Our Trip North, Odykirk Reunion & August Recap

So... I just realized I never posted this post, or another couple of posts, that have been sitting in my drafts folder waiting for pictures to be uploaded since the beginning of September - OOPS!  So here it is... written back in early September.

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August sure passed by us in the blink of an eye.  We were just so busy.  Work was pretty crazy for both Kevin and I with some long days, plus I had to do some traveling (luckily just (long) day trips).  Whenever work is crazy for us, it tends to translate into craziness at home, too.  Plus, we took a short vacation, saw lots of friends, and did lots of preparing for Carson to start Kindergarten in September.  Here's a quick recap of the highlights of our month.

We took a long weekend trip (Friday-Monday) up north.  We rented a cute little cabin in Honor, MI, which is up in Benzie County.  We explored Empire, Benzonia, Frankfort, Glen Arbor, Fishtown/Leland, and a little Traverse City.  It was such a great, relaxing weekend!

We drove up on Friday morning, explored Empire and the North Bar Lake area, and spent some time on a private beach on the Empire bluffs.  The water was seriously gorgeous - it looked like Caribbean water, it was so turquoise-y blue.  We had a lot of fun playing on the beach.  Then we went to Frankfort to explore a little and have dinner at Dinghy's - which was really good!  After dinner, we made a quick stop at the cabin and then headed over to Sara's cousin Dana's house in Traverse City.  We got to hang out with some of Sara's cousins and great-aunts and had a good bonfire.

We had an Odykirk family reunion on Saturday on the Platte River/Lake Michigan.  Quite a few Odykirks came out for it, which was great!  All six of the Odykirk siblings' families were represented.  We all tubed the Platte River - some did a 2-hour trip and some did a 1-hour trip.  We just did a 1-hour trip since we didn't think the kids would last for the 2-hour trip.  It was so fun and super relaxing!  After the tubing trip, we had a great picnic lunch at the park followed by lots of laughs and visiting, swimming, paddle-boarding, beach walking, and just relaxing.  The kids had so much fun, as did we!  Sara also did a quick photo session with her cousin Dana and her family.  Then we all headed back to Dana's house again for a late dinner and another bonfire, which was SO fun!!  We played some really fun games around the bonfire and had such a great time.

On Sunday, we explored the Sleeping Bear Dunes area with Nana, Papa, and Aunt Lindsay.  We did the Pierce Stocking scenic drive, walked on the dunes a bit, took lots of pictures, had a picnic lunch, and just enjoyed the beauty that is northern Michigan.  Then we hit the road to explore Glen Arbor, Glen Haven, and Fishtown/Leland.  We did some shopping, lots of walking, and had a good dinner in Fishtown.  It was another great day.

We got up and left on Monday morning, taking our time getting home with a few different stops to explore and see some things along the way.  It was such a great weekend.  We returned home feeling relaxed and recharged.  :)

Kevin's softball season on our church team ended.  I'm not sure what their record ended up being, but I don't think it was that great.  But they all had a lot of fun, which is what matters most.  Kevin got to know some guys from Faith quite well and really enjoyed his time on the team.  He's looking forward to being on the team again next year. too.  The team had a season-end BBQ one Sunday afternoon, which was fun to spend some time with the families, swimming, sunning, munching, and hanging out.

We got to spend some time with some old friends of ours, when we hosted the "Long Time No See BBQ" at our house.  We had five other families over, some of which we hadn't seen in several years.  So it was good to catch up and see one another!  Most of the guys were old car friends of Kevin's, and I had gotten to know their wives over the years, too.

We made a trip to the Detroit Children's Hospital for a pediatric surgical consult for the small tumors that Bristol was born with on her head.  They recommend having them removed, but we are not going to pursue that immediately.  We may explore it this winter, but we will see.  I want to talk to our pediatrician about it again.

We also had our Small Group Family Day at the lake, plus we had a couple of birthday parties for friends, which were a lot of fun!  We had most of Kevin's family over for lunch after church one afternoon and we met up with Aunt Mary, Rebecca and Abram for some fun at the MSU Children's Gardens one afternoon.

And, of course, we did lots of preparing for Carson to start Kindergarten in September.  We attended a couple of different open houses at his new school, did lots of school shopping, and made all the necessary arrangements for school to begin.  Its hard to believe our little man is growing up so fast.. can't we stop time for a bit?!  :)

So even though it was an insanely busy August, it was a really great month!  We had lots of fun together as a family, saw lots of old and new friends, made quite a bit of progress on different projects around the house and yard, and Sara's photography business continued to grow.  It was another very good month!