Beach week

Are you tired of looking at that ol' peach pie?  So am I but it sure tasted good.  We've  been gone for a week so there wasn't any posting going on. 

Very good friends of ours give us the use of their house in our old neighborhood at the lake.  It's a little like a homecoming as we try to pack all the good things about the lake into one week. We spend time together and time alone so we cover lots of ground.  Our beaches along the western coast of Michigan are beautiful soft sandy beaches.  Just ask Australia Jenny.  When I took her to see Lake Michigan she kept saying, "It's just like the beach!!"  It IS our beach, you can't see across Lake Michigan, all of the Great Lakes are fresh water, a living thing, a force to be respected and there are no sharks.

 The girls transformed into mermaids.  They spent the entire day everyday at the beach.  Some days the water was calm and sometimes the waves were active but they didn't care. I just noticed Elizabeth has her glasses on.  She didn't do that when she got serious about being in the water.

  Adelaide made a wigwam

 Elizabeth read her books

 We all hunted for crinoids.  Elizabeth has an eye for them.  For her, it's like they're painted red. She just sees them.

 Even Lily loved her freedom to run and chase butterflies.

 In South Haven it's a nightly ritual to go to Sherman's for ice cream. Everyone goes. The serving size at Sherman's defies description.  A single cone is TRULY a pint of ice cream.  A double scoop is equivalent to a full quart.  No exaggeration.  So, when the suggestion was put out one evening that we should get the Pig's Dinner and split it, we all thought it would be fun.  There was serious discussion about flavors before we got there because this place is jammed every night and once your number is called there is no time to dilly dally.

We chose peppermint patty, mint chip,amaretto cherry and salted caramel. We asked for the toppings on the side:  a double helping of hot fudge, hot caramel and marshmallow.  Chopped nuts.  We allowed the whipped cream on the ice cream. It makes for a fun attention getting walk through the place to the tables but you know what?  It wasn't as much ice cream as if we'd all gotten our own servings.  Not that we were being greedy or anything (!)

 We spent a lot of time reading - I took some hand work but the project never came out of the car. I read all week. We all did.

 On the way home this morning I stopped to pick 7.7 pounds of blueberries. It's peak blueberry season right now and we've used the last container from the freezer so I spent a quiet, solitary hour this morning refueling.

 And if that's not all, our Ceci had a birthday!