June 2022: Michigan Trip - A Boat Ride

Boat rides with tubing are one of the kids' favorite vacation activities, although I think by this time Olivia might have been done with me and my camera.

Agnes was so excited to be riding on the boat.

Here are way too many tubing pictures but their faces are so fun in all of them.

I think this is the only picture I have of Michael Jr. He would rather be on the boat than on the tube, and Edie is tentatively giving it a go.

Grandpa is a very skilled and empathetic tubing driver. He took it was easy on Michael and Edie, but when the adrenaline girls get in the tube he has a lot more fun.

Agnes was alternately super excited and rather scared, so I went out with her on a trial run.

She loved it and kept signaling to Grandpa to go faster and make more bumps!

Lots of different partners went out. Chris was by far the most adventurous adult.

I can't remember if anyone fell off. Most likely Catherine or Mary did at some point.

I'm not sure Gussie knew what he was in for when he went out with Catherine, but he had a good time.

After her initial slow ride, Edie went back out with Olivia.

After this, she was done.

So she switched out with Gussie who was ready for more.

Agnes had so much fun that she wanted to go out again and insisted Mary go with her this time.

Grandpa slowly ramped up the speed and movement and she loved it. LOVED. She calls this her "cupcake hair."

I think Chris was ready to just relax on the boat a bit but Gussie convinced him to go out on the tube again.

He and his back might have regretted that.

One more series of whips for Catherine and Mary.

And just because I don't have anywhere else to put it, I think this video is from the drive home. It's wild having teenagers with phones and not being the only recorder of life anymore.

June 2022: Michigan Trip - Mackinac Island

The last time we visited Mackinac Island, I was pregnant with Agnes and Edie slept the entire bike around the island. This time they both got to see and enjoy the ride!

We started our day on the island with the horse-drawn wagon tour. It's a lovely way to see both the town and the state park (national park?).

(Don't mind Catherine - she's just wondering at what point the horse-hair-infested-air all over the island is going to cause her face to swell up.)

One of the nice stops on the tour is this rock bridge. (Don't mind Edie - she's in a super-pout over us all sitting in the back rows of the wagon in order to put as much distance between Catherine and the horses as possible.)

I really love the bike path around the island, but maybe next time we make it out we won't have any babies in trailers and we can kayak around the island instead.

The walk down the hill from the end of the wagon tour back into town has great views.

Agnes was still hitching rides as often as she could.

We got some pizza for lunch and ate it in the park, until we noticed a pack of seagulls surrounding us and moving inward in a coordinated attack pattern. Gussie started throwing them bits of crust to keep them appeased, and then they started fighting with each other and ignoring us so we were safe.

Gussie then took my camera and harassed Olivia, Uncle Chris, and Aunt Sunny for a while.

Full of pizza and with plenty of water, we headed out on the bike path.

We stopped along the way to play on the smooth rock beaches. Spoiler alert: none of us are good at skipping stones. But we can chuck them pretty far.

Video Interlude: Here's everyone getting started again after a play break.

And we stopped in the shade before returning to the town to climb some trees, inspect some rocks, and find a giant snail.

We got some ice cream while waiting for the ferry to take us back across to the mainland. 

It had warmed up a bit so we braved the top deck even though we knew it would be windy.

I told Catherine to take a selfie with me but she didn't have her sunglasses and said it was too bright to open her eyes.

Edie found her own solution when no one was interested in listening to her complaints about the sun and wind. All good!