Sunday, July 24, 2016

Ten Things of Michigan Thankful

I'm thinking most of this TToT post will focus on this week's Fun Friday that became Fun Friday AND Saturday.

1. I am thankful for Bryan's ability and willingness to take the odd day off of work to go on a short road trip with us. The man is super busy at work, with deadlines galore looming, but he always, always puts his family first. (When he was a new lawyer, for the first 2 years of employment, every single evaluation dinged him for never being in the office after 5:30 on weekdays or at all on weekends. He refused to change his schedule, and they finally backed off when they saw that he was still getting his work done, and done well, in his own time frame.)

2. I am thankful to live in a place with lots of things to do within a few hours drive. This time we took advantage of the nearness of Lake Michigan. We've vacationed there 4 times over the years (Here's a post about one of our trips.), but for some reason we've never gone on a quick overnight trip before. The closest beaches are less than 4 hours away from our house!

3. We are always grateful for fun dunes to jump and run and hike on.

The boys were trying and trying to get the timing of their jumps straight in order to all be in the air at the same time. This is as close as they got.



Five kids racing down a dune. I had to follow them down, collecting shoes and hats as I went. 
4. We're all grateful for beautiful blue skies for the entirety of our 25 hours in Michigan.

5. And in 95+ degree weather, we are extra grateful for the cool, cool waters of Lake Michigan.

For fear of sand, I didn't take my phone to the beach. I ran to the van right before we gathered our belongings to head back to Indiana to get my phone and snap one photo of everyone in the water.

6. We are grateful for the internet, where we found some tips about beaches in St. Joseph. Namely, to skip the ragingly popular Silver Beach and instead go to Tiscornia Park. We could see the Silver Lake beach from where we were, and it was PACKED with people. We couldn't even see the sand through the beach umbrellas. On our side of the river, there were people, but there was plenty of room for romping games of keep away and water football.

7. We are grateful for local, interesting places to eat. We avoid chain restaurants, especially when we're on a road trip. There are way too many new places to try, and it's a rare day that the local place doesn't taste way better than a chain.

This awesome ice cream stop is directly across the street from the entrance to Warren State Park, home of the dunes you saw above. We are blaming the sunburn on the crappy, cheap sunscreen Bryan bought. It was applied, but it didn't work very well.

If you ever find yourself in Lafayette, IN, this is a must stop. It's an 87 year old diner, where everything is made fresh, and half of it right in front of the customers. There are no tables. Everyone sits at the long counter that snakes its way around the entire inside of the building. The name of the place, Triple XXX, comes from the name of the root beer they sell. Seriously, it was one of the best burgers I've ever eaten. AND, the prices are more than reasonable.
I asked for volunteers to take a photo in front of the place. While Giant did volunteer, we have to be content with his perpetual 13-year old resting "whatever" face.
We also ate at a restaurant in St. Joseph called Clementine's, where we got to eat some fresh lake perch. So, so yummy. (No photo taken.)

8. I'm thankful that our van is still running well, even after 201,000 miles, so we can take these road trips without fear of breaking down along the way. Sure, it is now completely filled with sand and has been said to smell like toots inside, but it gets us where we want to go.

9. I'm thankful we were able to get a mini-vacation in before school starts. This coming week will be busy as we get everyone ready for school and squeeze in all the last minute summer fun we can get. Having two days to just have fun (and not cook!) was the perfect way to end our break.

10. I'm thankful I do still have another week to get the big kids ready for school. We haven't even started buying school supplies, and three of them need some pants! (Thankfully, only one needs shoes.)

How is your summer break going? What happy things were in your week?

Have a lovely day!


Ten Things of Thankful


 Your hosts




24 comments:

  1. Looks like you had a great time! I imagine your kids will have lots of fond memories of last-minute weekend trips.

    The water looks so inviting. The firefighters here could probably use all that water to put out the fire in our area! It's so smoky here!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hope so!

      I'm sure they could. It is scary watching the coverage on TV and photos from friends (Kristi of Thankful Me to be precise). Even if not to put the fire out, to simply jump in to cool off would be helpful, I'm thinking.

      Delete
  2. It looks and sounds like you had a great mini vacation, and the sky in the first three shots is a fabulous blue.

    The ice cream looks delicious, and I hope the sunburn wasn't painful.

    If the burger you had was anything like as good as the ones I get when I'm on Anglesey then it would have been a really good one - I can almost taste it :)

    For a few days during the past week we have had a heatwave here - the temperature in my back garden was 98F and in more southern parts of the country it was higher than that. I've been very busy with extra dog walking recently and coupled with my normal workload in offices which, in spite of the heating not being on, have been like ovens, the last few days for me have been very hot and tiring. It's cooled down considerably now though and is much more pleasant.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We had some beautiful blue skies both days.

      The kids were pretty much healed up from the sunburn the next morning. When we noticed them getting pink while we were still at the beach, we left so as not to let it get worse.

      It was delicious! I was shocked how good a simple cheeseburger could be.

      WOW! Is the a record for your area? I don't remember hearing that England gets such high temps normally. I'm glad it's cooled off for you. Those had to be some long, exhausting days for you!

