June 4-8, 2010
Muskegon State Park - Channel Campground

School's out for the summer - what a better way to celebrate than to go camping right?
We have always wanted to get a site at this campground right on the channel and were fortunate enough to get a reservation for one this weekend. It was wonderful.

School may be out - but the learning never stops. Nicholas found some bricks on our site and started to play with them. Before I know it, I had him experimenting with different things as he tried to life the heavy brick with a stick. He was learning about leverage. He moved his fulcrum closer to the brick and then farther away and even tried making it taller to see what would make the brick easier or harder to lift.

Friday afternoon before we left for camping, I made a quick stop at the library. Normally, the kids are with me to pick out their books - but today I just grabbed some that I thought they would like. Apparently Nicholas liked this book I picked, he carried his chair up by the channel and sat their reading for at least 30 minutes.

Muskegon Lake was cold, but apparently warm enough for the kids because they loved having the opportunity to swim.

Paul decided to challenge the kids and they all agreed to try to climb this massive dune that we pass when entering the park. We have talked of trying to climb it for several years, but this year we actually did.

Almost there Sam...

The view from the top

From the bottom of the dune, you can see this heart made out of sticks. When we reached the top, we decided to move the sticks around. Instead of a heart - we made it into a 6 for the Van Wesep 6 to prove that we were there. When we got to the bottom, it wasn't as obvious that it was a 6 as we had hoped, but we knew it was.

Going down was much more fun than going up.

On the way back, our legs were feeling really heavy. However, there was a pretty decent sized dune yet to be climbed before we got all the way back to the road. Our legs were really burning as we climbed - but we triumphed!

The next day, we decided to do a short hike back in the woods. When we got out of the truck, Sam proceeded to walk right through a puddle in his canvas tennis shoes. Obviously, his feet and socks were now soaking wet. However, we were not going to quit the hike because of this - he was going to have to reap the consequences of his actions. He proceeded to through a nice temper tantrum and laid right down in the middle of trail and stated that he wasn't going anywhere.

The girls -pretending the ferns they found were umbrellas.

Straddling a deep groove in the trail.

Friday night, we started chatting with our neighbors and had a great time visiting them on and off throughout the weekend. We shared with the husband that we were praying that we would see a freighter. Paul loves freighters, but we always seem to get "skunked" whenever we are camping at Channel Campground and have yet to see one when we were there.
He returned from an errand one night and informed Paul that a ship was coming in.
We all got really excited. We were disappointed to learn that it was actually only a barge. Still exciting for the kids to see, but a tugboat pushing a barge is was definately not the 1000 foot ore freighter that we had been hoping for.

Grandma and Grandpa came out to visit on Monday (our last full day there) and brought watermelon. As you can see below - our kids love watermelon.

Grandma and Grandpa left soon after dinner and I started to get the kids ready for bed. A few minutes later, my mom was back. I came out of the trailer just in time to hear here telling Paul that they saw freighter on Lake Michigan. This time, Paul was a bit more hesitant to get excited so he took off on his bike to confirm the report. We were elated to find out that a freighter of unknown size was indeed on it's way to the channel.
The last time we were fortunate enough to actually see a freighter this close was 4 years ago, so the kids really had no concept of what to expect.

Having grown up with a father who practically lived and breathed freighters and made many trips to the Soo Locks Paul knew the trip to getting the ship to blow it's horn. The kids were so excited to help Paul wave "the white towel" (well, the white jacket in this case). However, when the blast actually occurred - Gabrielle broke into tears as it was much louder than she thought it was going to be.

The 704 foot M/V H. Lee White’s name
honors former American Steamship Company chairman, Harris Lee White.

The weekend could not have ended on a more exciting note either - as we were starting to pack up the next morning, Paul looked up and realized that the freighter was headed back out into open water and we got to see it head back out. Once again, we were honored with the blow of the horn, and this time there were no tears.

Sam watches the M/V H. Lee White head out into Lake Michigan.

What a wonderful weekend we had and the freighter
experience was definately the cherry on top!

June 2, 2010
The Popsicle Boy

Nicholas' class did a play at the end of the year. They actually did this play over and over again for almost 2 full days and that doesn't count all the rehearsals before. They did the play for class after class until all the classes in the school got a chance to see it. The parents were invited to attend any of the presentation throughout either day. If one parent showed up for a specific time they would do their play. The kids and I attended the last show - as we had provided bikes as props and then I could bring them home.

