Silver Lake trip

We went to Silver Lake State Park for Memorial Day weekend with our friends. We broke in the new Jeep, and had a blast!

Very short drive from our hotel on Silver Lake to the dunes:



Line to get in the ORV area...it went fast, but we were amazed by all of the vehicles! It is a whole new culture I never knew about!



Trail to the first hill:



After cresting the first hill, we saw hundreds of trucks, ATVs, Jeeps, and dune buggies!



Gorgeous Lake Michigan:



The girls loved it!



Crazy drivers...there are no rules here! Just cars everywhere!



A medium sized dune:



The mud flat areas were for drag racing, with cars lined up on each side to watch:



Lots of water to play in:



The Big Dune:



Taking a potty break (aka find some bushes):



Just a little sand in the brand new Jeep:



Ice cream for dessert. This place was on the main drag of Silver Lake, so we got to watch the constant stream of trucks going to and from the dunes. There are lots of rednecks there...with hilarious/inappropriate signs and flags. And when the kids tried to get the monster trucks to honk, no one honked. They just revved their engine. So we coined a new term: redneck honking. It means revving one's engine.



Gorgeous sunset over Silver Lake. The kids played in the water at our hotel beach:









Sunday was rainy. We needed several tows.



Still tons of cars despite the rain:



Fun zipping around trees:



Just about to go up The Big Dune:



Yes, we went up that with our brand new Jeep!



Later in the day, our friend drove right out of his tire:



How many engineers does it take to re-seat a tire?



Kids horsing around during the delay:



We made several visits to the hotel pool:



It is asparagus country there, so the restaurants had asparagus in every dish! Fried asparagus was amazing! As was asparagus scrambled eggs for breakfast!



We celebrated two birthdays while there - Robin's and Steve's:



One night, the adults played cards in one room while the kids zoned out to iThings in another:



On Monday we went souvenir shopping and visited the lighthouse:






We wanted to do the dune climb, but the wind was fierce, and we were getting sandblasted. So we opted for an inland trail:



We played some mini golf:






And did some go karting:














On our way out, we stopped at one of the many roadside stands selling asparagus. Wouldn't you know that the runner up Miss Asparagus was selling there? With the tiara and sash! I can't believe we didn't get a pic with her! She said the asparagus was picked just 30 min earlier, and we got two pounds. It's been delicious!

It was such a fun weekend. Silver Lake is a place you have to see to believe!

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Catching up

I missed blogging on Sunday, because we gardened all day and had three late soccer games. Here's a little catch up!

We picked up our new deck furniture last Monday. Meg tried it out right away Tuesday morning:



And the girls did homework on it that afternoon:



Then Chris assembled the new table and benches. We love it! It's huge!



Our elementary school open house and science fair were last week. Meg's project was on faucet aerators and ways to save water:



Jess' was on making a speaker for an iPod:



In Meg's classroom we got to see lots of her art for the year:












We've had tons of meals on the deck!



Deck art was last week in downtown Rochester. It's art - on skateboards, on display in all of the downtown businesses. We saw it all on Friday night.









This jewelry store had the best deck art:












Three soccer games on Saturday called for a trip to DQ!



We also did tons of garden work and yard work on Saturday. We had four yards of compost delivered (to save the mess in our van). But the prep work was the worst, edging, weeding, and moving plants.



By Sunday afternoon, we had 90% of the yard cleaned up:















Sunday late afternoon/night we had three more soccer games. Here's Jess re-enacting a great save she had as goalie! She also had one goal in the game. Meg had a hat trick in hers!!



Chris had to go back to Brazil on Sunday night, for only a week this time.

On Monday, Dad C came to visit, specifically to see Katie's track meet! She did shotput and ran the mile. She had a PR of 8:46 (I think):






Of course we had to stop at you-know-where to celebrate!



On Wednesday Katie had her last home track meet. She threw 18' in shotput, her PR by almost two feet! And she ran the mile in 8:43, another PR!!



Katie and her running buddy:



And today we got a sneak peek at Megan's dance costume and routine! Only 10 days til her recital!






Chris gets home Saturday morning, and then we're heading to Silver Lake for the weekend with friends. As Megan said, we need to get the Jeep dirty!! :)

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