Welcome to Indiana!
So...checking into our hotel in Portage, Indiana was fun. I booked through credit card reward points and even though the booking was made, the credit card that the company used to make the purchase got declined. So I was on the phone for an hour passed around from person to person, put on hold time after time. When they finally got it taken care of I demanded 5000 points be refunded because they cost us sightseeing time on our trip. It took a week, but they did it. I took a very short nap in the hotel room, then realized I forgot to get lunch for us, so we hurried to get in our swimwear and run off to pick up lunch on the way to the Porter Beach at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore on Lake Michigan.
The kids were so excited when they saw the water color! "It looks just like in Moana! I didn't know that was real!"
{Five and Three}
We were there for the sole purpose of reuniting with homeschool friends of ours from Kansas. They ditched town just a few months after we did last year.
It was a windy day, so the waves were so big that if the kids waded in waist-deep, the water would crash over their shoulders. We limited them to waist-deep that first day.
If you look very closely at the horizon on the right you'll see Chicago.
{Three}
{Four}
Five loved just standing there and letting the water crash over his feet!
Lake Michigan!
Everybody needs a beach in their life!
{One}
{Three}
I love how the angle of the camera completely changes the tone of the picture in these three pictures of Five.
High angle
Eye level
Sand level
This one is my favorite!
{Emily, Two, Bonnie, One}
Three came home with a great rock collection. I still need to dig them all out of the diaper bag.
Day 2 was a lazy start. Instead of spending all day at the lake, we slept in late, got ready slow, then decided to play at Emily and Bonnie's house before going to the lake. But when we did go, we were there for another several hours. No wind, no waves, no Chicago in the distance.
Lake Michigan washes in rocks, not shells. They are beautiful colors, speckles, stripes, shapes, sizes, and all perfectly smooth.
I love the rippled sand beneath the water.
{Four and Bonnie}
I love these rocks!!
Because the water was calmer this second day, I went out for a swim while Chris (Bonnie and Emily's mom and my friend) watched the kids. I swam out to a buoy, over to the next buoy, and back, probably at least half a mile. As I approached shore, I noticed that the people next to us had a small, brown-haired girl building a sand castle with them. Pretty sure they didn't have any kids when they came. As I got closer, I recognized that girl was my Four and Five had joined her.
This is George, who brought sand castle supplies for himself. He's a forty-year-old uncle and felt just as at home with the kids gravitating to him as they felt.
{Four, Five, George, Three}
Soon all the kids joined. Not just mine, but Bonnie and Emily and others that we don't know. It was a party and we all had fun!
Then a kid asked to ride on George's surfboard. So everyone lined up.
{One}
Bonnie
{Three}
{Two}
{Three}
{Five}
Four wanted to go, but then backed out.
The sandcastle builders, with Five refusing to be in the picture.
{Three, Emily, One, George, Two, Bonnie, me, Four}
After that beach day, I drove 20 miles to a town in Michigan so that Two could talk with two of her best friends about Michigan. We had ice cream at Oink's Dutch Treat in New Buffalo, just one mile across the border.
{Five, One, Three, Two, Four}
Four had the perfect goatee.
And we ended in another late, exhausted night.
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