Pentwater

Another year of enjoying our family time and beach time in Pentwater, MI is in the books.  The weather was perfect (the best we've had in years...sunny and warm every single day), the cousins and beach cousins were plentiful, and the traditions were soundly followed.  The only downside was the alewife fish die off, which resulted in oodles of dead fish in and along the shores of Lake Michigan.  But dead fish weren't enough to keep us from thoroughly enjoying our week of beachy family fun.

We stayed in our same house in town again this year, although Uncle Ethan slept at Grammie and Grandpa's cabin to free up a little more sleeping space.  My family took the carriage house per the usual while Erik and Evan's families stayed in the main house.

Although Uncle Ethan didn't stay with us, he was still on the beach with us most days and at the house every evening for dinner and family time.  The kids were definitely relieved...Uncle Ethan is the most fun.  The game of the week with Uncle Ethan this year seemed to be "Sandman."  I'm not sure what the rules or the game entailed, but there was a lot of pretend sleeping and running around.

We are in Pentwater every year on Father's Day.  And Father's Day always gets lost in the shuffle of kicking off our week in Pentwater.  I guess my dad's gift is just getting to spend Father's Day every year with all his kids and grandkids. 

Briggs spent most of his week playing in the sand and in the dunes with beach cousins.  Gage, Lexi, Valentina, Reese, Caroline, and Lucy seemed to be the cousins he played with most often.

He was hesitant about spending too much time in the water because of all the dead fish, although didn't mind the inlet if he was in a floatie.  But more of his time was spent on the sand than in the water.

And, of course, playing with Grammie, Aunt Maggie, Uncle Eldon, and Uncle Ethan filled up some of his time too.  Playing restaurant is still a favorite beach game for many of the kids.

Adelie loved spending time on the beach.  Restaurant is one of her favorite activities, and she made plenty of sand-based dishes for anyone who placed an order.  (Just don't ask for the "Bubba.")  Adelie spent lots of time playing with Caroline, Lilly, and Valentina.

Adelie also loved swimming in the inlet and spent more time in Lake Michigan this year than ever before.  (It helped that Lake Michigan was warmer than typical.)  Adelie was always easy to find in the water as she was typically in her mermaid floatie.

Adelie and Caroline spent one afternoon walking down the beach and collecting beach rocks with Grandpa.  Walks on the beach this year were a little less ideal because of all the dead fish.

Staley kept her beach time well diversified.  She entertained some of the littler kids on the beach, spent lots of time swimming in Lake Michigan, enjoyed time in the inlet, played frisbee, visited with some of the older kids, and also spent time every day reading on the beach.

Of the cousins this year, Staley spent the most time hanging out with Liam, Elliott, and Ava.  (Although Valentina, who is Briggs' age, always wanted to spend time with Staley, and Staley was very good about playing with her and some of other younger cousins as well.)

My cousin Elizabeth and her 5 girls don't generally spend a lot of time at the beach during our Pentwater weeks.  (Her husband prefers to go and do a variety of other activities, so their time on the beach with us tends to be more limited.)  This year, since her husband had to stay home for work, Elizabeth and her girls spent way more time on the beach than usual.  Staley had a great time with Ava (who is also going into 6th grade), while Adelie and Lilly (going into 5th grade) and Briggs and Lexi (going into 3rd grade) had lots of fun together as well.  My kids really enjoyed spending time and getting to know Elizabeth's girls better.

As the kids get older, the beach gets way easier.  They can help carry all our beach stuff from the car, they entertain themselves well with cousins, they require less constant supervision, and they can even apply their own sunscreen pretty well.  #winning

With the nice weather, we always had ample people to play with and visit with on the beach.  There were about 52 of us in all this year, although not everyone came to the beach every day.  (Spoiler alert:  We did.)

Along with all our beach time, we carried on with some of our other Pentwater traditions.  We walked into town for ice cream one evening and did our traditional shopping in town one morning as well.

We had s'mores night one evening and spaghetti night one evening with the whole extended clan.  Here are all the kids, ages 9 months to 17 years old.

We walked down to the beach to watch the sunset a few evenings.

We went for breakfast at the Old Hamlin one morning. The french toast on homemade bread is a favorite.

Grammie and Grandpa watched all the kids for pizza and movie night one evening while we went out for dinner to celebrate Melissa's birthday.  We ate at Gull Landing in Pentwater for the first time...and it was very good!

We also took the kids go-carting on the way to the beach one morning.  All the kids had a blast, although Zach might have had the most fun of all.

We had another fabulous week at Pentwater.

We had so much fun with family.

We loved all our beach time and sun.

We relaxed and unplugged and slept in and cherished the break from life's busy-ness.

Pentwater is my happy place, and I love sharing it with my favorite people.

Thanks, Pentwater, for another great week!

See you next year!!

Baseball

Briggs is my child who typically does not want to sign up for extracurricular activities.  He is generally happy to just play at home and likes not having a full schedule.  It's a bit of a conundrum.  On the one hand, I want him to enjoy lots of free time to play and create and just be a kid doing what he wants.  On the other hand, I want him to try some different activities to determine if there is something he really enjoys before he misses the window of time where trying something for the first time doesn't put you at a distinct disadvantage.  For this summer, since I knew Briggs would be having lots of free time to just play at home, I signed him up to try baseball for the first time.

