The Lake photoshoot...

These are a little out of order, but I figured it would flow better that way.








After we were done at the Fort, we went over the bridge (I rode with Dan and Noelle) hence the picture of our truck which in now known at Bruce (from Nemo...because of the silver shark fin I guess!?). Someone is going to have to help me remember why we even went over the bridge, other than to say we did...I can't remember and I didn't take any pictures!! We stopped and did the lake pictures after we came back over....Everything went great, then Anna fell in the mud...not so great. Thankfully I had the swimsuits for the kids..it was too cold to change her into her suit, so she wore Luke's bottoms. Kindof funny, but not to her so no pics!

Fort Michilimackinac

Doing devotions before we left for Mackinac City...which by the way is not close to Traverse City! LOTS of driving was done today!













We stopped and ate lunch just outside the fort, which is actually my favorite place to get pics of my kids together because who doesn't want the Mighty Mac in the background of pictures of their kids!? :) Luke was pretty scared of the guns...of course being the photographer that I aspire to be, I had to get a pic of Aunt Katie consoling him as the shots were fired....never mind he was the only child screaming...and he was screaming MOMMY! I know bad mommy moment, couldn't help it! :) The latrine pic is one of my favorites...for some twisted reason, probably because the kids thought it was hysterical that "pottys" looked like that ever! They had there game faces on...if you know what I mean! :P

Back at Camp....

Back from Sleeping Bear Dunes, I played with the kids while dinner was being made, grilled bbq chicken...mmmm! There was a playground within eyesite and earshot of our campers and a nice swing that we used a lot. We also "prepared" the fish that we caught tonight...I of course as I said in another post, didn't bring my camera so no pics! But, the big blue gill is Calli Jo's catch! Go girl! :)

The Bluff.......

Just a quick note, when we were in the UP last year and everyone wanted to go down that wretched log run that was so incredibly steep...I was smart enough to stay and watch from higher ground! This time, I went down, taking pity on Mike, as we both knew all three kids would want to go ALL THE WAY DOWN! We should have known we were in trouble when a parent commented to their son on the way back up, hey it only took you 22 minutes to get back up here! Not bad! WHAT?? Want to guess how long it took me and Mike (cuz we were in charge of Luke?) Scroll down to find out!









1 hour!!!! Yes, I am NOT kidding! It took us 1 hour to get back up that horrible steep icky bluff! I will never, ever do that again! The kids loved it! Anna went with Uncle Danny and Calli back up (they beat us all...show offs!). Aunt Katie was in charge of Jake, they tried to stay just ahead of us, I think Jake wanted to go faster but we really didn't want to exhaust him when there was so much climbing! Let me tell you how happy I was to see the rest of the fams faces when we got closer to the end! I about cried! It's HARD work getting a 44 pound 3 year old up loose, steep sand!

Sleeping Bear Dunes

What a beautiful day to go to the dunes! I think God put them up north for a reason! Even when it is only in the low 70's it's pretty hot! The kids had fun, grandpa and Andi stayed at the bottom together, Jake (of course!) already at the top says, "I need to go potty". In case you are never around Jake, this is his M.O.! He is famous for needing a bathroom and NOW at the worst times! We sent him back down to go and he came back up (I think) with Aunt Noelle...not sure how I missed getting her in pics (sorry!).

Fishing in Traverse City

The campground has a nice lake all around it, Silver Lake. Fishing is an experience that all the kids were sooo excited about even though they had never done it. So, our first night there off we went to try to catch some fish....Luke got pretty bored (and...had an accident in his pants...AUGH, and I had no idea how to get us back to our site to change him, so he sat for a few minutes wet...I know gross!). Well, Daddy is the only one who caught any, two to be exact. No one else caught anything, Jake did a fabulous job of knotting his line just about every cast and Luke...ahh Luke. Well he went fishing in his own way and pretty much lost a pole in the water....good bye fishing pole, Luke was sad and cried a lot...it was pretty deep on the dock, but daddy and co. fished that pole out...so I guess you could say we caught three bites tonight! We fished again the second night, but stupid mommy didn't bring the camera and sad for me, Aunt Katie didn't rescue me for the 3rd time in 3 weeks!!! Calli and Uncle Danny fished with us that time and honest to goodness, Calli caught a fish!!! Everyone got fish that time, well except Luke who really didn't give much thought into holding a pole for more than 10 seconds. We actually kept everyones fish (Aunt Katie won, she got a pretty big small mouth bass, the rest were blue gill). The last night we were there we fried them up...and Luke LOVED it! Couldn't get enough!

Is this a bad sign of how camping will be?

We were just setting up camp...and I don't really remember who found the poor thing, I think Katie did....I guess en route to Traverse City a bird didn't quite get out of Grandpa's way!!! YIKES! Hope this isn't a sign of how camping will go!