4th of July in a Pandemic

This summer certainly is a lot different than past summers. First off, we took our vacation earlier in the summer rather than later. We usually wait til late July or August to take a week in Michigan or somewhere else. But this year all sports have been moved to summer and as of tomorrow we are in game mode several times a week so

this may have been our last full week we'll be able to get to Michigan. We made the most of it too.

We were gone Monday to Monday and it still was not enough time to get everything in we wanted to do but we certainly did some fun things. The weather was perfect so we hit the beach a few times including all day on the 4th of July. We checked out a local brewery on July 3rd and sampled their flights of beer while chickens ran around at our feet. We took the kids on a dune ride in Saugatuck which was a lot of fun. Our guide was funny and sarcastic and certainly made the tour that much more enjoyable. Thanks Nate Holly (he's also a local musician so maybe we'll see him play at Captain Lou's in South Haven or Wally's in Saugatuck)! We found a field of poppies in red, white and blue that had been planted in honor of a fallen soldier. And despite the heat, we found a U-Pick strawberry farm and actually paid to pick 5 quarts of their delicious strawberries that we proceeded to use in various recipes including a strawberry cobbler, a cocktail, a frozen fruit smoothie and a salad. They were so sweet and delicious just like candy. I can't believe I didn't start liking strawberries until I was in my 30s! We ended our trip with a  kayak ride. Austen had a single kayak and Tom and I had a tandem with the two girls. Of course right when we pushed off from shore Peyton started screaming that there was a spider in the boat. She almost flipped us. I told her to step on it but she didn't want him on her shoe. Tom tried to sidle up next to us to remove the arachnid but he couldn't see it (it was tiny) so I had to slowly crawl my way to the front and grab him by the leg and throw him into the lake (and I really don't care for spiders either) but seriously she was causing such a raucous on the lake that I thought they were going to have to come rescue us. After that it was nice and relaxing. A lot of the boat traffic was gone and it was peaceful to paddle around the river and in the Saugatuck Harbor.  

This year was also different because the 4th of July was a little more low key with less people. There was a lot of beach time, eating and then some fireworks. Because a lot of the fireworks shows were canceled because of the pandemic many people did their own and it's legal in Michigan. Tom had gotten some big fireworks from our neighbors in Illinois that he didn't wind up reading the directions and almost took out a few houses because he placed it upside down. This is why we should leave the fireworks to the professionals!

I'm very happy that we did more this week than just hanging out at the beach. We all have great tans after only 3 beach days during the week and who needs more?! There are only so many days you can spend in the sun says this former sunworshipper!