Three Kids and a Dog: Week 9 of Quarantine and Happy Mother's Day to Me!

We spent part of Week 9 and Mother's Day in Michigan this past weekend. It always seems like we're there a long time when we go. It's just enough to get us out of our everyday doldrums at home and into a nice break and change of scenery (the sunsets are amazing).

We plan to only be up there for two more days of e-learning so I had to cancel my printer delivery which keeps getting pushed back. I figure if we need one in the fall due to revisiting e-learning, I'll deal with ordering one then. I never knew how hard it could be to get a printer!

Anyway, this long weekend, we did a long walk to the beach in Holland. The beach was big and the trail was a boardwalk. Lots of paragliders and jet skiiers (with wet suits) doing tricks so the kids really enjoyed that. We definitely are getting to explore different Michigan towns on these hikes/walks. This one is about 30 minutes from South Haven and sits on the other side of Holland. We head to Holland a lot for their cute downtown, restaurants and big box stores but we'd never explored this other side. Plus, we got to see what should have been part of their annual tulip festival blooms this weekend so it was a double win!

On Sunday, Tom ordered brunch from one of my go to brunch places in Benton Harbor (about 25 minutes away). To say they were overwhelmed with the orders was an understatement. Tom ordered ours the night before for 10am and I think we got it at 11am. But, hey, all we have is time these days so we made use of the time by talking and then calling the grandmas to wish them a Happy Mother's Day. The kids made me cards (Hailey forgot hers at home since she made one during one of her Zoom calls for kindergarten so she just made me another one). They all gave me a bright orange Lulu sweatshirt and then we worked on our 1,000 piece puzzle for a bit, did some reading as a family (Anne Frank) and then we headed for a drive to explore another Michigan town - Muskegon. This one was less impressive and more industrial than really any other town we'd seen recently. Not much there to go back to although I heard they have a great park with a luge and an ice skating ribbon. We got home in time to make some dinner (Tom's make your own pizzas) and then watch American Idol before everyone (kids) headed off to bed. Austen got to stay up much later to help us almost complete the puzzle! We're almost there although it's really hard when your dog eats a bunch of the pieces!