Grandparent Camp 2022

All photos and captions are from Gramma Jean!

Down at City Park in the river. It was COLD!
Looking for petoskey stones.
Goggles helped find them!
Swimming at Higgins Lake North State Park.
First ones there and last ones to leave! Five hours.
Owen now knows how to ride and mow the lawn!
Painting rocks on a rainy day!
A little laundry to do on their last day.
Our pit stop at the Big Mac.
Now it’s Granny Lin’s turn!

Gabby’s Graduation!

Gramma and Grandpa were headed to Gabby’s graduation party on Moccasin Lake in the U.P. (near Munising) so it was a perfect time to make the transfer. They got to spend the day with their cousins and had a great time!

Owen’s first raft ride behind a Jet Ski!
Waiting patiently.

First time in a hotel with them. We were tired enough, we all slept!

They’re both back at it!

Swim lessons started again today! They’ve both been asking me, and their lesson times finally backed up to one another, so it was time! They both needed a tiny bit of practice since they haven’t had lessons in over two years, but the instructor said they did really well!

This is Katie annoyed with the world because she couldn’t get her hair under her cap by herself but she refused to try and wouldn’t ask for (or let me) help. ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?

Owen’s bucket list: the raft!

Owen really wanted to go out to the raft in the middle of the harbor but Grannie and Papa were afraid to let him do it on his own because they wouldn’t be able to help him at all. I wouldn’t have had a problem with him going but they wanted to wait until Tom was there. Tom did agree to go out with him…even knowing full well that it was freezing cold water. So here is their experience.

Tom was ready to stop right here—that water is COLD—but he agreed, so…

We had one happy boy!!

And one cold daddy.

Who deserved a beer!

First ever grandparent camp!!

Since we live so close to family now…and the kids are getting older and more self-sufficient, we thought it was time to let them stay for a long visit with the grandparents! As scheduling happened to work out, we went to Michigan for our family Christmas and then left the kids there…and then Gramma Jean and Grandpa David would drive up to meet Papa and Grannie Lin to hand off the kids…and then we’d eventually drive up to the UP to pick them up. They would be gone a total of 19 days, 12 of which they were completely without us. Needless to say we were all looking forward to it…the grandparents were excited about having the kids, the kids were excited about fun with the grandparents, and we were excited to have some alone time and general peace and quiet.

Here are the pics from some of the adventures they had with Gramma Jean and Grandpa David!

Lake Margarethe – of course they made fast friends with other kids who where there!

Roscommon Zoo

Owen might be on a swim team!

Before Owen’s lesson, his instructor came and told us he was going to be testing Owen to see how he’d do on a swim team. He’s trying to get a local team together and he thought Owen was ready. As far as Owen knew, he was just practicing. 🙂

After, the instructor told us he thought he was definitely ready…so he’ll let us know if and when he gets a team together. (They have a team right now but it’s 30-45 minutes away from home so we’re not about to do that.)

We told Owen the news on the way home and his was his reaction: