Fife Lake - Last Vacation of the Summer

 To finish off our summer vacation, we decided to head back to our favorite vacation spot - Fife Lake.  I can't count the number of times we've been there now.  Dave and Colleen's place is a gem and they are so nice to keep letting us use it.  Every time I come there I feel like I'm coming home - it has the same peaceful, familiar feel and I love every inch of that little town, its lake, its people, and its forests and trails.  It's a place I'm always sad to leave.  We spent every morning (by we, I mean Kelly, Bella, and Christian) motorcycling and every afternoon swimming.  Benjamin didn't want to go (teenage boy drama) and protested the fact that we made him come anyway by never leaving the house.  He rode only two short trips and swam only once in the 6 days we were there.  The rest of the time he sat at the house and refused to get off the electronic devices.  Unfortunately because we weren't at our house, we didn't have any parental controls set up on anything, so we could remove our own devices, but the house still had tv that connected to the internet.  Unless we wanted to sit around the house all day too and monitor him, he did what he wanted most of the time.  Alas, the rest of us had a great outdoors vacation without him.

When the others were out motorcycling, I stayed with Peter and we played on the lake, played with toys, went to the library, went grocery shopping, went to the playground, or just walked around.

I got on the motorcycle once after Christian begged me.  I rode to the end of the trail by our house with him and realized I had no idea how to stop, turn around, or restart the bike if it died.  I managed to get the bike turned around and make it back home, but I was done.  Christian was grateful for my effort and the sweetie told me it was fun to ride with me.  Thanks kid.  Let's stick to kayaks.  

Bella and Christian liked swimming or kayaking on the lakes the best, so that's what we did most of the time.  There is an ice cream shop across from Fife Lake and I told the kids, "We're not going to eat here every day."  Total lie.  I couldn't say no.  They ate there every day, often right before dinner.  Oh well, a last hooray of summer.

Christian kept forgetting his sunglasses and so about half my pictures of him are with his eyes closed.

We also went to the Sleeping Bear dunes while we were there.  Peter LOVES to play in sand.  He was sooo sad when we left.  He could have played around in those dunes all day long.  He slid and rolled and dug without a care in the world.  So fun to see him so happy.  Let's not talk about what his diaper looked like at the end of the day!  I think we took half of the dune home with us.

On the way home, we stopped at Grand Traverse Bay.  It was too cold to swim for everyone but Christian.  He's a polar bear.  The rest of us just enjoyed the playground and sand.

When we weren't swimming or motorcycling, we relaxed around at home, rode bikes around town, played card games, or went to the library.  The library there is first rate and the kids (not Benjamin) love hanging out there.  When we were at home, the best thing was grilling hot dogs and roasting marshmallows over the fire.

Kelly strung up his hammock and that was a fun spot to relax and to take naps.

One day I gave Bella my phone so there'd be some proof I was on vacation too.  It's fun to see her pictures.  She's not a shabby photographer.  Funny how even if she's the photographer, she's in most of them.  Guess that's the selfie generation.  (There are FAR more pictures, but these are my favorites)

Peter loves to pretend to be his brothers.  Here he is imitating Christian (black hat and rubik's cube)

Here he is imitating Benjamin (camo hat and chilling in his pjs) :)

Last cute picture (taken by Bella).  This is Peter eating his favorite food - cream of wheat.  Every day he wakes up and says, "Milk!" I give him a cup of milk and then he says, "Wheat!"  He will plead for "wheat" until it comes.  And then again every time he gets hungry.  He likes it with mashed bananas, raisins and a little extra cream.    I made sure to bring lots of it to the cabin.  He's adorable and INCREDIBLY messy.