End of Summer

Summer traditions - baseball games, fireworks on fourth of July, and up north on Labor Day weekend. We unofficially ended summer this weekend, as we have many years before, at my parents' cottage at Higgins Lake. I grew up on this lake, spending summer after summer swimming, boating, and skiing there. I never knew there were any other lakes in Michigan to visit (well, I knew, but really??). It's absolutely gorgeous. Now that Jason has his boat, we've visited several other nice lakes in the state, but none have been as clear as this:

You can literally see the bottom over 20 feet down. Yes, it may be on the chilly side, but seeing my feet is worth it to me! I'm so glad that Hannah has the chance to grow up on this lake as well.

With the summer we've been having, we weren't expecting much for the weather, but we were blessed with a fabulous weather weekend, and we took full advantage of it. Jason and I went for a boat ride around the north end of the lake on Friday afternoon, knowing that with the gorgeous weather, the place would be a zoo before we knew it. While we were out in the boat, Hannah stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Cramer at the cottage.

Grandpa and his girls

My parents brought our niece Kara up with them, since my brother and sister-in-law were leaving right after work. Each time Hannah has been with Kara, she's gotten a little more interested in her. This time, she was totally infatuated. I don't know where she learned it, but she gave cousin Kara plenty of "hugs" and "kisses", basically putting either her cheek or her mouth up against Kara's cheek, too cute!!

If anybody was feeding Kara, Hannah wanted to be a part of it as well.

Daddy attempting to feed Kara with Hannah's "help."

Hannah also was insistent on patting Kara on the head. Love taps? Perhaps, until they turned a little harder, when we would have to remind her to be gentle.

Twins? Not exactly but definitely adorable!

Hannah is on the constant move these days, so it was a nice break when she discovered Kara's bouncy seat.

Hannah recliner, complete with built-in entertainment system.

Hannah also discovered that it sounds really neat when you put a bucket over your head and talk into it. Unfortuantely, it doesn't make for the best walking.

Walking by faith

Saturday afternoon was full of food. In the early afternoon, the association held their annual picnic. We packed up the two beach beauties and headed down for some lunch.

Ready for the water

The guys had pulled the pontoon out of the water in the morning, so later in the day, Hannah got on board to do a full winter inspection.

My Aunt Lynn (my mom's sister) also has a cottage in the same association as my parents. All of the planets must have aligned b/c our whole of the family, including my brother and his wife, and my 3 cousins + 1 wife, made it up north for the weekend. Since this rarely happens anymore, my grandparents made the trip from Frankenmuth to join us for the day. My aunt had all of us over for a picnic at their house on Saturday evening to celebrate my cousin Matt's birthday (which actually happens to be Dec. 28, but always gets celebrated in the summer).

Whenever all of us are together, we always attempt to get family pictures. Each year, between adding more family members to the shot and advancing technology with not so advanced photographers, the pictures become more and more of a challenge. This year was no different. I only got a couple with my camera (unfortunately, not the big one with the WHOLE family), which I think all things considered, turned out fairly well.

All of the grandchildren, spouses, and great-grandchildren

Since we were up for a long weekend, we decided to take a little break from the action and head even further north on Sunday to visit the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes. Jason and I have driven past the scenic drive the last couple of years during the off-season when it's been closed, so we took advantage of the perfect day and finally did the drive. We debated on taking Hannah with us, since we were going to be in the car for so long, but in the end we were glad that we brought her along. She'll never remember any of it, but at least we've got the pictures to prove that we were all there as a family :-)

Honestly, the only reason I really wanted to do the drive was the same reason that every other tourist wants to do the drive - the Lake Michigan overlook. This is the stop on the drive where you can view Lake Michigan from an observation deck at the top of the dune, looking nearly straight down to Lake Michigan, 450 feet below.

Note, I said VIEW. There are signs and literature everywhere warning you NOT to attempt to hike (or rather slide) to the bottom of the dune, for many reasons, mostly b/c it's like climbing a 450 foot wall to get back to the top! Jason and I heeded the advice of others who have ignored the warnings and wish they hadn't, and we stayed at the top. However, we had plenty of opportunities to take pictures of those not-so-smart ones at the bottom, attempting to make their way back.

Yes, those dots are people at the bottom of the dune!

We stayed safely on the observation deck and even got a nice family picture together.

The dunes really are breathtaking.

We worked up an appetite watching all of those people climb back up the dune, so after cruising through the rest of the scenic route, we headed up the shore to the cute town of Leland, where we had lunch in their Fishtown district.

The Cove was right up Jason's alley, full of wooden boat paraphanalia!

On the way home, Jason spotted a Century Resorter for sale in Traverse City. He just couldn't resist stopping to get the story on it. Thankfully, we didn't go home with a new old boat!

A beautiful boat. Even more beautiful in someone else's driveway!

Overall, we had a wonderful weekend. It's sad to see summer go, but as we saw some of the leaves already starting to turn colors up north, I'm really looking forward to fall.