Kindergarten Round Up

Tonight was Kindergarten Round-Up at Moorsbridge. We went to school, dropped off our supplies, and got to meet Mrs. O (who we obviously already know!). Alex was so excited to finally be going to Moorsbridge. Afterwards, we had all the Applegate families with kids entering Kindergarten over for an ice cream social. We had between 12-14 families attend. It was a lot of fun!

The kids were spread out all over the yard!

Surprise Visitors

On Friday night, we had some surprise visitors. We were outside playing in the yard when we heard some loud fire/torch noises. We looked up and saw a hot air balloon sailing over our house. It was landing in the park. We raced over there (along with many neighbors that live along the trail) and got there in time to see it touch down. Their "chase truck" was there so they started to pack everything up. The crew was great and let all the kids in the park help squeeze the air out of the balloon so they could fold it up. It was more excitement than we are used to in Applegate!

Eclipse 2017

We were fortunate to be able to watch the solar eclipse at our friend's company. They had an eclipse party - complete with glasses, moon pies and sun tea. We had a themed lunch with the Grindalls before heading down to Three Rivers for the viewing. We had: eclipse pizzas, sun chips, capri sun, star pasta, star crunch, moon pies, and eclipse gum. We also built viewing boxes. After the eclipse, we got a tour of Mr. Grindall's office and plant.

Up North Vacation - Part 3

We woke up to beautiful weather on Saturday so we decided to do Sleeping Bear Dunes and the Platte River Beach. We stopped to get our pass at the Visitor Center and then started the dune climb. The boys hike a little more each year. We may try to hike the entire route next summer. Then we went onto Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive and stopped for a picnic lunch. Our favorite part of the drive is the scenic overlook which is about 450 feet above Lake Michigan. The boys ended up going all the way down the dune to the lake. Once I realized what they were doing, I followed and made it about 80% of the way before meeting up with them on their way up. The signs at the top warn it can take up to 2 hours to climb back up, but we were able to do it in just over 17 minutes. The boys were champs! Our next stop was the Platte River beach and then Moomer's for ice cream on the way back to the cottage. We ended the evening with a fire and s'mores. On Sunday, the boys walked to the playground while I got things packed up. Then we went back to the Platte River beach for a few hours before heading home. We are always sad to leave - we are thankful to the Hofmeyer's for letting us take over their cottage for the weekend.

Porch Yahtzee

View from the top of the first dune

Phil and Alex heading to the top of the next dune

Charge!

Starting the climb down

Platte River Beach

Moomer's!

The cows were eating, too!

Up North Vacation - Part 2

On Friday morning, we took the boys out fishing on Duck Lake. Although the forecast did not show rain, we had a steady mist. We tried several locations but did not have any luck. The boys enjoyed casting, however, and we did get to cruise around for a while. By the time we were done, we were all cold and wet! After we dried off, we went to Bud's for lunch and then played mini golf at Pirate's Cove. Then we drove in Traverse City and walked around for a while. We went down to the docks and saw replicas of the Nina and the Pinta. The Friday Night street fair was going on and the boys got to see giant bubbles, did some screen printing, decorated some tiles, and got balloon swords. Then we had Paesano's for dinner before heading back to the cottage.

Cute Little Fishermen

Hole in One!

Two Hole in Ones!

Argh!

Nina and Pinta