Lincoln turns 5!

Lincoln's 5.  5!  I know...I cannot believe it either!

Lincoln started the day opening his gifts from us.  He got a lot of fun stuff including a new fishing pole and a puppet theater.  Hopefully he will have a chance to use the new pole on our fall camping trip.

(Confession: I totally see my 3 year old self in the above picture!)

After opening presents and breakfast, we went to the Great Lakes Zoological Society in Ann Arbor where we met Kirk's mom and my sister-in-law and her two girls.  What a fun place to take the kids!  They had all kinds of crazy reptiles and amphibians.  One of the girls who worked there was kind enough to take a blue tongue skink out of his cage and let the kids touch him.  That was awesome and really nice of her. 

After GLZS, we went to Olga's (where else?) for lunch.  I think Lincoln finished a basket of snackers on his own. It amazes me how much kids love those things!  He opened up his presents while we waited for a table. The present he was most excited about?  Party in the Tub.  Needless to say, there have been parties in our bathtub since Friday.

We had cake and ice cream for dinner.  I loved this cake from Mom and Pop's Bakery.  They did a nice job with the dinosaur on the cake and it was really good!

Saturday, Lincoln's friend Alex came over and they played with his new toys.  Lincoln had used some of his birthday money to buy a fossil finding kit.  It kept the boys busy, quiet and outside for more than 2 hours. Perfect.

Yesterday, we met my family at one of our favorite places, Boulder Ridge Wild Animal Park.  It was incredibly hot and humid and busy, but we were still able to feed the giraffes and the camel and ridge the safari bus.  Gigi and Papa got Lincoln a dinosaur packed birthday gift.  Lincoln woke me up this morning asking me why pterodactyls ate fish.  Oye.

I missed last year, but this year I asked LJ 20 questions about himself.  His answers make me smile.

1.  How old are you? 5
2.  Who is your best friend? Alex and all my other friends
3.  What is your favorite thing to do? Play with my friends and family
4.  What is your favorite color? Blue and green
5.  What is your favorite food? Pasta
6.  What do you like to do with family? Spend quiet time with them
7.  What is your favorite toy? The dinosaurs I got yesterday
8.  What do you want to be when you grow up? A museum worker and a paleontologist
9.  What makes you happy? When my friends laugh and I laugh too.  And when you laugh.
10. What makes you sad? When people aren't very nice to me. (*whoever you are, I'm coming after you)
11. What is your favorite tv show? Wild Kratts
12. What is your favorite book? Library books and the baseball one
13. What do you love to learn about? Reading
14. What was the best part of your birthday? Presents and cake
15. Where do you like to go? To all of my friend's houses who are very nice to me
16. Who is your favorite teacher? Ms. Debbie (at his old school)
17. What is your favorite treat? Suckers
18. What do you think about before you fall asleep? My day
19. If you could meet someone famous, who would it be? A rockstar
20. What was your favorite birthday present? Party in the tub

Oh, Lincoln.  One of the sweetest souls I have met.  He's so sensitive and kind and so caring.  He also doesn't always listen and rebels in his own little way.  Then again, he's 5.

Tomorrow is the first day of Begindergarten.  Crazy, crazy, crazy.

Camping Close By

A couple weeks ago we camped at Sleepy Hollow State Park just north of Lansing.  It's actually a really nice state park.  Our site was nice and private and wooded.  We had people across from us and next to us but they were quiet.

There are 16 miles of trails around the campground, although, I only enjoyed one short hike because I bit it and totally twisted my ankle.  Typical me, I know!  I was limping around the whole time we were there.  Our site was a half mile walk to the beach and less than 10 minutes to a fishing pier. You all know about LJ's love of fishing.  One day he caught 10 fish!  The kid loves it.

There were a lot of deer around and Lincoln loved catching fireflies.  He also was on a caterpillar hunt.  This particular one he named Michael.  Cause everyone names their caterpillar Michael.