Although he did sometimes complain about stopping his fun to go to a game or practice, Briggs really seemed to enjoy playing baseball.  He had one or two practices and about 8-10 games throughout the season (although we missed some of those because of vacations).  His coaches were great!  The high school baseball coach was his head coach and the middle school principal was his assistant coach.  They were both positive, high energy, and good at explaining the game and teaching the necessary skills.

Briggs was on a team with other kids going into 2nd and 3rd grade, both boys and girls.  It was coach pitch, and they would bring out a tee after 5 or 6 pitches if you didn't get a hit so that every kid got a hit each time they came to bat.  His coaches would get to each game 30 minutes early, so Briggs had opportunities for practice and learning before each game.  I really appreciated that.

Briggs had never played baseball before, but he picked it up pretty quickly.  He had to use the tee a few times earlier in the season, but was able to hit the ball pretty well without the tee almost every at bat through his last several games.  Fielding was a little trickier, but he was starting to understand the rules and run after the ball if it was near him.  He never really caught or fielded the ball during a game, but seemed to get the idea when they were practicing.

Briggs enjoyed his baseball season.  He liked playing, learned about the game, improved with his skills, loved the after-game snacks, and has already asked if he can play again next summer.  I consider that a successful baseball season.

Miracle Camp

For the third summer in a row, Staley joined a group of her friends to attend church camp at Miracle Camp in Michigan.

Olivia, Kaitlyn, Staley, Kelsey, and Lilian ready for their week of fun.

Staley and her friends were in a room with 3 other girls and 2 counselors.

Staley spent the week playing games...

swimming...

attending chapel and cabin devotional time...

enjoying outdoor fun like archery, zip lines, and time in the woods...

kayaking and doing other water activities...

doing crafts, going to the coffee shop, staying up late, and buying things at the camp store.

Staley had an amazing week.  She said she wasn't homesick at all (which was a change from her first 2 years) and had lots of stories to tell us when we picked her up.

The house felt different without Staley here, but I loved getting to see the pictures they posted each day.  We all wrote her e-mails throughout the week.  Adelie especially missed Staley, but Briggs slept in Staley's bed most nights to keep Adelie from feeling too lonely.

Church camp has been a highlight of the summer so far for Staley.  I love that she got the opportunity to experience more independence, grow in her faith, and enjoy a week of fun with her friends.

Hooray for Miracle Camp!!

A New Smile

Just like Staley, we have discovered that Briggs does not have room in his mouth for his adult teeth.  (For the record, those genetics are all Zach's fault.)  So we've jumped back into the world of orthodontics.  The first step...

an expander.

So now Briggs has an expander for his top palate, a slight lisp, and a preoccupation with asking if every food he eats is "too sticky" before taking a bite.  Let the fun begin!!

He Writes...

 to Staly frum Briggs

Shots

I don't like shots.
I know you don't to.
I'm sad to say your getting one today.
Staley be brave.

(Written for Staley in anticipation of her 6th grade vaccinations)

He's a sweet boy...and a good poet too.

East Coast Summer Kick-Off: Acadia National Park

We spent the next 3 days hiking, driving, and exploring the beauty of Acadia National Park.

On our first day, we drove into the park and parked at Sand Beach.  We walked along the ocean on the beautiful Ocean Trail until we got to the Gorham Mountain trailhead.

The weather was perfect--60's and sunny.  The kids loved looking for the rock cairns and blue markings identifying the trails since much of the hiking was on rock...something that was a bit new for us.

The sky was so blue on this first day and the views were simply beautiful.  I took way too many pictures, which of course don't do it justice.

We made it to the top of Gorham Mt., but decided to continue our hiking by adding on the Bowl trail and the Beehive summit before looping back down to Sand Beach.

The Bowl is a lake in Acadia National Park.  We hiked there from Gorham Mt. and took a break to eat our lunch and enjoy the view.  The kids loved jumping from rock to rock in the water.  Of course they got wet.

The Beehive Trail in Acadia is well-known for its sheer cliff faces and iron rung ladders required to reach the summit.  I wasn't ready to tackle that with the kids.  However, from the Bowl trail, we could reach the Beehive summit from the back side of the mountain, thus skipping the more dangerous part of the trail.  We chose that route instead.

From there, we finished the loop that ended back down at Sand Beach.  Zach added on a little extra hiking as we realized partway down that Adelie had left her hat at the Beehive summit, so he went back to find it.  All in all, we hiked about 4.5 miles that day.

After our hike, we drove the remainder of the Park Loop Road.  We made a quick stop at Jordan Pond where the kids again enjoyed rock jumping while getting really wet in the process.

