Last week we spent the week at a house about 3 hours north of here on Lake Michigan. We went up with our friend and new house mate Elise, and our other friends from church, Alex and Matt came for a few days. We also spent two of the days with our good friends who used to live here in The Bend and now live in Muskegan, MI, Kristin and Simeon Frang! Aside from Greta getting home sick again, it was a wonderfully relaxing week in a beautiful setting. Erik got a bit of work done and had some time for play, and I got to finish my book I am reading.
This is a view from the house. To get to the beach, we had to climb up the stairs, over a dune, and through the woods. It was quite a workout but really neat to have our own private access to the beach. In fact, the whole community was a private, gated neighborhood. You had to drive through cornfields, then you found this little gate on a dirt road, went through the gate and drove a mile through the woods, then up over a dune, and here you were! A highlight for me was definitely watching the weather–gorgeous sunsets, magnificent stars, and really neat storms and fog!
A highlight for the kids was that since the house was on a dune, the area under the deck was a giant sandpit, which provided hours of entertainment! On one day Kristin and her son Ethan joined the kids and I running trucks through the sand.
The beach was a lot of fun, but a bit difficult with little kids. Lake Michigan can have a pretty strong undertow and riptide and so we couldn’t let Will get further than arm’s reach from us. And Greta was very worried about the waves. On calm days I would swim her out to the sandbar, where she would have lots of fun playing. On windy, wavy days, we played in the sand a lot, taking walks along the beach and making footprints in the wet sand. On one particular day, Kristin took us to a local secret–this awesome park where a small lake flows into Lake Michigan, creating a warm and shallow waterway, perfect for young kids!
Despite the cold air that day, they loved the chance to play in the water without me holding them. Of course, Greta kept her water wings on, and Will ran fearlessly into the deepest parts of the water, attempting to doggy paddle right away! I could see how kids learn to swim quickly if they play every day in water like this!
It is hard for me to believe that with all this beauty and fun, not to mention cartoons every morning and dessert every night that Greta still told me that our house was more fun than this one. I guess I should be glad she likes her home and her life here in South Bend!
