This is what the sunset looked like every night we were there!
Here are the girls hanging out with Uncle Alex when we arrived...
This was the view on the way to our house... SO beautiful!
And here is the story of how our trip went... (I kept a journal from day to day so I would remember everything we did!) Warning : This is a VERY long post! :)
Saturday, June 21 – We left home at 11:30 and only stopped about 3 times on the way up. Maya took her first nap around 11:45 until 12:30 which was nice, she was pretty happy after that, for quite a while… Then when the girls started getting cranky, we found a rest stop, however it happened to be ‘under construction’ so we had to use port-a-potty’s! UGH! The drive went amazingly well – no huge melt-down’s like I expected!
We arrived in Mackinaw around 5:00. We unpacked and then went straight into the city to have dinner – and we ate at MaMa Mia’s Pizza and then went in a few shops and bought some fudge and then went to the IGA to buy some groceries – (way overpriced groceries!)
The view out our sliding glass doors... so peaceful and nice! (Side note: The lake was actually about 4 feet lower than normal, so all the green you see in the near distance used to be covered in water, so the lake used to come up to the sand and very close to our house, but now it doesn't -- too bad!)
There was a scary bear skin hanging on the wall! You could see inside the bears mouth - YICK! Who would want this on their wall? There were animal skins all over this house, on end tables & dressers in every room - so we promptly put them away, or hid them, when we arrived.
Sunday, June 22 – Mom, Dad & Alex went to Church – when they got home we had lunch and then all took naps, until around 3:15, when we went into the city and shopped – I got some cool things and we also had some yummy ice cream! We came back home and my Mother-in-law and I made pasta salad & sloppy joes for dinner. Afterwards, the girls played in the sand by our house – Alex & Chris walked out toward the water. The girls had their first bath here after all that, since they were covered in sand. And then me, Chris and Alex stayed up until 11:15 playing Scrabble. (I was glad I’d taken a nap so I could stay up late and have fun!)
Monday, June 23 – Got up at 8:00 and left for Cheboygan around 10:15 (it’s about 15 –20 minutes away) We went to a really neat, huge antique store where we got a cool mirror that looks like a window, for $45, which we’ll hang in our dining room and I also got 2 neat metal signs to hang in the dining room as well. Then we went to Wal-Mart – the main reason for our trip to Cheboygan – and we got some more food for our meals for the rest of the week (since the IGA in Mackinaw City was SOO expensive!) We got stuff to make spaghetti, bbq chicken on the grill, corn on the cob, strawberries, grapes, and some sweet rolls for breakfast. We also looked at tennis shoes for the girls since we forgot the big bag of shoes I’d packed for them at home - argh! We found a cute denim pair of shoes for Chloe that were $6 – but there weren’t any cheap ones in Maya’s size – so she didn’t get any. We originally planned to return from Cheboygan in time for lunch at our house, but it was already 12:15 and we were hungry, so we found a Little Caesar’s and got two $5 pizza’s! (It so happened this was right next to a Family Dollar store, which had a big variety of cheap shoes for kids, so Maya ended up getting a new pair of super cute tennis shoes for only $6.99! yea!) Then we drove up the road and found a lighthouse on the beach and a park w/picnic tables where we could eat our pizza. It was amazing how well it worked out, since we didn’t even plan to have a ‘picnic’ while on our little outing to Cheboygan! So that was fun… and we walked down the ‘pier’ to the lighthouse and it was a little chilly, but still fun. Then we left to come back and the girls even fell asleep in the cars on the way home!