The play itself was a re-telling of 'The Gingerbread Boy', except it was the story of the Popsicle Boy who ran away from 2 little kids. Everyone he came across he would tell them than they couldn't catch him. By the end of the story - the popsicle boy ended up melting on the beach.
It was a cute story and all the kids did a great job, especially given how many times they performed it. Nicholas and his friend Josh were two boys on bikes, who wanted that popsicle but the popsicle ran away.

June 1, 2010
Filling Dad's Shoes

I think Sam misunderstood...and no, I don't think Dad's pants fit yet?
He'll have to wait a little longer to wear the pants in the family.

May 27-31, 2010
Memorial Day Weekend
Hartwick Pines State Park

As much camping as we have done already this year (this marks our 8th trip out of the season) - I think this trip was our most anticipated. These were the first reservations we made for the 2010 camping season, we made them 6 months ago and have been looking forward to exploring this new campground ever since. We were definately not disappointed and will definately return. This was also are longest stretch of camping so far this season - as we are restricted to weekends with the kids being in school.

There are a lot of pictures here because we did a lot of different things and I couldn't decide what to leave out.

Our campsite on the outer loop, nice and private
with a wooded area behind us for the kids to play.

Getting ready to explore the bike trail just outside the park entrance.

At the entrance to the state park they have this great big "contraption" that they used to move logs back in the logging days.

We biked to Bright and Glory Lakes. They are actually quite small but full of fish. One thing we regret about our weekend is that we never made it back here with our fishing poles.
Allison was perfectly happy though - she found a yellow butterfly. She loves yellow butterflies -as yellow is her favorite color. We teased her throughout the weekend that her butterfly was following her, because it seemed that almost everywhere we went the entire weekend we saw at least one.

One of the lakes.

We spent an afternoon hiking the AuSable River Foot Trail. It was right around 3 miles long, which we knew would be pushing it for the kids - but they did really well. The trail had a pamphlet that gave you something to look for or watch for at each of the trail markers. We learned a lot of things about the history of the forest and various things we were seeing both on the trees and around them.

At the beginning of our hike, Gabrielle started collecting ferns.
However, she quickly learned that ferns lost their moisture very quickly and wilt badly in a very short period of time.

Sam decided to fill his bucket with water from the river.

Unbelievably, Sam hiked almost the entire 3 miles. He did very well, but last 1/4 mile or so he opted to get into the bike trailer to ride the rest of the way. He didn't last long, before he was sawing logs - and not the kind the loggers used to saw.

Friday night - the special even of the evening was a presentation about life as a logger.
This man was very good - he knew just how to keep the kids involved in what he was saying as he constantly was asking one of the kids in the audience their name and putting them in a situation that he was talking about. Gabrielle got used as an example of a cook in a logging camp. It was very worth our time, and we learned a lot about logging and increased our interest in visiting the logging museum later in the weekend.

Saturday morning, I got up to get dressed. When I came back to make my bed - this is what I found. Sneaky, sneaky, sneaky.

Later Saturday morning, we went on the OLD GROWTH TRAIL tour.
This is a guided tour, approximately a mile in length and ending at the logging museum.
The guide was very interesting and pointed out many points of interest. As we walked the beginning portion of the trail, he kept pointing out trees which had been nests to the Pileated Woodpecker in previous seasons. They had not yet found an active next for this season. Little did he know, that later in the hike our group would not only see a Pileated Woodpecker, but see it fly over to it's nest. Imagine our excitement when we also got to see the baby woodpeckers little beeks pop out of the hole and the mom feed them.
(couldn't get a good shot of the babies though)

As we are walking through this highly wooded area, all of the sudden there is this great big rock. We learned that this is called an "erratic" and that it had been dropped here at some point by a glacier. Love how much our kids are learning without really realizing they are learning it.

A little further down the trail we saw a chapel -
it looks so peaceful and serene in this beautiful setting.

At the end of the trail we were able to explore the logging museum.
This is where the previous night talk really pulled together as the kids could see so many of the things he had talked about the night before. They even got to lay on beds like the loggers used to sleep in.

