Traverse City: Wine Tasting

The adults decided that they wanted to do some wine tasting...so after naps one day, we all loaded into our respective cars, even Ollie, and headed on our way up the Mission Peninsula. Unbeknown to us, Michigan actually produces some decent wines and the peninsula was beautiful. We hit up 2 wineries and then drove to the tip of the peninsula for a picnic. Ok, only the kids ate, but it was still a picnic! The lighthouse park was gorgeous and Remi and I LOVED exploring the rocks and the water. A great way to end our vacation. Thank you again Connors for inviting us along.

Traverse City: The Nauti-Cat

The two families had talked about going out on the lake one morning and all of the research that mommy had done before hand showed that the boats didn't start running until Memorial Day weekend, thus putting us 1 week early for all "touristy" excursions. BUT, Jenell was surfing the web and found a catamaran that was running on a Wednesday, so she booked us all on the kids cruise. Later that same day, we were looking at the website and you could no longer sign up for Wednesdays cruise, so we assumed the cruise was sold out.. The next morning, we rally the troops and head off to the boat, thanking our lucky stars we were able to reserve a space on the boat. We get to the boat and no one else is there, except the captain... Turns out he was just playing around with the online reservation system of his website, and accidentally allowed tickets to be sold on that Wednesday, when he really wasn't opening for business until the upcoming Saturday. BUT, he said it was his mistake and took us out anyways. We had the whole boat to ourselves. It was so much fun roaming around that thing and playing on the nets. Remi had a rough time of it, daddy accidentally got sunblock in her eye, her eye swelled shut and she screamed for all but 5 minutes of the 90 minute trip...

The Nauti-Cat

Waiting in anticipation..

my two favorite girls

me and chad... I kind of was his shadow for the entire trip

the girls, just hanging out

Jenell and baby Katelyn

Raising the sail with Chad

Remi, trying to get her sea legs

Remi and daddy on the nets

exploring

2 very happy boys!

Katelyn decided to take a nap on the trip

Remi, playing with the hoola hops, during the 5 minutes scream free episode

Traverse City: The Backyard

Probably the best part of the entire trip, was just hanging out in the shady backyard of the house. Every morning and late afternoon/evening, we would all end up outside, playing bocce, tossing a ball, or just wrestling with each other. The other great thing about this trip was waking up every morning and seeing daddy for 4 days in a row. By the way, that's my new trick now, I know daddy leaves for work really early in the morning, so I make sure I'm up before daddy even wakes up, then I'm guaranteed to see him that day. Hey, I'll take a few minutes over no minutes any day...

"ollie, do you want to play with gaffe?

snuggles

more than likely, pouting or a in a time out...

The Connors: Chad, Jenell, Katelyn, and ollie

enjoying the view with mama

our attempt at a family picture

wading in the water with the big boys

Remi, being silly with the camera

"c'mon ollie, let's play catch." a side note: ollie does NOT like to play fetch...

Every night a different adult would cook dinner for the adults after the kids went to bed. This is Jenell's attempt at beer can chicken... The grill was running HOT that day!

Traverse City: The Beach

One morning, we headed to a local beach to hangout and we had the entire thing to ourselves. Maybe because it was 9am, maybe because it was May, maybe because it was a weekday, but who cares, we had a private beach and the heat index was over 100 degrees! Remi and I played in the sand and mommy did her best grandpa Irwin impersonation by digging a giant hole. But the best part of the trip was wading out into the water. It was super shallow and I waded out over 100 meters and was only up to my waist. Ollie, the Connor's Great Dane, came to the beach as well, as we had lots of fun playing and splashing in the water together. I'm kinda thinking about asking for an ollie for my birthday... Do you think my parents would go for it?

workin'

"whoa! walking in this sand is tricky."

Traverse City: The House

The Connor family rented an amazing house up in Traverse City for the week before Memorial Day through the holiday, and they invited the Goldstein's of Ann Arbor to stay with them for a few days. At first mommy was reluctant to go, as she didn't want to inflict the "craziness" of our family on their vacation. But with lots of pleading and prodding by the Connor's and a bit of whining from yours truly, mommy succumbed and we loaded up the purple beast for the 4 plus hour drive to "the lake." Did I mention that there was a record heat wave happening at the time? Did I also mention that daddy's car did not have air conditioning at the time... You go ahead and put those two together and come up with how the driving portion of the trip went...

When we arrived, we were greeted by this amazing house... Daddy didn't even take pictures of "our" portion of the house. If we are here to vacation next summer, we know the house we want to rent!

Most importantly, we want to thank the Connor family for inviting us to come stay with them. We had a blast!

The dining room which had a great view of the water.

The living room

View from the dining room

The patio... Apparently, the grown ups would eat dinner out here and then roast marshmallows in the fire pit. For some reason, we were not invited to these gatherings...

Remi and I would sit in these rocking chairs every morning. Ahhh, the good life!