Summer is going way too fast!

We are really enjoying these warm summer evenings and the chance to get outside a lot. Kraig has been going mountain biking with friends every week, and Mikayla and I go on lots of walks and some jogs. We've been working on our flower and vegetable gardens (more like Kraig has, and I congratulate him on his hard work). I've got a history of killing even the hardiest plants, but with a little help from my garden savvy husband I am getting better. I even went and bought myself a beautiful hanging pot of flowers, and I kept it alive for 2 months. Just yesterday Kraig asked me, "What did you do to your hanging plant?" and I realized I hadn't watered it in 4 days. (Does anyone else have this problem?) My excuse is that Mikayla has been sick, so I've been totally focused on helping her get better. What's the deal with kids getting sick in the summertime, anyway? I thought we were all supposed to be healthy this time of year since we already dealt with wintertime and allergy season. I've decided the worst part about having a sick baby is the various forms of torture devices we have for helping them but really they look at us with a sense of betrayal and misery! So sad.....like the snot sucker...Mikayla HATES it and it's such a battle. Anyway...
We also just got back from a couple of camping trips - the first one was with our neighborhood and we went to Palisades state park. It had a beautiful lake for fishing and swimming. Kraig caught a rainbow trout and we ate it for dinner - it was tasty.


We really enjoyed the lake there. Mikayla got her first dip in open water and liked hanging out in her pack and play by the shore.



We took her out in a canoe in her little body building life vest suit, but it was her nap time and we only stayed out with her for about 5 minutes! Later we went out in the canoe for a while because our friend took care of Mikayla for us. That's the only real thing we got to do together since we had the litty bitty and couldn't exactly strap her on to the back of our mountain bikes. We decided that we completely understand why people don't go camping often with babies - too much work, too little play.
A week or so after that trip we went to our family reunion camping trip. The first day there we had a great time - Kraig and I went mountain biking through beautiful meadows, but the trail was really overgrown and it was my first time out there since getting preggo with Mikayla so it was a bit rough. I have the scrapes and bruises to prove it. But it was absolutely beautiful and very refreshing. We also went on a hike with my parents and 5 younger brothers and their families to a waterfall where we cooled off. My dad was so funny - he's usually not very loud but boy, when he got under that waterfall let's just say he YELLED and made us all laugh. After that we went to a lake and paddled around. Even though it was a fun day, Mikayla was lethargic and feverish and grouchy all day long so we were concerned that she'd gotten too much sun. We ended up going home that night to get her in a comfortable place. Turns out she had caught a virus - Hand, foot, mouth disease! Yuck. We are keeping her at home to recover...we'll probably wait a while before we go camping again......