Family vacation to Michigan: Part 1

Flash forward to July from December because I just did.  Ugh.  This blog is becoming so hard to keep up, but at the same time I really would like to try to keep it going.  I am sure there are some fellow bloggers that agree.  Anyway, I have sooo many pics and videos to post from the last post, but instead I am going to start with a recent post from our summer vacation.  Maybe I will be able to back track, but this is good for now.  Baby steps.  The format is messing up a bit because I did of some this from the computer and some from my phone.

This is the first summer that I haven't had to move to Lexington for work in 8 years!  Crazy!  Since that was the case our summer was jam packed.  We had so much fun with lots of activities!  In the middle of July we went to New Buffalo, Michigan for a family vacation.  We decided we wanted to try something different and didn't want to drive 10-12 hours to get to a beach.  I had a few friends suggest the area so we thought we would give it a try.  We went with my David, Carrie and the boys.  My parents joined us for about 3 nights. We actually have never vacationed with my brother and crew.  We have done long weekends, but never a week.  It was so much fun!  We rented a house in the neighborhood called Grand Beach.  It was a beautiful neighborhood!  New Buffalo is located just past the Indiana State line right on Lake Michigan.  It is about an hour from Chicago and if we looked a certain way on a clear day we could see a few of the Chicago buildings across the lake.  They looked like tiny black lines.

It only took us about 5 hr. 45 mins. to get there, which was awesome considering sometimes our girls get car sick and traveling long distances with kids is never easy.  Once we got settled in we went to a playground that was a block away from our house.  We went to the playground a lot during the week.  We got some restaurant tips from the locals and grabbed dinner in town at a pizza diner.  They had cute Adirondack chairs outside.

And Kate was being moody after the car ride. :)

The next day was beautiful!  It was a high of 75 degrees and sunny.  We spent hours on the beach that day.  It was weird to sit on a beach and not really sweat or be hot.  The beach was different, but the kids loved it.  It was sandy, but then had a ton of rocks right where the water broke.  The water was really cold, but the kids could tolerate it and we did too by the end of the week. Since the temperatures were a little cooler than normal (they typically average low/mid 80s) and after the extreme winter this year, the water was colder than average. 

Girlfriend has no booty.  Ha!

So sweet!

Lunch is better at the beach!

After a day at the beach we grilled out at the house.  My parents arrived just in time for dinner.  We then walked again to the playground and hung out around the house.

Stay tuned for more posts from the trip... (I hope! Ha!)