Ultimately, I'm glad we tagged along with Mitch on his business trip up to Marquette. The kids got to see (and cross) the Mackinaw Bridge and get their first experience of the beautiful Upper Peninsula. We got to spend time together as a family (plus Mimi!), and that's always preferable to missing Daddy for a few days.
That being said, it wasn't perfect. I thought I was being smart when I booked a resort cottage right on Lake Superior. Sounds like a good idea, right?
Except that it turned out to be more like the Bates Motel and it rained the entire trip.
Luckily, after the shock of our new digs wore off, we were able to make light of it. We cracked each other up brainstorming promotional writing for the Seacoast Resort's (yes, they called it a "resort"!) brochures: "When you've gotten your fill of uncomfortable, forced conversation with the weird, overly-personal resort owners, come try your luck dashing across the exhilarating 4-lane highway to our beautiful private beach. Take in the gorgeous view and revel in your new lease on life with giant swarms of aggressive, biting flies!"
Good thing we took in some beach time the first night, because that was the only time it wasn't raining. But the flies were out. Ugh, those things were relentless.
We did go back on our last morning in the rain. We figured it might keep the flies away and dang it if we weren't getting at least a little more beach time on this vacay! It was pretty cool and the kids didn't mind getting wet (of course).
Getting dried off and warmed up. I think they look so much alike here!
Mom and I got creative to keep the kids busy in the rain and ended up finding a very cool kids' museum, the Marquette YMCA pool (with a big slide!), and a huge Burger King playland.
Kids' museum was very cool!
I still get heebie-jeebies thinking about our playland disaster. To set the scene, simply picture a hot playplace filled with tons of loud, bratty kids. Oh yeah, and they're all blowing ear-piercing whistles that apparently came with the kids' meal. The play structure was huge, like 4 levels tall and Julian ended up getting lost in the top tube. It was actually pretty traumatic for both of us. I could hear him calling for me and I could hear in his voice that he was scared. I tried calling for him, but I couldn't see him and he couldn't hear me over the other screaming kids. I finally climbed in (cue claustrophobia) and went up a couple levels...still couldn't see him. I started asking other kids to help me, telling them his name and what color shirt he was wearing. By that time, I could hear he was getting really upset, calling for me and crying. Finally I caught a glimpse of him across the room in a ceiling-level tube, trying to go one way while big kids kept pushing him over to get around the other way. I had to go up one more level before he could hear and see me and he finally made his way to me and we escaped together. Shudder.
But there was plenty of good on our trip too. The weather in Mackinaw on the way up and back down was gorgeous. Our hotel room had an amazing view of the lake and we had lots of fun in the hotel's pool and arcade. As Julian would tell you, he's getting very good at skee-ball.The kids got a kick out of going over the big bridge and they actually traveled very well. (Having Mimi in the back with them helped a LOT!)
View from our balcony...it was gorgeous!
Another positive of our trip was not only having Mom there to help out
(and did she ever!) but I also sat back and took some time to appreciate
how awesome Mitch is on vacation. He's always up for taking both kids
by himself to the pool or the arcade or whatever so I can get things
packed easily and quietly. I end up doing a lot of work on vacation because I'm picky about packing everything just so,
but he really has the tough job of entertaining the kids. It's part of
the reason I love our family vacations so much...we work well together
and no one gets too frazzled. And speaking of packing, I tried out some
different strategies for family packing that turned out pretty awesome.
What can I say? I love organization.
And the kids who never sleep in the car...finally learned how. Thank you Jesus.
Glowsticks at the beach!
They talked about wanting Mitch to come back in the fall, and if so, we will know what to do differently. But we will still tag along because even rainy, buggy, weird trips are fun when we're all together.