The kids loved the hands on part of the museum. They had a model logging camp all set up. They kids could load the trailers, the trains and every thing with a miniature version of everything.

After walking through many of the wooded areas - it really hit home to see this photo of what these forests looked like after the loggers had been through.

After exploring the logging museum - we also explored the indoor museum back at the visitor's center. Sam found the bear quite intriguing.

Saturday afternoon we drove about 20 minutes north to Otsego State Park.
This is a small lake and therefore, the water was quite warm for early in the season.
The kids loved being able to swim for a while. Sunday we drove down to North Higgins Lake so they could swim some more and we could take a look at the campground to see if we might want to go there sometime in the future.
(my personal opinion - I think we will stick with Hartwick Pines).

The kids loved the playground at the campground. They had a nice playground at the campground and another one at the day use area. Sam decided to learn how to do the fire pole this weekend. This boy is so strong - he went down the pole over and over again, but most of the time his legs weren't even toughing the pole. He was hanging from his arms and letting himself down completely in control.

Nicholas was really into catching caterpillars. There was lots of them at the playground and he just kept catching them. On the first night, he kept one and the next morning it had cacooned. This, of course, sparked Gabrielle's interest and she started catching caterpillars too.

On Sunday, when we headed down to North Higgins Lake for some swimming, our other goal was to explore the Civil Conservation Corp museum. Here, the kids learned how people came back in to help re-plant the forests that the loggers had destroyed. I think it was great to see the full circle of the industry and how we must take responsibility for our environment.

The first thing we saw when we arrived was a metal fire tower. The kids learning that people used to just stand up in these towers and look for any sign of a forest fire starting.

This building in the museum showed the kids step by step how pinecones were shaken and dried and the seeds retrieved so that they could start saplings which would later be replanted in the forests around us.

As many hikes as we have been on over the years, I don't recall ever hiking in such an awestriking environment. The canopy from the trees is so high here, that there is no undergrowth, no low lying growth. Note there are no little plants, flowers, or anything along the forest floor. The only thing you see is trunk upon trunk of some very massive trees.

This particular hiking trail happens to be called a Fit Trail. Every 1/8-1/4 of a mile there is a station where you can do some type of stretching, strength training or other type of exercise. The kids loved experimenting on the various activities.

Sunday night - they had another special presenatation.
This one was hands on - and all about the toys that the kids used to play with back in the logging days.

Sam is exploring Jacob's Ladder.
An interesting fact is that this was one of the few toys
that they were allowed to actually play with on Sunday.

Allison - plays with the ball and cup.

I don't remember the name of this one - but it involved a piece of wood on the end of a string and when you spin it really fast it makes a whirring noise. Just be careful that there is no one around you.

Gabrielle plays with the wooden acrobat.

This was the first trip of the season that we got some debris on the slide out and Paul couldn't get the picnic table close enough to clean it off.
Looks like Nicholas has a new job - and he is pretty proud of it too.
(Technically, Paul can walk on the roof of our trailer, but why add that much weight if you can just add 40-50 pounds).

May 27, 2010
Kindergarten Field Trip

I love going on field trips with my kids - because even though you are with their classmates, it's one on one time with that child and I get to see how the interact with their friends.

The morning started with a trip to the Children's Museum. I can tell Gabrielle's is getting older, because she seemed to wander a little more and it seemed like things didn't really keep her attention for very long. I could tell she was outgrowing some of the activities.
The mirrored tube did get a big smile out of her.

The one area that she kept going back to over and over again was the piano. She really was committed to figure out how to play a song they had posted. She was very frustrated with the other kids wanting to interrupt her concentration, and she can't handle the noise when other kids would play at the same time as her. I promised her that we would get my keyboard out of the basement at home so she could play as much as she wanted.

After the museum we drove down to John Ball Park for lunch.
Gabrielle and Haley have been friends all year. They actually met through my friendship with Haley's mom over the past few years but haven't been in school together until now. It is great to see that they have a blossoming friendship all on their own and not just because their moms are friends.

After eating they got a little bit of time to play on the playground.

We then spent the afternoon at the zoo. In going through my pictures I realized I took a lot of pictures of animals and not a lot of pictures of Gabrielle.
Here, just as Gabrielle looked away a penguin jumped in the water right by her.