Despite all the changes in our country and our current life situations, it's nice to know that our annual week in Pentwater remained largely the same. Apart from having to pack our masks for our couple of trips into town for shopping, our annual traditions and fun week of beach fun didn't change at all.
My road trip champs rocked it again. Books on tape, snacks, drawing, and listening to music filled most of our car hours.
We made our return trip home in a record 5 hours flat without so much as a bathroom stop.
We had some beautiful beach weather this year. We skipped the beach on our one cold, windy, misty day and had to pack it up mid-afternoon on another day as the rain rolled in. Otherwise we spent all day every day on the beach.
The kids and their cousins entertained themselves with a variety of activities.
Staley enjoyed playing up in the dunes with her cousins and reading on the beach, but she was my biggest water girl. She loved spending time in Lake Michigan.
She also spent a long time one morning on the beach playing wiffle ball with Liam and Uncle Evan.
Adelie liked playing restaurant on the beach with Grammie, going on dune adventures with cousins, and catching minnows, but her very favorite activity this year was finding people to go to 'rock island' with her.
Rock island was a stretch of beach a good ways down the beach from us that was covered in beach rocks. Adelie loved to go there, search for pretty rocks, and add them to her collection. Here she is sorting them into "pretty, cool, smooth, and plain" piles. Don't worry. We brought home about 20 lbs of beach rocks.
She also really enjoyed entertaining and spending time with baby Emerson, my cousin's little one year old girl.
Eating beach snacks was another favorite activity. It seemed like Adelie was always working her way through all the beach snacks I'd bring down each day.
Briggs spent most of his days playing in the sand and going into the dunes with his cousins.
He did like pushing people around the "little lake" (outlet) in our floaty, but was definitely not keen on venturing very far into Lake Michigan.
We still kept up our annual Pentwater traditions. We walked into town for ice cream.
Zach and I took turns running to the beach each day, but the kids got in on the running action too. Staley went for a short run one morning with Uncle Erik, Elliott, and I. And Adelie and Grandpa followed up with a run of their own.
We hung out in the house, eating dinner together and playing games. Capture the flag was the outdoor game of choice for the cousins this year.
We had our big family spaghetti and s'mores night. Although not quite as many families made it to Pentwater this year, we still had 16 kids ranging in age from 1 to 15.
And, of course, no Pentwater year is complete without a night or two of walking down to the beach to watch the sunset.
COVID-19 has changed many things about our year. We missed out on activities and emptied our calendar and quarantined ourselves and are figuring out how to balance our health and safety with resuming some sense of normalcy.
Pentwater is our normalcy. Being on the beach, spending time with family, and keeping up our annual traditions was just what we needed.
Pentwater is my happy place. It is my childhood memories. It is my time with family. It is my relax and unwind. It is my home that isn't my home.
Thanks, Pentwater, for another wonderful week.
We needed that!
