Day 7

We had come up with a plan, late the night before, to leave for South Haven around 10:30 that morning. The weather was supposed to be beautiful and I really wanted the boys to experience the beach of Lake Michigan again. We did pretty good and actually left by 10:45. Dave and Chris stayed back to golf.

We arrived at North Beach in South Haven and we were immediately whisked away into the ideal Lake Michigan summer day. The breeze was nice, the temperature was right and the sand was soft. The Lake looked so beautiful and huge – just amazing. The water was chilly – just as it should be. We dipped our toes in the sand and water, watched the waves come in, took some pictures and did some walking over to the channel where the boats come in and out from the Lake. We suddenly started dreaming about a future summer where we all rented a beach house for a couple of weeks. The simplicity of life on the beach sounded so inviting. It would be incredible and hopefully our dreamings will happen in a couple of summers. I would absolutely love it!

those beach houses back there sell for over $750,000 and taxes are $26,000 a year - crap!

sweet baby toes in the sand

my cousin Betsie and her Mom, my Aunt Kathy (Mom's sister)

We headed over to lunch in the Downtown area – Clementine’s. My aunt Carolyne and her family drove up to meet us there. We enjoyed another delicious meal together.

That's Riley - daughter of my cousin, Shannon, or my 1st cousin once removed, with Evan...they are second cousins because they share the same great-grandparents...got that? BUT...they actually look a lot a like...same coloring, eyebrows, nose, blond hair...weird, huh? I'm actually fascinated by family trees and geneology and how everyone is related. I'm probably the record keeper of all this stuff for our family now.

We did a little more shopping in the shops, bought the “buy a dozen cookies get a 2^nd dozen for a penny” at the Golden Brown Bakery. Then we piled in the cars to go to Sherman’s. I wrote about our adventures at Sherman’s from our trip last year here. This place was busy today!!! Evan got a Blue Moon…and he was providing true entertainment for the whole restaurant. It looked like a crime scene of a smurf accident by the time he was done.

Our original plan was to go to Fricano’s that night for dinner – to toast Uncle Mike - and to toast our family. BUT….we were still full from our lunch at Clementine’s and Cyndi couldn’t join us that night. So we enjoyed some snacks, leftovers and what-nots for dinner instead. The kids had a great time playing together again and we visited some more. Kath and Dave spilled the beans….. Matt and Lisa have some exciting news – they are expecting a baby in February!!! Wow! How exciting - another great-grandbaby for Grandma!

This was our last night in Kalamazoo – it was bittersweet, for sure. Wish we didn’t have to leave a) because we didn’t seem to get enough time to visit and spend together and b) because the drive home sounded awful. But we know it will be good to be home too.