Weekend in the Finger Lakes

We went to the Finger Lakes last weekend to celebrate me turning thirty. Around these parts, we turn thirty with some degree of fanfare. Mark went to Montreal, and I chose the Finger Lakes in upstate/western New York. We had never been before, and it was quite beautiful and charming! We rented a cute little house on Cayuga Lake, 25 miles north of Ithaca, through vrbo.com and spent the weekend lakeside.

Our friends, Owen and Anna, came down for a night from Rochester to visit and take us on a hike to Buttermilk Falls. It was great to meet their little baby, Danton, who just turned one. I have never seen a baby that young with so much hair! He is adorable. The funny thing about Owen and Anna is this: every time we see them we go on some sort of hike, which always ends up much bigger than Mark and I originally envisioned. I guess our idea of hiking is walking the gravel path to the site. Pathetic, I know. Anyway, the first hike we went on ended up being miles of straight up and down (should've known - it's called the Devils Path!); the second hike had us up a snowy mountain, snow camping in Washington state; and this teeny third hike was a bit soggy but the thing that was tough about this hike was baby Henry threw up twice. He's not used to all the jostling around, poor thing. He took it in stride though, and fell asleep for most of it. Anyway, we love Owen and Anna, even if they are much more bad-ass than we are, and it was great to see them before they move.

We took a day and went north to Palmayra to see Hill Cumorah, the Smith farm, the Sacred Grove, and the printing shop where the B.O.M. was printed. It was really cool to see all those sites and awesome that our church has preserved the beauty of these locations for us to experience.

My favorite part of the trip was a little drive we took to Skaneateles, a sweet little village with the most amazing bakery, where we ate our weight in fresh cake donuts. I felt a little embarrassed afterwards, because now that I'm thirty, I should have some self-restraint, right? I'm working on it. Maybe by forty.

It was a nice, serene weekend, but we quickly found out that Henry prefers his own crib and doesn't much care for the pack-and-play. His nights were pretty restless and his days were spent taking naps in the carseat while we drove around. I think we learned a valuable lesson for vacationing with a baby - choose a place to stay where you can walk around with baby instead of driving the whole time. Like maybe in a city, or right on the beach. You better believe we'll be doing that next time. Also, the last day we were on vacation, Mr. Hen came down with a little cold and now he's just miserable. He sneezes or coughs and looks up at me and says "Unnnnnhhhhhh". It's so heartbreaking!  We're taking it easy this week to recover, but it's nice to come back to a 3-day work week.

Mostly I just loved being with my two guys for 4 days straight! I can't wait to go on our next trip with this little family of mine. Sure do love them.