiveness for Jack when he's out in the world. At his football practices he's great at following instructions but he's also unafraid to ask a coach, "Can I run the ball first?" His bus driver gave each child a small toy as they got off the bus on leap day, and though Jack is pretty quiet on his bus and in school settings, he was unafraid to ask the driver, "Could I have an extra one to give my little sister?" When the bus driver smiled but said no, he was completely unfazed and got off the bus happy as ever, excited to show me. I just really love that he's never afraid to ask for what he wants, in a respectful way, and that he stays cool no matter the response. I'm sure he will carry this trait into adulthood and I love that for him. I'm taking notes for myself.
Alice is the cutest, funnest age. Jared and I both really enjoy the stage around 18 months. It is difficult for many reasons, but it is also the time when personalities start to shine and communication starts creeping in more. Alice is attempting more words (our favorite is "dip! dip!" as she dips whatever she's eating in a sauce). She'll often attempt the first two letters of a word when prompted. She'll point at a balloon and say, "buh!" or a ball and say, "ba," or a duck and say, "duh!" She has good understanding when we ask her to do something and seems to have developed a pretty good understanding of "yes" and "no." She'll nod her head "yes" when she means it and shake her head "no" as well when she doesn't want something. She can name and ask for anyone in the family ("Mama, Dada, Dah [for Jack], Ali, and ah-ee [Savvy]).
Alice will bring me the tv remote and start dancing if she wants me to turn on some dancing music. And she LOVES music and dancing. My favorite is when she squeezes her eyes shut and moves her lips open and closed to pretend she's singing along with a song. I also love when she approaches each of us one at a time with her arms up, squeezing her fists open and closed to indicate that she wants us to pick her up and dance with her. Even Jack will participate and she LOVES his jerky dancing with her. She often has her face set in her trademark offset lower lip, and she does these slurpy sounds to "talk" to us. Probably 90% of her language seems to be slurps and grunts. She also loves books. If I'm sitting on the ground she will often find and hand me a book and then plop herself into my lap for me to read to her. She is all kinds of adorable.
