The nursing strike has ended! Or at least it's temporarily on reprieve. Little by little this weekend James stopped shrieking and pushing himself away from me whenever he was in the nursing position to finally today teasing me by opening his mouth and when he was just about to nurse he would pull away. Then tonight when we got home, I saw on the floor and he actually nursed for a few minutes. I was so happy that I cried as he crawled away to play with his sister. Then tonight at bed our old routine came back - diaper change, pajamas on, wrapped up in blanket, nurse, bounce to sleep, in bed. He nursed! On both sides! And he didn't try to bite me once. A few times he would stop nursing, push himself away and whine and then he would come back and latch back on. His three top teeth haven't broken through yet but they are so, so close. I'm thinking it may be that plus all the sleep he got today that brought him back to nursing. He took four naps today as we drove home from the North Shore. The longest was a couple hours and the shortest was about 20 minutes. In all, it was more sleep than he usually gets. I sure hope this nursing strike is over. Exclusively pumping is not fun! It's a lot of extra work and a lot less intimate snuggly time too.

We had a great weekend. Friday we drove up to the North Shore to have a nice weekend getaway with Nana and Papa. Annika kept calling Nana "Grandma Nana" this weekend. Too cute! When Annika went to bed Friday night, Nana was in the kitchen, so when Annika woke up Saturday morning she wanted to rush right back to the kitchen to see Nana again. I had to explain to her that Nana was still sleeping but that as soon as she was awake, Annika could play with her some more.

Saturday after Kris and I got a nap in (A nap! I haven't had a nap in ages! Thank goodness for grandparents!), we headed up to Grand Marais. We ate at Sven and Ole's and walked out to the breakwall again. This time we didn't go as far out. Lake Superior was pretty choppy again and the waves were pretty big. It wasn't as windy out this time though so even though I don't think we would have gotten drenched again, we didn't take the risk. After playing throwing rocks from the beach into the water, we walked through some shops. There are some really fun shops - the trading post, art galleries, fudge shops, etc. in Grand Marais. Annika and Nana had a really fun time in the fudge shop. There was a huge stuffed animal moose in there that kids could sit on. Annika climbed on and we got a picture. Next to the moose was a sign that read "All unattended children will be given an espresso and a free puppy." Ha! Kris might have taken the fudge shop up on that one! He wants another dog so badly! Anyway, Nana and Annika left the fudge shop with an ice cream cone. I left it with 1/2 pound of fudge - to be shared, of course.

Today we took our time this morning having breakfast, playing (Annika and Papa always have to go outside to take a walk together. I think they both really look forward to this.) and packing up. On our way down the shore, we stopped at a scenic overlook to see Split Rock Lighthouse. Then we were going to stop at Gooseberry Falls but it was raining so we headed on. We ended up stopping in Two Harbors for lunch and then headed on to Duluth. James was sleeping when we went through Duluth so we didn't stop, we just drove across the lift bridge and kept driving.

I was looking through the pictures on my camera tonight. There are pictures on there from the middle of August! I will definitely upload some pictures this week. I'm going to have quite a few to go through!