We then returned to our cottage, played on the beach, made a spaghetti dinner, and then headed back into the park to check out Thunder Hole.  Thunder Hole is a natural rock inlet where, when timing and conditions are right, waves crash and make a loud sound and shoot into the air.  When we passed it earlier in the day, it was low tide and nothing was really happening.  We returned at what was supposed to be a better time (about an hour or so before high tide), but it was still not much more than a gurgle and splash.  After waiting and watching for quite awhile, we just renamed it "Gurgle Hole" and headed back home.

Our next day took us back into the park again for some more hiking.  We had gotten a recommendation from a local we met for hiking the Penobscot Mountain Trail.  It was a great recommendation and our favorite hike of the trip.  We parked at the Jordan Pond house as the trailhead is directly behind the house.

The early part of the trail required a lot of rock scrambling and rock climbing, which the kids really loved.

We saw very few other hikers on the trail and the views throughout the entire hike were great!  The weather was still in the 60's, but more cloudy this date so it felt a little cooler.

Much of the hike was along the big rocky top of the mountain with great 360 degree panoramic views.

The summit of Penobscot Mountain (the 5th highest in Acadia) was pretty chilly and windy so we didn't spend much time up there.  Instead we continued on to summit the second highest peak in Acadia, Sargent Mountain.

On our way from Penobscot to Sargent Mountain, we passed by Sargent Pond.  We planned to eat lunch by the pond, but it was a bit on the buggy side so we just ate as we walked.

Sargent Mountain was even colder and windier at the summit than Penobscot, but we enjoyed the views and the feeling of pride for the brief time we were there.

Instead of going back the way we came, we decided to instead take the Deer Brook Trail to the North side of Jordan Pond and then follow the Jordan Pond trail back to our car.  After the rocky hiking to the mountains, the Deer Brook Trail was pretty and wooded.

We enjoyed the change of scenery, but didn't realize how much extra mileage we were adding on to our hike.  Instead of a 4.5 mile out and back hike, we hiked over 6.5 miles.  The kids did great, but we were all worn out by the time we got back to the car.

It was a long day of hiking, but we all really enjoyed the challenge.  We went back to our cottage, enjoyed the beach, had tacos for dinner, ate ice cream for dessert, and then the kids and I played games while Zach went to a laundromat to get us enough clean clothes to finish out our trip.  (Lack of a washer and dryer was the one downside of our cottage.)

Our final day in Acadia was overcast and foggy, but we were ready to tackle a few more hikes.  We started off with the Perpendicular and Razorback trails.  The perpendicular trail was an engineering feat...hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of granite steps leading up to the summit of  Mansell mountain.

It was quite the workout!

Unfortunately, all the scenic views that we should have been admiring were covered in fog.  And as we climbed higher and higher, we were surrounded by the fog and, thus, caught in a misty rain of sorts.  It had an eerie feel to it that Briggs especially did not care for.

The Razorback trail to loop back was trickier than I had realized.  It was initially rocky terrain that required climbing and scrambling and some pretty big descents.

After that, we descended into the woods where there were still some pretty steep descents on the way down.  We never saw one other person on our hike.  I'm not sure if it was the weather or how strenuous the hike was, but we enjoyed having the trail to ourselves.

It was only a 3 mile hike, but it was a hard 3 miles.  I am consistently impressed with the hikers that my kids are turning out to be.  They like when I tell them the trail we are planning to do is difficult or strenuous. They love when hikes involve rock climbing or water crossings.  There is a feeling of pride knowing we are doing something that many other people can't or won't.  I hope they face challenges in life the same way...being excited to conquer them.

We finished off our hiking with a short 1.5 mile loop on Flying Mountain trail.  A much lower peak, we were able to appreciate the views on this trail as we remained at a lower elevation.

We followed up our hikes with a quick stop at the Bass Harbor Head lighthouse.

I just love the rocky coastline that abounds in Acadia.

We finished off our day with a stop at the Travelin' Lobster for lobster rolls.  (Well, the kids just had hotdogs and mac and cheese.)  Zach and I both determined that we aren't big lobster people, but when in Maine...  Although we didn't love the lobster, the homemade blueberry pie we got was fantastic!

We loved our time at Acadia National Park.  It was so beautiful, and such a different national park from the others we'd experienced.  We hated to leave, but it was time to pack up and head for home.

Our return trip doesn't really need it's own post.  We returned the way we came (as it was the shortest route) and put in two long days on the road to make it home as quick as possible.

We did unknowingly stop at a town in New York (Seneca Falls) that is thought to be the inspiration for the town in 'It's a Wonderful Life.'

We had just stopped for dinner and ended up eating at a great little restaurant (Parker's Grille & Tap House--maybe the best chicken sandwich I've ever had) and seeing some of the sites that are believed to have inspired the movie setting.  It was a fun surprise when all we wanted was a place to eat.

We made it further than halfway home (Hamburg, NY) on our first day.  We had been promising the kids they could swim when we got to the hotel, only to find out it was already closed for the night.  Thankfully the kind man at the front desk reopened it for us so the kids could swim a bit before bed.  Then we powered home the next day.

We drove a lot of miles.  We spent a lot of time in the van.  We listened to a lot of audiobooks.  But it was all worth it to introduce my kids to this beautiful part of the country.  I love getting to share new places and new experiences with my family!  This is the good life!!