Beach Day

This week my Dad had the week off because they are remodeling one of their rooms in their house.  They finished early (and it looks really nice!) so we got to go to the beach with him.  My Dad pretty much knows all the little areas in Michigan, and any back road to get anywhere.  It's amazing really.  If I'm ever lost I just call him and give a general description of where I am, and he knows right where I am and how to get out.  

We decided to go to the beach with him.  He wanted to try out this beach in Saugatuk, because the beaches at Holland or Grand Haven would've been obnoxiously busy... and I can say, that I'm really pleased with this beach!  It's a state run beach so our little passport on our license plates get us in for free!  They have a ton of places to hike and a lot of trails in some really beautiful woods.  On the beach they have a ton of dunes that you can climb and about 3 miles of coast to choose from.  We put Goose in the backpack and Dude walked most of the way there.  The water was extremely cold, but clear :)  My crazy Dad thought it wasn't cold at all and just went straight in... I couldn't believe it!  He's so skinny that one would think for sure the temperature would affect him, but apparently not.

Pure Michigan

Dude thought that the water was really cold, so he stayed by the shore.  The nice thing about this beach was it didn't get deep until really far out.  It had a nice little sand bar once it would've been probably about waist high on Dude.  It was kinda nice that the water was so cold because then it was easier to watch the kids, because they weren't going to be running into the water unexpectedly!  haha.

We just took the day and played in the sand.  Very lazy day.  Gaetan dug this huge hole for the kids to play in some water... this water was really warm, and if it wasn't warm then it heated up quickly :)  There were parts of it that was about waist deep for Lucy so she was about it.  She wasn't quite sure about the whole thing when we first got there, but then she got into it after she saw everybody playing in the sand.

Goose playing in the hole we started digging, which eventually connected to Gaetan's big pool.  She liked putting the sand back into the water.  haha

Sand castle that was already there, that we elaborated upon.

It was a beautiful day.  Not crowded at all.  Quiet.  There was a glorious breeze coming in, and it was just hot enough to enjoy being on the beach, and if you really wanted to you could freeze a bit in the water :)  The kids enjoyed looking for rocks in the shallow water, and we ended up walking a little up and down the shore.  Then, Dude and Gaetan wrote in the sand... some of his favorite words :)

Grandpa Don hanging out with Dude.  Dude wanted to go out in the water but not actually in the water haha

Lucy 'testing' the waters with Grandpa's help.  :)

After Goose decided that she had had enough of the beach (we were probably there for about 4 hours) we hiked back to the car and had a yummy cook out at my parents.  Those kids were pooped by the end of the night.  It was a lot of fun and I'm glad that we could just hang out with my Dad.  I know that Tristan loves spending time with Grandpa Don, and I'm glad they could make those memories together.

JVG