Up North

We stayed up north for a week after Christmas, but in my last post I only made it through the first couple of days.  After the fun of opening all our presents, we spent the rest of the week doing a lot of eating and relaxing!  It was a nice break for all of us. 

The weather was a little crazy - cold, then warm with rain, then back to cold.  When it wasn't raining, we managed to squeeze in some time in the snow.  Grandma and Grandpa bought Carys this sled and she had fun getting pulled around the block!

This girl loves the snow!

Of course, there was more playtime with Grandma!

We all were able to get out and do some snowshoeing out at Uncle Rich's.  We weren't sure how Carys was going to like being bundled up in the backpack, but she loved it!  (don't let the face below fool you, she always gets serious when we really want her to smile!)

After snowshoeing, we had fun hanging out with Uncle Rich for a bit, but before we went inside Carys had to check out the decorations at Grandma Bernie's next door!

She loved these guys.  She would walk up to them and laugh and wave.

Then we got inside and she discovered even more fun stuff!  Auntie Beth had so many Christmas "friends" for Carys to see that she wasn't sure where to go first, but this moose definitely ended up being her favorite!  It was so funny to watch her carry him around.  She would grunt and groan every time she tried to lift him, but still insisted on carrying him all over!   

The three of us at the bar getting some snacks! 

After snack time, Daddy and Uncle Hoon showed Carys how to bust a move!   

She had fun dancing with Daddy, but when he put her down of course she had to show them her own moves!  She loves to dance!

After hanging out for a few days, Scott and I had plans to get away and have some time to ourselves.  When the morning came for us to leave though, we were both a wreck.  It's not that we had a problem leaving her with Grandpa and Grandma, we knew she would be in great hands with them, but we just didn't like the feeling of leaving her behind. It was my first time spending the night away from her (Daddy has been on a few business trips without us).  I'm not gonna lie I was pretty excited about the opportunity to actually sleep in, but it still felt SO wrong to leave my baby.  It sounds really silly now, but it was hard!

So, after finding the courage to leave, we headed up to Marquette.  We arrived at the Landmark Inn a little too early to check in, so we had lunch in their Northland Pub.  It was so nice to have time to talk and eat without interruptions, and it didn't take us long to relax and really start enjoying each other's company.  We definitely needed the time away and I know it was good for Carys to have some quality time with her grandparents.

After lunch we checked in and found out we were staying in....    

How appropriate!

The Inn was so charming, and it was cool to stay in a beautiful, historic building.  After getting settled we took off to walk around downtown to do some shopping and exploring.  Marquette is such a beautiful city - I love it!  They have lots of cool little shops and restaurants, and a huge bookstore where of course we picked up a fun little present for our bug.  After exploring, we headed back to our room.  I took a little nap while Scott went to work out, which was perfect for both of us!  When Scott got back we were getting ready for dinner, and I got some texts from Grandpa letting us knowing that Carys was having fun.  I think he wanted to make sure we were too and knew that would help!  For dinner, I wanted to go back to the Casa Calabria.  We had eaten there a few years ago and I'll never forget the garlic bread.  It is amazing!  Seriously, when you pick up a piece it is dripping with the most amazing garlic butter I've ever tasted.  It really is a good thing that this restaurant is about 500 miles away from home, or else I could really be in some serious trouble!

After dinner, we took our dessert to go and headed back to our room.  We called it a night pretty early and just as I expected, sleeping in was amazing!  We were laughing at how old we must be getting when the best part of our vacation is sleeping! ha!  We stopped to get breakfast at the Sweet Water Cafe.  It was really busy so the service was a little slow.  We agreed it was a good thing we didn't have Carys with us - she never would have lasted!  When the food finally arrived though, it was worth the wait...so good!  After all that food, we decided we needed to get out and get some exercise, so we headed to Presque Isle to do some snow shoeing.  It felt good to be outside and like always, Lake Superior was beautiful.    

 

It was probably about 40 degrees out and had actually been raining off and on, but we were still shocked when we saw two guys kayaking in the frigid water!  That would be a little too crazy for me!

After snowshoeing, we were anxious to hit the road and get back to see Carys.  She had had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa and when we walked in she walked us right over to her toys and started playing like we never left!  Then we rang in the New Year with Grandma and Grandpa...well, we all said Happy New Year to each other a few hours early and then went to bed, so nothing too exciting there!  After that, it was time to head home.  We had a really great time, and it was a much needed get away for us after the crazy hours Scott had worked over the holidays.  We were bummed that we didn't get to see more of Scott's extended family, but hopefully we'll see everyone when we head up again this summer!