Sleeping Bear Dunes

 Over the 4th of July Weekend we went on a camping trip to northern Michigan to a place called Sleeping Bear Dunes.  It was so much fun, we had a blast!

 It sits right on the shores of Lake Michigan and several other lakes and as the name suggests, there are LOTS of sand dunes to climb and explore.  We stayed at a campground called Turtle Lake.  It was fun to camp right by a lake, and we camped with our friends from church which was fun too! 

We went into Traverse City to watch an air show and to visit their Cherry Festival.  This is Oliver in a giant pit of well....Cherry pits!  (At the store Cherry Republic, where you can get all things cherry.)

 Our campground had a fun playground and beach for the kids.  Plus they put on a great firework show over the lake on the 4th!

 We all got a lot of exercise climbing all those dunes!

                                          August is trying to "take" a picture here of us.

 As we were coming back from a big dune climb the sun was starting to set behind the large dune.  That's August up there.  He wanted to climb and run down and climb and run down over and over.  Oh to have the energy of a toddler!

 Isn't Michigan beautiful?!  Doesn't get much more beautiful than scenes like this!

                                                Ruby sneaking in a hug.

We didn't get many pictures of the actual camping, but the dunes and water were amazing!

A trip to the Japanese Gardens

 I realize it has been almost a year since I posted anything on this blog, but I'm going to try and do better with that.  Anyway, I thought I would start out small with a trip we took to our local botanical gardens.  They just opened a Japanese garden area this summer.  So this was our maiden voyage there.  I love that picture of Auggie in the kimono!

 They have a kids area inside where you can dress up in kimonos and rake some carpet like a Zen garden and sit in a tea house.

 Of course things got a little wild when the boys were involved!  Hamming it up.

 But the gardens were beautiful and are such a fun addition to the gardens!

 This is an overlook of some of the gardens.

And one of the 3 waterfalls they have within the Japanese gardens.  We had a lot of fun there and can't wait to go back!  We have already taken Bubbie (Zack's Mom) and Gage (cousin) while they were here visiting in July.  We'd be happy to take any visitors who wish to go!!