Tuesday, June 24 – We arrived at the ferry dock by 10:15 and we took the ferry to Mackinaw Island. It was the girls’ first boat ride ever and they loved it! When we got there, we decided if we were going to rent bikes, the morning was the time to do it, so that’s what we did! I was nervous to ride a bike with the child carrier on back, so Chris’ Mom did, with Maya and Chris rode with Chloe in back. I was nervous about riding bikes because the last time we attempted to ride bikes on the island was when Chris & I were on our honeymoon and we had to bike for miles to the center of the island to the resort we were staying at and I was NOT in shape and complained the entire time and just wanted to cry!! It was horrible! So I was nervous – but riding this simple 1 speed bike was tons easier than my own and since we were biking around the perimeter of the island, there weren’t any huge hills, like when you bike to the center of it! So it actually went really well and was tons of fun!! The weather was just right and Maya even fell asleep for most of the hour bike ride! Chloe just loved it – there was little handles for her to hold onto and she thought she was really riding the bike! After the bike ride, we walked around, played on the playground and shopped until almost dinner time! I surely didn’t think the girls would last that long without naps, and Maya fell asleep on the boat ride back to the city. Before we went back, though, we got some great ice cream from Ryba’s Fudge Shop and I had “Mackinaw Island Peanut Butter Fudge” in a waffle cone – what an amazing treat!!
Wednesday, June 25 – We spent most of the day shopping in Mackinaw City and we went out for dinner that night to the Dixie Saloon, which was yummy. Maya is horrible in restaurants, though, so Chris spent much of the meal walking around outside with Maya until his food arrived and we went & found him!
Thursday, June 26 – We decided we enjoyed the bike riding SO much on the Island that we wanted to go back! We had only planned on spending 1 day on the Island. It was $25 per adult to travel to the island & back on the ferry ($12 for kids ages 4 –12, so ours were free thankfully!) so that means we spent a total of $100 since we went 2 days to the Island, but it was worth it. J This time we went in the late afternoon/early evening, so the girls could get their afternoon naps in. As soon as we got there, we rented bikes again and this time Chris’ parents stayed back and just me, Chris, Alex & the girls went bike riding, so I rode with the child carrier on the back of my bike for the first time. Maya was crankier than the last time, though, so we didn’t make it very far, and I got way tired unlike the 1st time, so it wasn’t quite as fun as before, but it was still nice. We ate a late dinner on the island, and I got another scoop of my new favorite ice cream, before boarding the ferry for our very last boat ride back to the city. (Chloe asked constantly to go on a boat ride the whole week, ever since the first ride we took! She loved it!)
Friday, June 27 – We got up and traveled to Petoskey, which was supposed to be 30 minutes away but it seemed like an eternity to get there. And once we got there, we walked around their downtown, but it was mainly upscale shops, way out of our price range. They did have a farmer’s market going on that day, so we bought some local homemade jams, but that was about it. We then found an Arby’s nearby so we could have some cheap lunch and then went to a park on the Lake that was beautiful and the girls found another playground to play on – they were on ‘super playground alert’ the entire week – I swear they could spot a playground before anyone else did… So we pretty much explored every single playground in every city we visited! (This got old after a while!) After coming home & taking naps, we went into the city and bought $70 worth of fudge for everyone back home (mainly the guys’ who work for Chris) and then we had our bbq chicken on the grill and sweet corn back at our house.
Saturday, June 28 – It was our final morning – which we spent cleaning the house and doing laundry and then we packed some lunches and were on the road by noon to go home… It was a forever long trip that day – probably because we just wanted to be home already… and we finally walked in our front door at 7:15 – because we stopped at Bob Evans with Chris’ parents & Alex on the way home (our usual vacation tradition!) The girls even took good naps in the car that day, Maya for 2 hours and Chloe for an hour, but it still felt like the trip was forever long.
We were SOO glad to be home – I can’t tell you how much I grew to appreciate so many things while being away. I love my bed, my house, my soft carpet, my water that doesn’t smell like lake water :) and just everything about my beautiful home. It was wonderful being away, but it was wonderful coming home, too. I think that’s why we take vacations. Over the course of the last week, we grew closer to each other as a family, Chris & I re-connected as husband & wife (it was so great holding hands so much! hehe) and Chris was able to grow closer to the girls, too. It was the best thing ever and I can’t wait to do it all again next year!
I will be posting more pictures as I have the time. :) Tomorrow it's back to work for me...
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