Lake Michigan Family Vacation

i have wanted to visit lake Michigan for a few years. not exactly sure why...i had seen pictures of the beach and thought it would be a great place to take the girls.

one day, out of the blue, tim emailed me and said he had reserved a campsite right along lake michigan. i was surprised and super excited.

he is cool like that.

we have been camping before as a family of three and then four. but this trip was different. as a family of five camping with a baby we needed more space and a few more necessities. it took some thoughtful planning and a few purchases...like a bigger tent...and we were ready to go.

our biggest concern was getting everything we needed (or thought we needed) into our van. and you know what. it all fit, no problem, with space left over.

minivan=winning :)


we woke up bright and early on sunday morning and head to michigan. it was an 8 hour drive and it took us about 11 hours. all three girls traveled well, in order for that to happen we did take some longer stops to let maggie stretch out and play.

we camped at the lake michigan campground at Muskegon state park. it was a nice and busy campground nestled in the back dunes right along lake michigan.

 

 

the lake was really only 200 yards from our campsite, but because we were in the back dunes we couldn't see the lake. we had to walk about 3 minutes to get there. the landscape was pretty crazy you would be in the woods totally surrounded by trees and then boom....

....sand, beach, lake!

we spent a lot of time just playing at the beach. the sand was so soft and so beautiful.

 

here is where i will tell you how much it totally freaked me out to have them swimming in the lake. i was totally totally freaked out even though the water was only about knee high it still freaked me out. it took me some time to warm up to the idea. they did have lifejackets on and they had a super fun time. so i had to get over it a bit.
 

there were many trails to hike around the sand dunes. one morning we hiked for about two hours. they girls loved this. however, cece wasn't the biggest fan of getting sand in her shoes.

 

 

we also visited the white river lighthouse.

 

we walked clear out to the end of the pier....even though there were several signs warning us not to. risk takers.

using that teeny staircase we climbed up in the lighthouse. somebody who shall remain nameless whose name starts with a T did not enjoy this at all. however he was a good sport.

 family picture in the lighthouse and the lighthouse view.

we camped four nights and had a great time. maggie did great camping. she loved the tent and slept well....which meant we all slept well! however, she hated...i mean HATED taking a shower :/ we kept our menu simple....hot dogs and hamburgers. we also made pancakes and eggs. and of course we ate our fair share of s'mores.

ellie made us scrambled eggs for lunch one day. they were yummy!



 

on the Thursday morning we packed up our campsite. then we headed to michigan adventure--a amusement and water park about 10 miles away.

 

ellie and cece would list this as their favorite part.

 

i took ellie on her first roller coaster--shivering timbers. it was quite the ride! i thought for sure she was going to be mad at me for taking her on there...but she loved it!! ellie loved the roller coasters. cece loved the loggers run. and while waiting for tim and the girls to go on a ride maggie took about 10 steps in a row. we all had a great time.

 

after spending all day at the park. we headed to south bend, indiana. we wanted to get a few hours of our drive done and south bend seemed like a good place to stay.

 

our last stop was to visit notre dame university.

 

all in all it was a great vacation!

i think vacations are important. it was great to get away together just our family. we really enjoyed just being together. did it all go perfectly....no but did we create great memories...yes. great, great memories.

happy friday!