West Coast Love

I just love going to the west coast of Michigan.  Lake Michigan is my favorite place to visit in Michigan.  While we make our annual trip to Silver Lake (and this year we'll have a second annual trip to Custer... near Ludington), we don't often do day trips to the beach.  I'm not sure why, because its only a 2 hour drive.  The lake reminds me so much of the ocean... minus the salt water, humidity (most of the time) and sharks HAHA!  

On Thursday I made plans to meet up with my friend Susan and her girls in South Haven. She lives about half an hour from the beach and takes her girls at sunset for beautiful pictures on the beach.  I wanted to try to get a few of the boys, so the plan was to leave after nap...around 3 if possible. 

Well... of course my kids won't nap. At 2:30 they were still awake and I was getting uber crabby.  Hudson finally slept and we were on the road around 4:40.  Porter napped in the car for part of the ride, and besides that it was uneventful. 

We spent about 2 hours on the beach.  The kids ran and played and got soaked and sandy.  At first Porter wasn't sure about meeting up with 3 girls.  When I was telling him about Susan's girls (Reilly-6, Addie-4, and Jolie-11mo) he simply said to me... "I just want to play with Hudson."  WHaaaa?  He never wants to play with Hudson.  Or should I say, playing with Hudson is never peaceful.   Once Porter met the girls, they were instant friends.  I can't believe how well they got along!  And by the end of the night, Porter and Addie were "sword fighting" with a noodle and a parasol.  Nice.  She's his kind of girl, though, and it was so funny to watch!  

I didn't get very many "good" pictures.  Sure, most of them are technically correct but not many of them capture my children the way I wanted to capture them.  I feel like I can never get good pictures of my boys.  Its so frustrating!  But, I think its simply PCS (Photographers Child Syndrome), as Susan has the same trouble with her girls (minus Addie, who is so stinking cooperative!).  

Aside from minimal pictures, we had a blast.  Afterwards we went to the Chocolate Cafe to get ice cream (at 9:30pm).  It was a perfect ending to a perfectly fun evening!