Grand Haven, MI

After a great weekend camping and tubing with my ASA friends and Robin, I headed to Grand Haven, MI to meet up with my parents and Kris and the kids. We rented a cottage near downtown and spent the week exploring the town.

We spent 3 days at the beach. My parents only made it to one due to sunburn the first day. The kids loved the waves and being able to use floats and arm floaties (a first for both Ryan and Emma). They dug in the sand and buried each other. Even Nick was liking the water. The third day, my parents kept Nick and we spent the afternoon and evening watching the sun go down and watching Ryan and Emma entertain themselves so wonderfully.

Kris and I went paddle-boarding one morning. We had an awesome time with some quiet exercise. While there isn't a lot that I'm better at Kris doing, paddle-boarding and swimming are two things I'm way better at. I had a harder time starting out, but once I got used to it I was great. And then I would look back and Kris would fall off! I even won the race to the bouy - although it did cause my only fall of the day! When we returned to shore, we found that our bag with my dad's car keys was gone. After talking with other people on the beach, we figured out it was a family with 7 kids that took the bag and probably didn't realize it. Luckily, after Kris ran the two miles back to the cottage, we found my dad was a very smart man and brought his extra set of keys with him. So we were able to leave. Happily, after taking the kids to the same beach later that day, we stopped at the entrance gate and someone had returned our bag to them, keys and all. A happy ending to a great day!

We spent a few of the days wandering around town, enjoying some wonderful food and seeing the boats in the marina. They had fish/whale statues everywhere and Ryan and Emma were mesmerized by them. My parents went out to the closest casino one afternoon and we all napped. Afterward we found a wonderful little brewery that let outside food in. We picked up some burritos and quesidillas and headed there. They also had a ton of games to play, so we played a little Sorry, dominoes, and Yahtzee. We also watched the Musical Fountain, which while nice, wasn't anything compared to the fountains we've seen at the Auto Show or even the Detroit Airport.

We headed home on Saturday and got to enjoy a full day of recovery before Kris headed back to work and I started packing for the next trip. I apologize for the lack of pictures, but my camera died during the second day and I haven't recovered the pictures yet. I also forgot to send myself a copy of some of my parents pictures. A few of the pictures are blurry because they are from Ryan's camera. While good pictures, he can't help but touch the lens every so often.