July 4th

Ok.  I know that it is much past July 4th... but this was going to be a bit of a bigger post so I kept putting it off.  Anyhoo... we actually had plans for this July 4th!  Most of the time we try to not do things on the actual holiday because everybody has plans to do something and we don't much like crowds... especially with smaller kids.  But, my Dad was really into the idea of going to the beach in Saugatuk that we like to go to because he figured that it wouldn't be that busy.  Well, it was the busiest that I have ever seen but it wasn't nearly as bad as I imagine any other state park was going to be!  The weather was nice and the water was colder than it was when we had gone before!  The kids of course had a blast playing in the sand with Don and I even got Norah to go to sleep under the umbrella.  :)

Hanging out with Dude making silly faces

We always dig a big hole when we first get there and fill it with water to warm up for the littler ones to play in 

Dude had to go to the bathroom so Gaetan took him up the trails because he wouldn't go in the public restroom that they had (and I don't blame him).  They were gone for like 15 minutes... which made me wonder if they got lost!  But they came running down the beach (which was not where they had started) and said that they found some really cool trails that Dad should try with them.

Big dunes!

The top of the weird concrete bunker... very hatch from Lost...

Sweet girly adventurer

So, Norah had woken up in the mean time and I fed her and Gaetan said that he would take all the kids, with Dad on this little adventure and let me have some alone time, which was very sweet.  He strapped Norah on and they set off!  He said that they found this concrete bunker in the middle of the woods that was interesting so they were going to walk back there.  Well, I was enjoying my downtime but half an hour passed and I still didn't see them... and then 45 minutes and still nothing!  I was just curious where they went and if they were going to come back!  haha.  I was hoping that I didn't get a weird tan line from wearing Norah in the backpack earlier in the day but since she so graciously went to sleep under the umbrella that wasn't an issue... and she actually broke my bathing suit during the transfer.  So, I got burned... but, they eventually did come back and had some other fun trails that they were exploring.  Apparently, Tristan was their leader and he was relentless.  Up dunes, through the woods... and he just kept wanting to go.  Both kids had found walking sticks and where proudly carrying them back when they came.  Since I didn't know when they were coming back I was on the lookout for them and I saw them walking back on the beach so I went to meet them!











On the walk there this lady told me that she really liked my bathing suit... haha.  Broken and all.  :)  But they had a lot of fun on the walk and there are lots of pictures of their adventure!  Pretty much once they got back we started packing things up to head home.  We were getting hungry and we all had had enough sun for one day.

We went back to my parents house where we had a cook out (yum!) and played in their garden.  The kids were tired tired so they fell asleep on the carride home.  :)  We didn't get to see any fireworks because Caledonia had done theirs already and we didn't stay out late enough for Kalamazoo's... oh well.  I was just happy that they didn't wake the kids up!

JVG