Update #6 - The Wedding (Rehearsal Dinner)

Friday the 8th was an absolutely lovely evening... we went to Lindsey's house for a wonderful backyard gathering for the rehearsal dinner. The weather was perfect, and there were fun lawn games set up around the property... croquet, bocce, lawn darts (which Uncle John wisely confiscated soon after small children arrived. As an aside, aren't those illegal? Or something? Cause people can impale each other? Just wondering)... And of course, the moment we arrived, Violet took charge and invented her own game.
You had to roll (throw?) the ball and hit the post. And if you did, you got Bonus Points (or was it a free turn?). I am not sure, but the other kids totally loved it.
Especially this cutie. She is so adorable I can't stand it.
And this kid. Who took my baby and replaced him with a dude? WHO???
There were plenty of Sisterly Love moments...
And beer :)

I love my sisters! :)
AND I also love toothless babies!!
Meanwhile, as we are all enjoying the gathering, I noticed that across the yard there assembled a group of British folk, with the bride and groom in the front row. With a "program"... from the "show." And, indeed, there was my daughter and her cousin, performing some sort of magic/variety show for the crowd. I believe this scene was called (and I am not making this up)... "Girl Running Fast."
The Brits were ever so polite, however, and appreciated the entertainment.
But the best entertainment of all? Fireflies at dusk. Here Riley has one in his hand... and Violet caught a whole jarful. And Melinda got to experience seeing and catching fireflies for the first time. There is something completely magical about them. It was perfect.

Tomorrow, the Wedding Day :)

Update #5 - Our Michigan trip (part 4)

On our last evening at Crystal Lake, everyone brought their cameras to capture one last amazing sunset. Melinda had her (freaking RAD) 15mm fisheye lens. I am completely coveting that baby.
This was from the walkway as we headed down to the water's edge.
And a few fun shots of all of us with the sun setting in the background... Dad, Mom, and Mel...
Liane and Carl...
and of course, Sisterly Love!!
After this, it was a nice long drive down to Farmington Hills for Lindsey's wedding. We will all desperately miss the beautiful lake and wonderful memories made here. Hopefully it won't be another 10 years before we make it back.

Update #4 - Our Michigan Trip (part 3)

The rest of the week was spent reading (my sisters and I were hooked on the Twilight series... once I finished one book, I passed it to Melinda, who passed it to Liane...) and playing at Crystal Lake. Papa has vivid childhood memories of his summers here, playing at the beach owned by the Congregational Summer Assembly. So of course, we went to the same beach and made some amazing memories for our kiddos.

Melinda got to show off her new, super rad tattoo...
and then she, Rick, Violet, Papa, Liane, and Carl (and some random kid) all swam out to the dock in the lake... and they all did a super family cannonball!
I love that, in this picture, Carl is completely gone... Papa is the highest, Melinda is being crazy, and Rick is pasty white ;)
After a long day at Crystal Lake, we always would spend our evenings on the Lake Michigan shore, watching the sunset, skipping rocks, and roasting marshmallows by the fire.

These two short people crack me right up.
Skipping rocks at sunset on the lake... what could be better?
oooo Carl knows! Piling rocks into towers!
Of course our time at Crystal Lake wouldn't be complete without stopping at the A&W for their famous root beer floats. And, well, they were freaking awesome.
Each day when we got to the Assembly beach, the kids would go out and make friends. Sometimes they would hunt for guppies underwater, play tetherball, or pretend to kayak around the lake.

I love this picture of Rick :)
And of course, Violet would find a way to amaze us.
Riley loved "surfing"
Our suntanned family!
I loved our time at Crystal Lake. It was like going back in time there... everything was just a little slower paced, a little quieter. I wish there was a way to transplant this lake to somewhere close to us. I would spend every summer there, too. :)

Update #3 - Our Michigan Trip (part 2)

August 3, 2008 was the one year anniversary of Grandma's death. It was fitting that we were in Michigan, staying on the lake. It was the perfect way to remember her. Mom found out about an antique fair that was, according to Papa, about an hour or so away. I loved the idea of looking for antiques ("ANTIIIIIIIIQUES!") just like Grandma would have wanted to do. We all piled into our cars, and after an hour and a half of driving, Papa had us stop so we could "stretch our legs." Um. ok. Let me just say that if we were close, I don't see why we had to "stretch our legs." But what we learned was that we were still like 40 miles away. Which is another 2 hours of driving. AWESOME. At least we stopped at a fruit stand and got ourselves some fresh cherries for the drive. These cherries were soooooooooo good!

And the antique fair was pretty great, even though it was an insanely long drive to get there. Grandma would have just loved it! Liane and I both found some sugar cube tongs for our tea sets, some cute hankies just like Grandma would have loved, and I got an amazing set of HUGE 12" woodblock printer's letters. They are AMAZING. (I will show them in another post... they aren't part of this set of pictures). We sprinkled a little of Grandma at the fair before we left :)
After the 3.5 hour drive back, we relaxed a little, read a little, and then decided we would go out to Point Betsie at sunset. That was Grandma's favorite place, and we thought we should have a little memorial for Grandma there.

