Silver Lake 2011

Our original plan was to camp from the 15th to the 20th but at the last minute we decided to head up a day early- leaving Tuesday after Ryan got home from work.  This put us into a wild spin at home.... all day Tuesday I was attempting to clean the house and pack and do laundry while entertaining the boys (or more or less keeping the boys out of trouble).  Let me say, doing these things is pretty close to trying to nail jello to the wall on a hot summer day.  It was not going so well. 

Regardless, we did make it out of the house only 20 minutes past our target take off time... we left at 6:20.  The drive up was great- a swift 3 hours even after stopping 3 times!  We arrived, set up camp and were ready to begin our almost-week of camping vacay!

This year of camping is going to be so great.... Porter made so many new friends in the campground and we rarely saw the big kids.  Immediately they all made friends with Drew (see picture below).  Drew had guns and they spent a good part of Wednesday hiding behind trees shooting eachother.  Drew was a sweetheart and if he wasn't hanging out at our site, Porter was over at his.  Porter also made another friend, Landon, who was camping next to us.  And on the last day he met Jack, whose family has a permanent site/camper up there... so I'm sure Porter will see more of Jack on our trips to Sandy Shores!  

The campground was surprisingly empty for most of the time we were there except Friday-Sunday when it got busy.  Even then, there were still empty sites.  During the really quiet times, the kids ran wild through the campground... it was like their own personal playground/forest/game field.  They played flag tag, hide and seek, guns, rode bikes, spent time at the playground and pretty much just had a blast!  

The first two days we were there- Wednesday and Thursday- it rained and was cold.  Those days pretty much went like this... wake up, sit by nonexistent campfire, shower (maybe), lunch, looooong nap, dinner, campfire, bed.  Those two days pretty much were a wash.  The rest of the weekend was gorgeous though!

We went into Pentwater one evening for dinner.  Ryan, the boys and I went to the pier for a few minutes and I got a few cute pictures of the kids.  Porter enjoyed watching a loader haul sand out to the beach.  Hudson was terrified of it.

Thursday we took a tour of the Little Sable Lighthouse.  130 steps on a spiral staircase.  It was kind of terrifying to look over the balcony!  The inside was neat, though... so old and vintage.  It was a quick tour... probably took longer to walk up and down than it did to check out the view HAH!  It was really foggy the day we went, so we really didn't have much of a view.  We'll have to go back on a clearer day sometime.

Friday Lori and I took the kids Geocaching.  Our trail was .4 miles and boy were we whooped!  We went through a short trail in the woods, up some dunes, through fields, up more dunes, caught a glimpse of Lake Michigan, up a treacherous dune hill and finally found our Geocache.  We underestimated the sun that day and it was warmer than we anticipated... so the walk home was hot, sweaty and whiny.  I thought it was fun, though!

We didn't make it to the dunes until Saturday... the busiest day.  We drove the trucks out to Lake MI and also took the quads.  As usual, the boys were thrilled to watch the quads and jeeps and trucks attempt Test Hill, and they loved driving all around the dunes.  The excitement in their voices was priceless.  We spent a few hours at the Lake while the guys drove the quads around and then we headed back to camp.

Sunday we went to Craigs Cruisers and spent way too much money on the go carts but oh gosh we all could have driven them all day! The kids absolutely love the go carts, although I'm not sure who enjoys it more- the kids or adults!  We did 3 different races and had lots of laughs.  The kids all said I was a cheater (all the kids except whoever was driving with me.... we won quite a bit!  haha!).  I get slightly competitive at go-karts!

Of course, camping wouldn't be complete with out ice cream!  We took a couple trips to the local ice cream places throughout the week :) YUM!