Papa and Grannie took the kids back to the beach (leaving us home to relax and get ready for our dinner out) and Grannie sent these pics.
And added this commentary:
Katie found a puddle and added to it. (I confirmed she added water to it and not pee.) 🙂
Now it is a bubble bath she says.
Handstand Owen
Tom and Owen fishing next door—you can see them if you look very closely in about the middle of the picture.
Owen caught a fish! Tom told him he had to hold it for a picture. This is him NOT wanting to do that AT ALL.
Still worried about it and refusing to do it. Tom told him he had to otherwise he was done fishing. 🙂
TA DA! With smiles, even!
Katie didn’t have a worm on hers but she didn’t know any better. 🙂
Fish #2!
No arguments this time!
He ended up catching three small fish! Dad cleaned them and we all got one tiny bite!
Owen happened to be wearing the same outfit…and of course Katie had on pink! And we were somewhere we could recreate the pic pretty well!
Katie loved throwing the walkway stones into the water—and she was really good at it!
The last time Katie was at Papa and Grannie’s, she was a few months old. This is where she slept:
So of course we had to recreate it…except we did it in the pretty garden instead of the basement (and I didn’t research the pic first so I had the wrong color bin).
Or maybe a flag pole. 🙂
Papa and Grannie introduced the kids to binoculars and they played with them continuously.
Owen wrote Katie at the top and then she wrote the letters herself! And then Owen graded it an A+!
We pulled into Eagle Harbor and immediately saw them on the beach!
Then it was off to dinner! We showed Katie the marks on her forehead from her swim goggles! Grannie Lin and I shared a lobster pizza—yum!
Then it was off to the playground…
…while daddy, Owen, and Papa went hunting Pokemon at the Eagle Harbor lighthouse.
Then they met us back at the playground.
Back at Burger King!
And back at the beach in Eagle Harbor!
We honestly didn’t think either kid would go in because it was too cold…but they both surprised us!!
At Fort Wilkins. Grannie said they zipped through it due to potential approaching weather (and we know how Owen is with storms) but they liked it.
Katie did this twice!
Visiting with Great Grandma Pat, or Pappy. She gave Katie a Cinderella Barbie (which she ADORED) and Owen a mini pillow pet (which he LOVED). [Edited to add: Katie has slept with Cinderella every night since then.]
With Lin’s Aunt Carol.
With Lin’s Aunt Mary Kay and Uncle Bob.
A U.P. sunset at 9:45!
Katie’s party was on July 13, but I forgot to get the pictures off my big camera—whoops! I’ll move this post to the right date later.
Once again, we had a gathering/pizza party at the Ramada pool!
I was kicking the ball back into the pool…and kicked my shoe right off! I watched it land on the side of the pool…and tumble right in. 🙂
The cake design Katie picked out!
And then back at Gramma Jean’s to open presents!
And she had to put on one of her new dresses!
Grannie sent me pics all along the way. They stopped at McDonalds twice plus playgrounds…so they had a ball.
Finally at Papa and Grannie’s!
The kids are buckled into Papa and Grannie’s car to head to the UP ahead of us! They were excited!
Find the original cartoon at Fowl Language Comics.
We had hoped to go mini golfing or to Hartwick Pines but it was overcast with the threat of rain…so we lunched at Spikes with Papa and Grannie (Spikeburger!) and then went bowling!
Retrieving a Katie ball that didn’t quite make it to the pins. If we didn’t help her, this is what would happen. It might have happened more than once. 🙂
The kids had a blast—here’s Katie in her slippery shoes and Owen getting a spare!
Tom won both games and Grannie came in second—though, to be fair, she was playing on the kid lanes with the bumpers! 🙂
Since Filipeks needed the upstairs bedrooms, the kids came down to sleep with us—we were going to try putting each on a couch but opted for the more-familiar aerobed.
Sticks always become fighting instruments:
Owen has been begging us to do the fireworks we have left (really just sparklers) so we finally got them out tonight.
‘Murica!
And we had a pooping dog leftover! Bonus!
And then a fire (with s’mores):
When the weather gives you crappy beach days, you improvise at home!
Cousins: Izzy (almost 14), Owen (7.5), Anna (12), and Katie (4)
The plan was to hit the beach at Petoskey State Park for play, rock hunting, and a picnic…but the weather had other ideas. We saw whitecaps as we approached…and it was a measly 72° (so with the wind it was probably about 60-65°) and the sand was painful as it whipped around.
So we were trying to decide what to do instead while sitting in the car. 🙂
We ended up heading inland to Burt Lake State Park (30 minutes away), assuming it wouldn’t be as windy. Ha! It was almost as bad! So we ate a fast picnic lunch (wrapped in towels because no one thought to bring jackets or sweatshirts for a day at the beach!), then got right back in the cars and headed home. We were all bummed.
This is the look we got when we asked Katie if she wanted to try the waterslide. She wanted nothing to do with it—even though she went down it before and loved it.
And then she up and decided she wanted to do it—and couldn’t get enough! After the first few times down, she didn’t even want Tom there to catch her. She just swam over to the edge all on her own!
Owen didn’t ride it but liked playing with it.
Dairy Queen (plus I got my Vacation Bucket List Blizzard!), the park, Pokemon hunting for Owen, splashing and throwing rocks in the river, a walk around the neighborhood with Gramma, and then a Gramma cuddle. 🙂
I thought she’d like sticking her feet in the river but she whined that it was TOO COLD! (It felt like bath water to me!)
I didn’t get any pics that were perfect…so I tried again. Still didn’t get a perfect shot but they’re still cute. 🙂
And the four-year collage (with years 1, 2, and 4 at Gramma’s house)!
Unfortunately, she did NOT want to get up…and it took us about 20 minutes to wake her up.