Papa started off by talking about some favorite memories of Grandma, of Michigan, and how much we miss her... and then we sprinkled her onto the sand. After that, each of us got a turn to share a little about Grandma and sprinkle a little of her, too.
Liane did a little "over the shoulder" chuck when it was her turn...
And even Riley sprinkled some of Grandma onto the sand. Later on, we caught Riley playing in another area of sand, shaking the sand through his fingers, saying "I've got Grandma! I've got Grandma!" hahaahaa
Carl. That's all I need to say.
Liane has apparently lived quite the sheltered life, cause before this trip she had never skipped a rock before. After a quick lesson with Papa (the reigning king of rock-skipping), she got the hang of it. Here she celebrates the FIVE BOUNCES she achieved!

I love this picture of Melinda. :)

Liane, putting into practice some of Papa's techniques. The kids had been playing frisbee when it flew into the water. Of course that didn't stop them one bit! And once one got wet, of course the other had to as well. No swimsuits? No problem. HA.

It was the perfect way to remember Grandma - a beautiful day in Michigan, on the shore of the lake in her favorite place, sharing her memories with each other. I could almost feel her there, enjoying herself right along with us.

Update #2 - Our Michigan trip (part 1)

Our big family trip this year was to Michigan - first to Crystal Lake, Papa's childhood summer home, and then to Farmington Hills for my cousin's wedding. This will be the first of a few posts on the trip, since I took so many pictures and I don't want to overload you!



We had lunch the first day at Cherry Hut, a cute little restaurant that has been at Crystal Lake forever. Papa always talks about when he was a kid and had ordered "Cherry Pie a la mode - WITH ice cream!" and we all reminisced about when we were here 10 years ago with Grandma Jane and that was all she ordered. For breakfast. Cherry Pie. And then she took another one to our house and had it for breakfast every. single. day. :)


Riley stole my camera for a few minutes and took some photos of me...
And Papa and Mama Lali wanted to have a Riley portrait too. I think I have a future assistant on my hands here! :)
We had a house that was actually steps from the shore of Lake Michigan (with Crystal Lake a 3 minute drive away), and this was our view the first night...
Sigh. Beautiful.



More soon!

Update #1 - Camping at the Beach

So a few weeks ago, on a whim, I decided to see if there was any chance we could take a family trip to the beach. Rick needed to use his surfboard at least once this year, and I wanted to dip my feet into the ocean. After checking out a couple different hotels, I thought I would see if by some offchance there was a space available at one of the beach campsites. AND THERE WAS! Right at Doheny State Beach, which is next to Dana Point, there was ONE single campsite available. We snagged it for two nights, loaded the kids and the gear into the expedition, and headed out to the ocean.
The kids absolutely LOVED it! The beach was literally steps from our site. And next year, when we actually PLAN this, we will have a site right on the ocean. It will be amazing!
I loved this campsite, too. There were kids everywhere! Of course our kids made friends right away with a boy across the way. He spent most of the day hanging out with us or chasing the kids on their scooters around the parking lot. The only downside to this campground was that the train tracks were pretty close to it. That meant that at midnight and 4 am we heard the trains going by. They didn't blow their horns, at least. We fell back asleep right away, so it really wasn't that big of a deal.
I was relly surprised at the amenities the camp offered. We had a bathroom literally around the corner from us and showers just a few steps past that. Everything was incredibly clean and nice, especially the showers! It was so nice to clean up after a day in the sand.
We decided to see if we could walk to an ice cream shop that was over near Dana Point Harbor, right down the way from us...
Unfortunately, that walk ended up in a dead end! We were on one side of the harbor, the ice cream shop on the other! Violet and I tried to walk to where we thought was another Baskin-Robbins place while Rick and Riley got the car to meet us, but it turned out to be ANOTHER dead end. As you can see, Violet was not happy about not getting her ice cream. We tried to drive around, looking for the place, but both kids fell asleep in the car. We promised them ice cream the next day.

The next morning, we drove down to San Clemente where we KNEW there was ice cream! The kids were so happy about getting a yummy cone. We also stopped at the Rainbow factory to get ourselves some new sandals! YAY!
We spent the evening combing the tide pools at Dana Point looing for sea creatures. We found all sorts of fun little crabs and anenome!
We thought we were coming at the beginning of low tide, but it seemed as though the water level was *rising*... so we didn't stay long.
I don't even know what this is supposed to be.
After our fun day, we had dinner at a restaurant at Dana Point. The next day we went to IKEA before returning home. It was a perfect little quick family vacation, and I am so glad we followed our impulse and just DID IT!