April 16-18, 2010
Yankee Springs Recreation Area

If you haven't figured it out by now - we love spring camping. We were actually headed to Ionia State Park with our friends, but they arrived first and found that there was no water to fill our storage tanks. The dump stations weren't turned on yet - and the bathrooms were still closed, etc. We may love to camp, but we have our limits and water is one of them. After pulling the phone number from the camping notebook I keep in the truck at all times, I made a quick call to Yankee Springs and confirmed that they indeed did have water available at the pump house. So after another phone call back to Kevin and Lyn - they turned their trailer around and headed to Yankee Springs instead. We hadn't yet gotten as far as US 131 so we didn't have to detour, just change our route. We were able to fill up with water and got a couple of great sites right on the channel.

Sam shows everyone how he learned how to ride a two wheeler this week.

We did several hikes this weekend. When we arrived we found out that if the kids completed 3 hiking trails in their entirety that they would earn a dragonfly medallion. This was enough motivation for them to complete 3 of the trails without much complaining.

One of the things that kept the kids occupied was a new game they made up with Paul. They would lay down in the middle of the trail and he would ride the bike trailer over top of them.
In this picture, Jillian is the one getting dirty~much to her mother's chagrine ;-)

The other game they made up was pulling the trail markers back and letting them fly to smack each other on the butt. Jillian lines up her shot at Allison.

In addition, to several great hikes, we got some good fishing in too.
I think most of the kids caught a fish.

Once again there were many light saber duels.
Nicholas is having so much fun with his "new cousins"
who enjoy so many of the same things as he does.

These two girls were perfectly content to just cast their
practice weights into the water over and over again.
As long as they are together, they are usually happy.

Sam wore his helmet quite a bit this weekend.
Seems like he just forgets it's on after a while.

Helmets are mandatory equipment for fishing, right?

Like Sleepy Hollow, there was tree climbing as well.

One of the benefits of camping with other people, is the bonus of a family picture which we rarely get - as I am usually the one behind the camera.

Group picture to remember another wonderful weekend together.
Sam HAD to be by Romeo~ his new best bud.
(Sam is the only one who doesn't have a cousin here that is his age, so I think he feels that Romeo is his special friend)