Sparklers and Bulging Quads

Swimming in Lake Michigan

Puddles...

Soak up those rays Reed, or roll around in the sand, whatever floats your bucket


Grand Haven Light House


Light House stairs, 136 of them

Big Sable Light house

Sparklers, watch your fingers...

Now, that was good watermelon.

We’ve been pretty busy enjoying the summer and making sure our skin doesn’t say “I’ve lived in Michigan all of my life”. Though, I did see quite a few very tan Michiganders on the beaches of Lake Michigan. Speaking of Lake Michigan, we just got back from a very nice trip to its shores. My mom has been in town for the past two weeks and so we made the trip with her. We went to the beautiful sea shore town of Ludington where we swam in the Lake and visited the Big Sable light house. The hike up to the light house was 2 miles on a dirt road and then we got to climb 137 steps to the top, ouch. My quadriceps are not what they used to be, well, I can’t actually remember what they “used to be” as if they were ever something to brag about, but after that they were sore. On our way back we got poured on and that was when I was glad not to be a camper like a lot of the other visitors.

The 4^th of July was fun in a ‘let’s find out all the uses of Aloe’ kind of way. Yes, we had an incident with a sparkler and came to find out through our friend “zee internet”, that sparklers burn up to 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. We had a little BBQ with some friends and made some lovely burn marks on our back porch. By the way, aloe doesn’t work on that kind of a burn.

On July 11^th we celebrated Isaac’s 2^nd birthday and celebrated by taking advantage of 7 eleven’s 80^th anniversary and free Slurpees. I made a cake earlier that day and it survived till his little party, but later I found it had been royally robbed of its chocolate frosting by Isaac and Reed. They are very stealthy about such things, especially in the matters of chocolate, but then aren’t we all? Grandmas and Grandpas spoiled him in their usual loving ways. How can anyone resist those big brown puppy dog eyes? “You want more cake? o.k... You want to drop a roll of toilet paper into the toilet? O.k…. You want to throw a car at your brother’s head? O.k.” Actually, now that he’s 2 he is learning more and more about time outs.

Reed and Douglas are still in swimming lessons, which they love. I’ve been a bit of a slacker in creating focused activities for their very creative minds. Five year olds gone unchecked in the basement for longer than 30 minutes means we now know we have all the parts to the tent, that our sleeping bags really do unroll, and that you can drop things into the sump pump.

Random thoughts. . .

I’ve finally met 2 people who have RLS (restless leg syndrome). I just thought they were making up something for people who nervously wiggle their legs. Everything has a label now-a-days. I really think I have DCMC (diet coke milk chocolate syndrome).

The guy who plays the new Dumbledore in Harry Potter is not the same guy who plays Captain Barbosa in Pirates of the Caribbean. But, don’t you think they really look alike? There you go Cindy, I was wrong.

We just saw a really good, clean, and adorable film called Miss Potter. You ought to see it.