Sarah and her family spent a week with us in Rochester, and then the six of us took off for Intermediate Lake in Michigan where we had rented a cottage for a week. The weather was much cooler than we anticipated, but it didn't keep the kids out of the water, and by the end of the week it had warmed up. It was, gratefully, sunny every day.
The cottage was set back from the lake. The only disadvantage to that was the view from the cottage was more limited than it might have been.
We rented a boat for the week, and got out on the lake every day. Caleb (as you will see) loves tubing, and wished for a faster boat. Hannah wasn't interested in tubing this year, but loves driving with Grandpa.
Hannah did like kayaking. The cottage had several we could use, and Sarah tied Hannah's kayak to hers. Hannah paddled continuously so I don't thing the rope did much except keep her with Sarah.
We think we may put this photo on a tee shirt for Caleb on his birthday!
The kids talked Adam into tubing. The rest of us passed on it.
And that's the way we spent most of the days--on the water. I don't have any photos of Hannah in the water, but the water was shallow enough that she could easily play in the water which she loved. We also played board games, read, and napped. A pretty fine way to spend one of the last weeks of the summer.
After Sarah and her family left for Wisconsin, we stayed on for a couple of days to meet up with a couple we met on our tour of Spain and Portugal. Candy and Ralph live in northern Indiana so we had met them for lunch earlier in the year on our way home from Wisconsin. This time Ralph got us rooms at one of the wineries near Traverse City. It was gorgeous, and so relaxing. We had lovely rooms, but also had the use of a very large living area and patio. Traverse City is one of their favorite get-aways.
One morning they took us to Fish Town--an old fishing village that now offers boat rentals, fishing excursions, and shops.
I was excited to finally see a Wood Duck. There was a whole flock of them.
This is a view from one of the wineries we visited. The grounds were beautiful, as were the ones where we stayed.
All in all it was a wonderful trip. We returned to a very busy schedule which is finally winding down this week. Two weeks from Saturday we'll be off again. I don't expect to do more than try to keep up with email during that trip, so I hope to get a lot of crafting and posting done in the next week or two.
