Happy Birthday Stella!
Monday, November 23rd, 2009 | Pictures, Yammer | No Comments
I just logged in and noticed that I never posted this entry from almost 4 months ago…Oops. Please pardon the time warp!!
Time just flies when you’re having fun. Stella is a year old already — which is just amazing. I can’t even believe that it’s been 3 months since I posted last….! We have a little family tradition that I plan a surprise trip for David’s birthday.
This year, we extended the tradition to include Stella’s birthday, and we took a trip stretching from her birthday (8/2) to David’s (8/8) and came home the 9th. My mom made plans to join us in Chicago for the month of August, so we were able to bring her on the trip as well.
This year’s mystery location was NOT the chicken dude ranch on top of a glacier I threatened them with….we went to Mackinac Island, which is a small resort island between the two pieces of Michigan, a 7-hour drive from Chicago. David likes islands, hiking, and the water in general, so this seemed like a great option.
One of the unique characteristics of Mackinac is that there are no cars on the island, but lots of very nice places to stay, eat, hike, bike, etc. Getting around requires a horse or horse-drawn carriage, a bike, or your own two feet. It made the whole environment incredibly relaxing to have no cars around.
We stayed in a two-bedroom condo unit with a view of the lake, a few miles from town — we arrived in a carriage with about 15 pieces of luggage, almost half of it food. One of the food items we hauled in was a cake mix and frosting — check youtube for a video of Stella enjoying her first piece of birthday cake with her daddy. We did a ton of walking, and we brought along a kid-packing backpack to haul the baby around. The backpack kept putting her to sleep, though, so most of the pix of her in the backpack are of a snoozing baby 
.
Mackinac has a trail around the island, which we managed to walk in pieces spread out over a couple of days (it’s 8 or 9 miles around, plus there’s the killer hike uphill and inland to our condo), toured Fort Mackinac, hung out by the water, and just generally relaxed for the week.
Stella loved the horses, usually enjoyed the rides everywhere, and she picked up a few new tricks — pointing to things all the time, and shaking her head ‘no’ very emphatically! To say no, she drops her chin into her neck and waggles her head back and forth….kinda like a horse, really…. Pop on over to the Flickr feed for more photos of our trip and our girl.
When we got home, she was eager to show us her next trick, which is to climb down stairs safely. She likes to do laps, up and down, up and down. If she holds my skirt or my hand, she can walk around a little bit, and she can stand for a long time, but no unsupported walking yet.
Youtube also has some videos of her trying to learn to walk. We figure she will figure that out soon as well, and then there will really be no stopping her in exploring the house and yard.
