Another day. Another beach.

Back to vacation memories... was this really already two weeks ago?

The resort at the bottom of the mountain included a large indoor waterpark. It's what the kids wanted to do more than anything. 

When we looked at the weather forecast on Sunday, it predicted rain for the next four days. And so we told the kids this would be a good place to go on a rainy day. We figured that'd be Monday.

But then Monday turned out to be relatively sunny, though the forecast still called for rain the next few days. And so we dashed the kids' hopes and told them they had to wait another. If this was the last sun we'd see for awhile, we wanted to soak it all in.

And so we headed west a short ways, from Boyne Falls to Boyne City. Our destination? Lake Charlevoix. Once there, AJ, of course, wanted to fish.

It wasn't really a beach, and so the rest of the kids ran for a nearby playground. AJ, however, continued to cast. He caught no fish, but did manage to snag a breaker wall. That was after he'd gotten his line caught on the rocks at the bottom. Translation: he lost two lures without ever getting a nibble.

The playground help the attention of the other kids for only so long, and so we packed them all up and headed for a better beach. So Sydney could go swimming...

And Jeff could play with his metal detector (Note: this is his old metal detector. The one that isn't very good, which is why he really wanted a new, much more expensive one for his birthday. But he didn't dare bring the new one with him because he didn't want to risk breaking it. Whatever.)

And AJ could fish some more... (it actually worked out pretty well because he'd torn up his toe the day before learning the hard way why riding a scooter bare foot is not a good idea. So this gave him something to do while his toe was still too raw to touch the water.)

Ben and Sydney did enough swimming and splashing to cover for AJ.

A little later we headed to yet another playground. I noticed that Michigan still has a lot of the old fashioned merry-go-rounds. The kids didn't believe me that they were the most fun ever. Until they climbed aboard and started whipping around.

On a related note, AJ also didn't believe me that they could be dangerous (thus the reason they're now so rare) until he fell off of one and landed flat on his back.

Is there any better way for cousins to bond than while hanging on for dear life?

Well,  actually, with this bunch, ridiculous sculptures seem to work well at bringing them all together. (Cousin Jimmy had already headed home for nap time.)

And ice cream, too. Yes, ice cream with these four also works remarkably well.