      Delete
  3. What a wonderful little getaway!!! Looks like everybody had fun and the food sounds delicious! The heat here has kept me from doing much at all. The AC in our house can't keep up so it gets up to 89 degrees INSIDE our house regularly, I feel like I'm living underwater in a hot tub!!! It makes any kind of movement challenging, or thinking for that matter! I'm glad you had one last family vacation before school starts, good luck getting all the kids ready!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oooohh, that's hot. Doing anything in that heat in your house would be difficult. I'd probably feel it the hardest when I was trying to sleep. Do you have a good, strong fan blowing on you?

      I got one more kid outfitted with school pants today, so we're halfway there with the clothing. :) School supplies is a whole nuther matter...

      Delete
  4. Your husbands rocks. Your family rocks. Perfect mini vacation.

    Have a fabulous day. ☺

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. He does rock. I agree! The mini vacation fit the bill quite nicely.

      Delete
  5. oh boy! We're going back to Michigan!* Actually what's kind of cool is that one of the first blogs I got on the blogroll of was from a person who lives in St Joseph! (yeah, small virtual world).... great looking lighthouse they have there...
    Still knocks me out, how early school starts out your way, though it has no effect on me directly, it is as much a change of season marker as leaves turning less green.



    *as mentioned in last week's TToT, I thought when reading the start of this Post, 'I remember!!...' and smiled

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Third times a charm??? Comments! Argh!!! Enjoy the remainder of svhool vacation...lets see if this comment takes.

      Delete
    2. Third times a charm??? Comments! Argh!!! Enjoy the remainder of svhool vacation...lets see if this comment takes.

      Delete
    3. Clark, it is fabulous that we've known each other long enough to remember things like this about each other. :)

      Very nifty that you have a friend in St. Joseph. It is a beautiful area of the country. We took a nice walk out to the lighthouses. :)

      Zoe, Not only did it show up, but it did twice! Not sure why it showed up as a reply to Clark, though... (Thanks for continuing to try.)

      Delete
  6. Sounds like a superb and perfectly brief family getaway. Love those. They can be some of the best. Short and sweet.
    Lake Michigan is a great place to spend a day at the beach. Sorry to hear about that faulty sun tan lotion, but sounds like you got to eat at a few really great local spots. I agree that they are better. It's nice to share about the best food spots too.
    Love Lake Michigan dunes.
    :-)
    Have a good week ahead.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was! We didn't even decide to go there until 2 days before we left. It was the perfect little jaunt.

      I actually prefer Lake Michigan over going to the ocean. There's no salt and we don't have to worry about animals that could hurt or kill you. :) AND it's way closer to our house.

      Delete
  7. Great family fun and vacation. There's a place in Nags Head, NC called Jockey's Ridge which is one of the highest sand dunes on the East Coast and you can see water on all sides when you're up there. It's HOT up there in the summer and I only walk the dune in the Spring or Fall. Looks like the kids had a blast. Good luck with the beginnings of school.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I really must get there some day to compare them to our Michigan dunes. The sand was terribly hot in some parts, but it wasn't hot enough to deter us!

      Delete
  8. Love, love, love Lake Michigan. It's my favorite of all of the Great Lakes. One summer I made it a goal to visit as many of the lighthouses as we could and get photos. It was a lot of fun. Did you find any Petoskey stones along the shore??? People used to hunt all day with bags in hand and the kids and I would just be strolling along and literally at our feet dozens of them. :) I think they all found their way to us because we weren't looking to sell them. We collect them for the memories. So happy you all had such a wonderful time. I love Idaho but as the saying goes, "you can take the girl outta' Michigan but you will never take Michigan outta' this girl." :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I just looked up Petoskey stones. Can you believe I've never heard of them?!?!?! We've vacationed there 4 times, plus this trip, without knowing we could have been looking for totally cool fossils! You can bet we'll be keeping our eyes open for them next time!

      The only other great lake I have been on is Erie. That lake is certainly nothing to write home about. :)

      Delete
  9. Oh, how I love summers on Lake Michigan! Michigan side...Wisconsin side. Makes no difference to me! It is all wonderful.
    I am just back from one daughter's in NC and now in OK with the other daughter. We have been hitting on the local yummy hot spots in both places. So, I understand when you say you skip the chains and go local. It is so fun discovering the unique things each place has to offer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We've never been to see the Wisconsin side! While we've been to Wisconsin several times, we've never made it to Lake Michigan.
      Well, it sounds like you're having one hopping good summer! There are so many fun, unique, delicious places to eat in this country. Glad you're finding some of them!

      Delete
  10. Ohhhh your little holiday away sounds GORGEOUS (bar the sand and sunburn) - how lovely that you make it a priority to just take off and DO these things. It sounds as though you found some fabulous places to play and eat and spend time together.

    I hope the shopping for school supplies goes well! I seem to remember you struggling to get Phoenix trousers that fit him properly, in years gone by!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ha! Yes, shopping for the boys in the past has been quite difficult. Fortunately, they still have some that fit, so it won't be quite so taxing. Giant still fits in normal sizes, so until he and Star get to growing some more, we should be good. :) It's just a matter of taking the time to get to the stores with each of them...

      It was such a nice couple of days. I'm so glad we were able to go.

      Delete
  11. Your children are beautiful! Its been fun reading your adventures. I live in Michigan, too, and love Grand Haven and Holland!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for taking the time to tell me what you're thinking!