I have been way behind in blogging lately. It just hasn't been on my radar so I have lots of catching up to do. Here's a bit, with lots more to follow.

At the end of September, sort of (very, very loosely) to celebrate my birthday we went to Michigan and stayed at my cousin's cottage with the kids. We were looking forward to lazy days reading, hiking, being outside and that's just what we got! The view below is what was across the street from her cottage-just about 100 feet! It was gorgeous!
The first day there, we went to the state park and walked a short hike to the beach. It was very short-even Anne was able to walk the whole way and the end reward would have been worth 10x the walk.

Above is the beach at the end of the hike. Simply unbelievably beautiful and breathtaking! Even though it was probably only 60 degrees and quite windy, Anne and I couldn't resist taking off our shoes, rolling up our pants and splashing in the waves.

The next day we went apple picking, which none of us had ever done. I'm always amazed at how much Jamie can despite being only a year and a half old. I think it's the influence of a big sister coupled with the fact that I am not in a position to baby things down for him. He's forced to either participate or sit it out. He usually chooses participating!

After the apple picking we went to a corn maze. It was fun, but tough and we were forced to bail out early. Jamie spent the entire maze sleeping on my back. Poor guy-the day was just too exciting!
We did lots of other things that weekend that I didn't get pictures of. About a mile away from the cottage was a little children's museum where we spent our last morning. We also ate out at Mom and Pop type restaurants for nearly every meal! John and I were both grateful for home-cooking and salads when we got back home! John and I both got some good reading done and the kids watched 4 Disney movies on VHS, which in and of itself was a fun adventure (do you remember how long it takes to manually fast forward through previews?). It was a great weekend and we hope to go back next year in the summer or even early fall. Can't wait to actually jump into the waves wholeheartedly!