The Weekend (A Melodrama in 3 Posts)

Post 1

This past weekend, the family headed to Michigan for Tara's cousin Katie's wedding. Since Katie is on Tara's dad's side, we don't see her (or the rest of that part of the family) all that much, though we use Katie's dad's "cottage" (otherwise known as luxurious vacation home) on Lake Michigan every summer...

So when we heard that Katie was getting married, Tara began planning the trip. She found a cottage near the lake (you can check it out at the website: "East of Eden" in Union Pier) - we would have paid as much for a hotel room as we paid for a whole cottage...



We arrived Friday afternoon, and after we chowed some grub (grilled at the cottage), we went to the beach. The water was completely calm - perfect for skipping flat stones, which were in abundance.



The boys ended up playing in the water, even though we hadn't exactly dressed them for it! The weather was perfect for playing in the water, so we weren't going to let something as silly as improper swimming clothes get in the way of our fun! The funny thing was that Andrew's diaper ended up weighing more than he did!




When we got back from the beach, "Nanny" and "Papa" (Tara's parents) were at the cottage.

After a restless night's sleep, we ate a breakfast of bacon, eggs, and English muffins (mostly prepared by Tara - there wasn't really room for more than 1 at a time to work at the stove, but let the record state that I took over and made the rest of the bacon and eggs).

But then we headed back to the beach. Since we left straight from Jonathan's swim lesson on Friday, he and Tara both had swim suits. I had a pair of running shorts that worked fine, as well. The water was cold, but you got used to it, especially as it was plenty hot already.

We found a really near sand bar and Jonathan loved playing on it. Before we found the sand bar, he headed north along the beach, trying to find the "other water" (the creek by Uncle Bill's cottage where there is very shallow water and no waves). He was rather disappointed that he couldn't find it, but the sand bar made up for it. Oh, and the water was just as calm Saturday morning as it was Friday afternoon.

Alas, we had to leave the beach to eat lunch so the boys could get some rest before the wedding. We were winding down our play time when the in-laws just left the beach to go back to the cottage - they wanted to get a hotel room for that night, so I guess they wanted to get a head-start on packing their stuff (or maybe my father-in-law looked at his watch and realized that the college football games were on). They said they didn't get enough sleep in the cottage... Anyway, they got cleaned up and left while we got lunch.


There's something to be said for eating with gusto... but there's also something to be said for having had a full, full morning of playing on the beach!

and thus ends post 1...