To remind us of that summer we had earlier this week

Monday was a beautiful, beautiful day. We had an early lunch and went blueberry picking on the peninsula, then drove a little farther out on the peninsula to Haserot beach. What a great beach day!
Maya and her friend Josie (2.5 years) were sitting together just a little bit away from the grown ups having quite a conversation. It was so funny to listen to them converse....I could only hear a bit here and there because they would stop if we got too close but I did over hear:
Josie, pointing to the water: "Dis a yake, it a yake Maya"
Maya: "I know dat! I know dat yake."
Then I walked around in front of them to take a picture and Maya pointed to me and very matter of factly looked at Josie and said "Dis my mommy."
Then they both gave the fake squinty smile you see in the picture, I guess that is a standard issue 2 year old fake smile!
While we were packing up the blankets and toys all the younger kids were playing duck, duck, goose together. Sort of. Maya just kind of got up and ran around whenever she felt like it.

Adventure day!

Despite a gloomy forcast we set out for fun and adventure in Leelanau county this morning with some friends.

We got to do the dune climb with only some sprinkles. I'll have to add some pictures that the others took later of the dunes - I left my camera in the car because of the rain.

The boys had SO much fun running up and down! I think they would have been happy doing that for most of the day had we let them. Maya had fallen asleep on the way there and was a bit groggy for dune climbing. She tried for a little while and then asked to ride on my back again.

That last picture is all the kids taking a break in our car before moving on to the next thing. You can't see him but Jamo is in the back!

Lunch at Art's bar - with, I must say, the best behaved bunch of 5 year olds ever (plus a 2.5 year old and almost 2 year old!)

A rainy walk thru Glen Arbor.

And learning about historical blacksmithing at Glen Haven.

And sleeping in the car on the way home.

Good day.

Wednesday - Tourist trap time!

One of Alex's friends really, really wanted to go mini golfing on her birthday and so they put the word out so some friends could come too. Alex was very excited since he had just discovered on our vacation how much fun mini golfing is!

I guess because we live here and don't really pay attention, none of us realized how BUSY this place is in the summer! They have 2 different mini golf courses, go carts, bumper boats, a zip line and a ropes course - mini golf was fairly reasonabley priced (although I only had to pay for one child, Maya was still free and I didn't golf myself) but watching some of the tourist families in line in front of us pay for their activities.....WOW.

It was a beautiful day and the kids had a great time playing. The golf place has some nice picnic tables over by the ropes course and we brought a picnic lunch and ate there in the shade.

Then a couple of us went across the road to the State park beach. It was a perfect beach afternoon. I expected to have to leave and get Maya a nap but she just sat on my lap for a while when she got tired and then started playing again.

We ended up staying all afternoon!

And on the way out I finally let Alex go check out the new playground there. It's down a lot farther from where we usually set up our stuff and I really dislike going back and forth, back and forth when we are at a beach so I had avoided it up to this point. But it's a really nice playground, especially for Maya's age because she could get pretty much everywhere Alex could without me having to worry about her (she's a daredevil and will try anything).

Before bed we hosed off the kids and I even changed everyone's sheets so now we don't have sand in the beds :)

Ah memories

Remember these? Yes those are jelly shoes. On Maya's feet. They still make them! And Maya loves them. She got them as a party favor at a birthday party yesterday, the older kids had flip flops they decorated and my friend was so thoughtful to get Maya sized shoes as well. And since they are "shiny and pitty mommy!" she loves them.

Just in case

Just in case a stray boater ends up on our street....Maya is ready to go for a ride. She found it in the garage and insisted on wearing it while we played outside. Safety first!

Today is today

So there we have it. I am finally caught up. The last post was yesterday and today is today. We've had a harder time than pervious years settling back in at home after vacation. This week seems better - playtimes with friends scattered over the week, at some point I should start cleaning up this sand that is all over my house.

This year summer is different because Alex starts school in a couple weeks. We have things to prepare and once he starts we start on a whole new phase of life. Schedules we have to adhere to. Alex is completely excited. Mom is a little unsure.

2, 2 , 2 beaches in one day!

A day filled with birthdays and beaches. We started the morning in Empire. The town park beach there is breathtaking. It was amazing to watch the clouds/mist change over the dunes in the distance. I didn't take any pictures on the other side of the road but there is a small lake with a beach and docks. When we got there it was perfectly still and so pretty but by the time I got the kids settled and our stuff out of the car there was enough breeze to have the lake all rippled.

We were there with a group to celebrate our friend Phoebe's 4th birthday. So much fun!

Next we ran home to pick up the present we had forgotten to put in the car that morning. Quick grabbed some lunch on the fly and went over to East Bay park. I didn't get my camera out because it was threatening rain. The kids ate yummy treats, played games and didn't mind in the least when it started raining! Happy 5th birthday Lily!

Now it's summer for real

Car? Full of sand.

Kitchen floor? Gritty.

All the beds? Yep, sand there too.

This is our normal TC summer. 80's during the day, upper 50's and 60's at night. Beach as much as we can.

We went to the Acme town park beach with friends during the week, then I took the kids to the beach just outside Elk Rapids on Saturday and we went to the "secret" beach as a family on sunday.

There was rain and storm clouds all around us but it was sunny and gorgeous right at Good Harbor.

The fair

It only took us 3 tries to get to the fair. Finally last thursday we got over there.

Since we had missed all the days with discount rides we limited Alex to picking 3 rides. He did a good job, walked thru the midway and picked which 3 before we even got tickets and then stuck to his choices without complaint.

Maya really liked the animals. She seemed most interested in the bigger animals, unlike Alex who always loves the goats (because you can pet them). She did really, really love the rabbits though too.

8/11 - Alex is 5. FIVE!

Saturday night at the campsite we had a little party for Alex since Grandma, Papa, Matt, Amy and his friends Nora and Gavin (their parents rode in the bike race as well and were camping right next to us) were all there.
He had hotdogs over the fire, cupcakes for desert and got a really, really cool remote control car.
So we kept things pretty low key on his actual day. The park with some friends in the morning and then just family in the evening. He got a couple books and two transformers from us, you can see him and daddy working hard to figure out the transformers in the picture :)
We were going to make a cake together that afternoon but when we went to the store for ingredients he spotted the Star Wars cake and asked for that one instead.
I can't believe he's 5 already.