Part Six: The Beach

 

{looking back at the ‘lake cottages’ from Lake Michigan}

 

We visited the beach every single day, multiple times in the day.  It was lovely having it so close! Can you tell that Noah was having a great time?!

 

 

 

 

It was pretty windy and the water was ice cold, so we didn’t go swimming, but we did wade in it and somehow manage to get our skirts pretty wet!

 

 

Anna, Bekah, Charissa and the boys loved burying themselves (and each other!) in the sand 😀

 

 

Sailboats were a common sight…once we saw 6 or 7 of them all out in the lake at once!

 

 

{Isaiah}

 

One of our favorite games (invented by Anna) was to run along the sand near the water and try to see how far you could go before the waves caught up to you 😉

 

 

Once we were down by the water, and this older gentleman comes walking across the sand straight toward us. At first we were wondering what we might have done wrong because he was walking rather quickly and purposefully toward us.  Then he said, ‘Do you want me to take your picture?’  😀  Sure!  We’d like that 😀  So he took this picture 😀  We were amazed that he’d go to the trouble of walking across the beach just to offer to take our picture, because walking in that sand is not easy!

 

Anna, Bekah and Charissa found a long piece of driftwood and had a blast ‘surfing’ for quite awhile!

 

They had *lots* of fun 😉

 

It got rather chilly at times…Cassia and Anna were trying to warm up with one of the towels.

 

 

We had fun writing in the sand…

 

 

 

 

Cassia wrote this one,

“Courageous, coming to theaters September 30th, 2011”

can you tell what’s on her mind?!

 

 

 

These weren’t gigantic sand cliffs…just a close-up of a little sand cliff.  But the designs that the wind and water etched on it were very neat 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

{Oh that lovely blue water!}

 

Sand castles, with bridges and motes and everything 😉

 

{Charissa}

 

 

{Isaiah and Noah}

 

 

This lighthouse was called “Big Red”.  Not sure why ‘big’, because it was on the smaller side.  Nevertheless, it was very pretty and a good subject for the camera 😉

 

 

{more pretty blue…and green}

 

One day we walked out on the breakwater, all the way to the end.  We got lots of pictures.  Lots.  Two girls especially kept taking pictures 😀  We joked that we walked 10 steps, then stopped for them to take 20 pictures!  It was fine though, we weren’t in any hurry.

 

{some of our best friends}

 

Oh what fun!

 

We took this panorama picture while out on the breakwater…you can see even more of the lake ‘cottages’ 😉

 

{Big Red}

 

 

The Coast Guard was going to shut this little lighthouse down, but the locals protested and succeeded in keeping the light shining.  It was neat to see at night.

 

{Bekah}

 

{Big Red…again 😉 }

 

more bestest friends…they really are the best 😉

 

Sand angels 😀  This was cute to see!

 

 

Sunset on the lake was beautiful.  In this picture you can see the length of the breakwater, going out into the lake from the lighthouse.  There are two little ‘poles’ sticking up at the ends of the breakwater.

 

You can see ‘Big Red’s’ light shining here…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When the sun was almost over the horizon, we’d watch until it disappeared completely 🙂

 

 

Looking at the lake from the walk ‘our cottage’ was one…

 

{Charissa}

 

 

 

And that is the end of our vacation 🙁  We didn’t want to come home at all…it was so relaxing and lovely there!  But we packed up on Friday, and left at about 4:30 in the afternoon after getting to enjoy a yummy pancake breakfast that morning and one last time at the beach 😉  We stopped by Culver’s on the way home, as a treat.  That was yummy (when is ice cream not yummy?!)

 

Saturday we were supposed to can pears, but everybody was still in ‘vacation mode’ 😀  Thankfully by Monday we were back into the swing of things, and the pears are all packed away now, with the exception of some pear butter that needs to be canned 😉

 

Good-bye Lake Michigan!  We hope to visit you again!

 

 

 

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