Fri/Sat, August 7-8, 2026 This year's start to Michigan began with 3 people! Dave, Eli and I drove up together Friday. We left town at 9:30am. We stayed with Ted & Cindy (in their nice camper!) on Friday night. They had pizza, pecan pralines and a sweet grape salad waiting for us. A storm rolled in which caused the power to go out, so we slept well. We drove the rest of the way to the cabin Saturday, arriving somewhere between 4:30-5pm.
Calvin, Vanessa, Violet & Drew all stayed back in Iowa to go to their good friend Solana's wedding. Her wedding is Sunday Aug 9, and their plan is to party hard at the wedding, and drive through the night to come here. The last text I got was that they plan to arrive somewhere around 6am.
It was certainly comical for Dave, Eli and I to drive up in our big 9 seater van full of space. We grocery shopped and filled up the whole floor!
Sunday, Aug 9, 2026
The start to today (Sunday) has been very relaxing. We had breakfast sandwiches, chipped beef on toast, tater tots, strawberries, blueberries and coffee. We watched Wellspring Community Church online at 10am, then we watched Bethany Bible Chapel online at 11:30 both of them with Ted and Cindy. We sipped coffee together and enjoyed the teaching of both places - both very different. Wellspring's speaker covered topics in Matthew about how important it is to do the things we learn in God's word. Obedience should be held at a higher priority than knowledge. Bethany's speaker covered lessons in Genesis 37-42 about the life of Joseph.
We are rolling slowly through this Sunday at a nice vacation pace. I gave Dave a haircut, we both showered and "got ready" for the day with no plans, munched on a little for lunch, and are chilling enjoying the overcast quiet day. A very strange change of pace - one that I need some time to adjust to.
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| Eli with Daisy |
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| their new roof off the house |
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| look at all those groceries |
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| cabin 12! |
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| first sunset |
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| Eli and me! |
Monday, August 10th, 2026
The wedding crew took off around midnight. They arrived at the cabin somewhere around 8:10am. I can't believe they made it! From what they told us, Violet drove the first two hours til about 1am, Calvin drove 3 or 4 hrs, then Drew took the last hour or two. There are some stories of people sleep-talking, stopping for gas way out of the way because they didn't get gas at a more opportune time. Some blasted music while others tried to sleep...who knows. Calvin said they dodged deer on the road like it was a video game. No contact though.
I woke up at the cabin about 7:30am and checked their location which was about 45 minutes away. Drew said nobody would be hungry and they'd want to just crash in bed, which was true. They hobbled in one by one and gave some tired hellos and went straight to bed to crash. We were expecting Don and Cindy (Ted's brother and his wife) to visit so we let them sleep a few hours and made sure they were awake enough to greet our guests to hang out for a few hours.
I started the morning slowly with coffee, Dave and I attended to a few work things we needed to move the ball on, and I made biscuits and gravy. Eli and I went out on the paddleboat to fish but a few deer or horse flies ruined the moment.
Older kids started to appear. Vanessa and Violet found themselves in the sun on the dock. Dave and I found a few eating some breakfast. We saw Don and Cindy pull up so we all gathered to meet them and hang out for awhile. Cindy had intended for us to stop at their place on our way up or the way down - neither of which were possible given our different driving situations. We didn't arrive as a group and we won't be leaving as a group, as Dave is heading to his annual fishing trip after this and I'm heading back to Iowa with the crew.
Cindy brought up a pile of food for lunch, which was so kind. Sloppy joes, grape salad, taco salad, chips, dip, and oreo fluff. We enjoyed that meal together, took a couple laps around the lake on the pontoon, and they took off. Their intention for coming to visit was to visit with family, especially Violet and Drew, since they didn't get a chance to during the wedding.
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| Don and Ted had a little adventure exploring a tiny cabin that looked abandoned and closed the front door of it for the owner, whoever it is. |
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| Drew and Calvin had a good night fishing. They caught 13 fish! |
We are changing it up this year - not fishing to eat them. We are throwing back everything - not cleaning fish or anything. It is a bit of a relief!
Vanessa and Dave went out and caught a couple big ones too. Apparently they were biting hard tonight!
Violet and I prepped dinner - pasta with chicken alfredo and tomato sauce, garlic bread and Caesar salads - we ate in a couple waves with some fishing and some eating later.
Tuesday, August 11, 2026
This morning I made coffee cake cinnamon muffins (using the normal coffee cake recipe we all love, but I did not have the right size pan to bake it in...so muffins it was) with a bacon egg frittata. Also didn't have the pan I was hoping for - no 9x13s to be seen. I used a big oven-safe skillet and it turned out great.
