Labor Day

A much anticpated long weekend away to our favorite town, amidst the hustle and bustle of back to school and work... making summer's final ovation spent with family and dear friends that much more special and bittersweet.

And aside from one flat tire, this holiday weekend began textbook perfect.  Fabulous weather, and we hit the road in daylight, on the day we were supposed to!  Modern day miracle.

We brought along kayaks, and took turns enjoying Lost Lake....

We made our annual bike trek out to Big Sable Pointe Lighthouse.

It's amazing how much easier and quicker the biking gets every year!
No complaints or stopping to rest in 2013!

It was also the first year that we could all climb together as a family!

Made it!

We climbed and ran through the dunes...

Ack!  Some of us enjoyed the reptile show one afternoon in the beach house...

The highlight for me was watching the eyes of the very passionate reptile guy bug out of his head, as our kids very matter of factly told him that their mom hates snakes, and their dad kills all the blue racers at our house.  We wound up walking out mid heated lecture :)

Ice cream, naturally ...

A little early sunrise fishing at the dam...

Tim, doing what he does best...

We enjoyed the beach...

 

Sat around the fire...

Went on our annual Lost Lake hike with Uncle Kevin...

And once again ended the weekend with football when the lots cleared out...

...great memories.

Back at it again.

This blog.

So many great stories to tell, life to share, memories to put in the books since I left off last April.

But that is just overwhelming.  So I will start with today.

Summer went by in the blink of an eye. A whirlwind of sand, water, camps, friends, fishing, air soft gun wars, pools, pestering, day trips, chores, sleepovers, and staying up way too late.

It was a nice, care free ride.

And in the same abrupt way that I suddenly had 5 kids staring at me at 11:45 on a Thursday morning, summer also came to an end.

And we weren't quite ready for it.

The first words out of Dylan's mouth when I poked and prodded him awake on that first day of school... "Is it a snow day today?"

Well, even I don't wish for that.

First day of school forced photo.  One little girl couldn't handle all of these sudden changes....

 

First day of middle school... 

 

5th grade....

3rd grade...

 And kindergarten... can you see her excitement?

Her only request was that I make her "a skirt with all the colors that twirls."

We got this.

 

 

Happy Monday all~