Kirk worked one day which is why we stayed close to Lansing.  It's hard being a campsite alone with two kids.  Even worse when it starts thunderstorming and you're in small popup camper.  We were all going a little crazy by the time Kirk got home that night.  The kids enjoyed the day by taking slefies while sneaking playtime on my phone.

Camping for less than a week is hard!  I feel like we just unpack and then it's time to go.  But, never fear, we are planning a fall camping trip for less than a week the beginning of October.  I am trying to talk K into going south for spring break and camping.  No luck yet.  

After our fall camping trip we will winterize the popup and put it away until next year.  I'm sad to even type a word with the word "winter" in it.

Another successful trip in the books!

Oh, vacation. I love you.

This year we headed back over and up to the cottage we've rented the last couple years.  It's such a great cottage on Ford Lake between Manistee and Ludington.  We love it there.  I was so worried about the weather not being good.  It started out a little rocky (cold) but it turned out amazing.

I should mention we got a pop-up camper.  I can't believe it!  We thought about it for a month and decided we liked the idea of becoming campers.  Kirk grew up camping but I didn't.  Unless you count the times my friends and I went in high school.  Does it count that we would drive home to shower and then go back up? (oh, Lis...keep your comments to yourself!)  Every summer when I hear my friends talk about camping with their kids or see their pictures or see my nephew and nieces' faces light up talking about camping, I get excited for them! So, we've joined the club.

Anyway, we had the camper for exactly three days when we left for vacation.  We had an issue before we even got to the cottage.  Long story, but we had no brakes on the camper or brake lights!  It was a long drive to the cottage and we were totally stressed out.  Kirk and I were so happy to get to the cottage all in one piece.

We laid low the first day and just hung out.  Lincoln is a future professional fisherman (no, seriously) so Kirk and Lincoln fished and Isa and laid around.  The Sizemores came over and hung out for a little bit.  We all went out for dinner to House of Flavors (where else?) where the kids enjoyed dessert.  We were happy to get home and have Uncle Nate waiting for us!  My kids can't get enough of him.  And Lincoln (and Kirk) were happy to have another fishing partner. 

Tuesday we went to out favorite beach in Manistee.  It was cold but not too cold for us to make it a beach day!  I asked the kids to turn around hoping to get another picture of them like last year gazing peacefully at the water.  This is the shot they gave me.  Gee, kiddos, thanks...I guess?  Lincoln was excited to be buried in sand for the first time.  The water was cold  SO STINKING COLD!  Like Lake Superior cold.

Another of our favorite beaches is Buttersville in Ludington.  It's a great beach!  We all go every year. Actually, it was my mom who introduced us to it.  Such a great beach! 

We didn't want to leave, but we left Saturday to begin the second leg of our vacation.  

We went to the UP to camp.  Krk's parents rent a cabin about 5 minutes from the campground so we saw them which helped to break us in slowly to this whole camping thing.

The campground was beautiful.  Kirk grew up camping there and so did his dad, actually.  We spent some time at the lake where the campground is.  That water was warm.  There was a trail that went all the way around the lake so I did that one day.  Another day we went to Munising; one of my fave cities in the UP.  Love it there.

Our site at Colwell Lake Campground

that's a baby frog!

Wagner Falls

The kids were able to spend some time with their cousins when we went to the cabin and we were able to enjoy some adult conversation.  Lincoln caught some fish at the cabin but I wasn't there to witness it.  No pictures, but he did catch a perch, which was one of the fish he wanted to catch.  He was never able to catch the pike he wanted to catch.

After our 10 day vacation, we headed home.  On the way home, we stopped on Route 2.  It was too nice of a day not to!  The only problem was, it added on to our already long car ride.  It took us 8 hours to get home (with a long stop). 

We have another camping adventure scheduled for next week.  We can't say good-bye to summer only having camped once!  I'll post pics when we get home.

Here's to another great vacation!