Vanessa and Violet made a plan to go running this morning, so they ran from our cabin to the Midway store - about 4 miles. I picked them up to bring them back after setting a 45 minute timer to get them. Today was a stay-at-the-cabin day. We rented a jet ski and a tube for 1.5 hrs. I marinated some teriyaki chicken. We drove the pontoon around watching whoever was tubing go crashing and tumbling. We spent some time playing imposter with Ted and Cindy - the funniest clue was "Sculpture" when Violet was the imposter. I said freedom, she said torch.
We had so much food prepared for dinner Ted and Cindy joined us - teriyaki chicken, fried rice, roasted broccoli, and asian salad. Calvin and Drew went out fishing again, Violet and dad went out fishing, Vanessa and I hung out at the cabin and danced to music and made treats - some premade chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies, and she whipped up a blueberry coffee cake with greek yogurt and maple syrup. We watched AGT - and people drifted off to bed at different times.
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| before the run 9am |
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| tail end of the run |
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| this guy hung out with me on the dock for awhile |
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| 2013 |
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| 2026 |
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| imposter |
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| went on a walk |
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| camera flipped at .5 -- long weird arms |
Wed, August 12, 2026
So much for the weather - it said today was the highest chance of rain so we booked a Lake Superior pictured rocks pontoon rental for tomorrow. It was actually gorgeous and sunny all day. Dave cooked eggs, I made bacon, and we had toast/jelly with leftover biscuits and gravy. We did the Bible app devotion about being a light in a dark world. We drove to Kitch-iti-kipi because it was a shorter trip than before - some roads were finished between here and there since we went last and it made the trip only 25 minutes, not 51 minutes. The natural spring is always impressive. One big trout fish stayed right up near the floating boat almost the whole time. What was more impressive was an enormous spider we saw living on the boat right in the viewing area which was an element of discussion more than the spring or the fish.
The rest of today was so chill and nice. Violet, Vanessa, Dave and I floated out on floaties in the lake for close to 2 hrs. Ted started heating up a pan of mac and cheese over his campfire. Drew and Calvin went out fishing - I blogged for a bit. We grabbed a few supplies at the store. We are out of milk so we are waiting for the Thursday night delivery so the store can be stocked. We gotta make creamed eggs Friday I guess.
Here are some pics from the day so far.
The most memorable moment was when Calvin dove in the water after a fishing pole that went under the water. We had asked Drew and Calvin to drag us out to the middle of the lake on our floaties so we could float and get pushed back to shore by the wind. The rope they threw us somehow pushed up one of the fishing poles out of its holder and it fell into the lake and completely submerged, but Calvin thought quick and dove right in over the spot where it went under, and he reemerged with the fishing pole in his hand. Super funny moment - best save of the week.
Ted and Cindy heated up macaroni and cheese and deluxe hot dogs for us over their campfire cooker. We dragged over our picnic table from our cabin to their camp spot and they treated us to dinner and cupcakes with birthday cards. We sang three terrible renditions of happy birthday because nobody could find a good starting note.
All 7 of us went out fishing and had as many as 4 or 5 lines in the water at once. A few of us caught some.
Thurs, Aug 13, 2026 - the Munising day
Eli made pancakes for the group this morning - I think he spent 30 minutes flipping pancakes, we made the whole box. Dave and Calvin munched on green pepper sandwiches. We left the cabin with Ted and Cindy to head north 15 miles to Munising - the main city on Lake Superior. We hit a gorgeous coffee shop which was part art gallery, part coffee shop. Then Vanessa found the biggest gift shop we've ever seen - Pictured Rocks Cruises gift shop. We picked up some shirts and sweatshirts. Dave did a load of laundry to get ready for his fishing trip that he is going to after this. We walked over to Main St Pizza and put our order in and 30 minutes later and after a little more candy shopping, we had pizza before our pontoon rental scheduled at 3. We got to the place around 2:30 and got right in the boat - super nice boat with tons of seating. We rode 2 hrs north and 2 hrs south hitting the two allowed beaches and seeing all the gorgeous rocks on the shoreline.
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| Calvin didn't see the value in his gummy taco |
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| I'm sure I posted these same pictures the year before, but they are just so pretty. They are much bigger than they look - these rocks stand close to 100 ft above the water. |
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| do you see the tiny kayakers? |
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| Chapel rock - a tree with the roots stretched out like a bridge to the mainland. The sandstone has eroded away over time and the tree turned into an island but it is still alive due to the nature of the roots. |
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| Calvin and his shenanigans |
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| Spray Falls -- the turnaround point |
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| Vanessa's hair was out of control |
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| so Violet tied it up with a sweatshirt |
We were all winded and hungry after this. Violet drove the van back to the cabin - we made a quick pitstop at the store to get milk, pickle spears, espresso powder, and more coffee. Very important things.
Once arriving back at the cabin we whipped up tacos quick - and the boys cleaned up for us.
Vanessa, Violet, Eli and I went for a walk and grabbed a pan from the community center to bake a cake mix in - the boys played some games, Dave went out fishing. We're all a bit tired - a day out in the wind/sun makes for a lazy day.
