Sunrise

I made a mental note of what I wanted to accomplish on our trip! I wanted to spend time as a family, relax, see beautiful scenery, be near the lake and see a beautiful sunrise. With all of the trees around my house, the thing I miss most is seeing the sun rise and set! I was able to cross everything else on my list and I thought that this just wasn't going to happen. With all of the rain clouds, you just couldn't see any sun! Early Sunday morning I heard Chris get out of bed and open the drapes and say, "Here is your sunrise!" It was soooooo beautiful. It was still fairly cold outside, so I laid on the bed and watched the sun come up! Can you see how gorgeous it was!!!!

I love it!!! Thank you for this beautiful world Heavenly Father!!

Fireworks

We noticed a sign that said they do fireworks every Saturday night, but thought they would be canceled due to the rain. We were in the hotel playing games with the Rowleys and could hear a few little pops every now and then. We made a lot of jokes about the great firework show and then - Ta Da - the show began! It was a beautiful display and we had fun watching it on the deck! This came in as a close second for Tia's favorite part of the trip!

Ferry Ride

To get to Mackinac Island you have to go by boat. We went on this ferry. On the way over we wanted to ride up top, but it was closed due to the weather! We had a nice ride on the bottom and enjoyed the beautiful views. On the way back we were on a little larger ferry and they let us ride on top! Chris and I and the 4 oldest girls went on top and had a blast!!! The driver saw how much fun they were having and I think looked for ways to make big splashes! Tiana was in the wet seat! She was drenched in waves!! It was so much fun for me to sit behind them and her the squeals and laughter!! Chris and I huddled and laughed too! We hit one wave and Chris and I felt a river on our seat! We were all drenched! When I asked the girls their favorite part of the trip they almost all said the boat ride!

The weather did LOVELY things to my hair!!!!

Biking Mackinac

So what do you do when it's rainy and cold? Why you go on a 8 mile bike ride around the lake!! It was a lot of fun and we saw so many beautiful things! It was cold, but there was minimal complaining. My legs still hurt, because I am extremely out of shape. Here are some of the beautiful things we saw.

I believe this was called Skull Rock!

A beautiful view of the lake!

They loved this rocky beach!
They had fun counting to 3 and throwing handfuls of rocks.
It made a really cool sound when it hit the water. Look at the beautiful color of the water and how clear it is!
Larisa, Tiana, McKenzie and Chris went up to skull Cave. It was a little bit more up hill, so the rest of us finished the loop around the island.
A cute picture of Larisa!

Arch Rock

One of my favorite places on our bike ride was Arch Rock! Again you had to climb up a lot of stairs, but the view was beautiful!!!
This is a picture of Mike, Boston and Chris hiking up!

Anna and Quincy

The girls had so much fun together! Paige, Kenzie, Tia, Larisa and Tailee

I thought the arch was beautiful! I especially liked looking down and seeing the lake in it!

Tia on top - enjoying the view!

The views were amazing!

Looking up the Arch from down below!

Mackinac Island

We met up Friday night with our friends the Rowleys and planned out our day on Mackinac and then went swimming. The Rowley recently moved into our ward. When we met we were sure that we already knew each other and after about a minute we realized that Chris and Mike were in graduate school together at BYU. They are a wonderful family and we are so excited that they moved here. I think Anna (the mom) might be even as crazy as I am. Their 2 oldest are about the same age of our girls and they get along wonderfully. We had a great time together.

When we woke up Saturday morning it was cold and rainy, but we came here to have fun and we were determined to do so! Here are some pictures of the island. I felt like we took a little trip back in time. There are no motorized vehicles and the buildings are magnificent!

This is a picture of the Grand Hotel. This is where "Somewhere in Time" was filmed!

The carriage rides looked very inviting on this rainy day, but not in our price range!

This is Fort Mackinac
I felt like I was in Anne of Green Gables or something like that.
I loved main street. Of course, we had to have some fudge!
Such a beautiful place!

Seagulls

When we read the comments about our hotel we read one that mentioned too many seagulls on the beach! Well you can look at the picture and see that there were a few on the beach! We couldn't resist feeding a few of them!

Larisa and Tiana feeding the seagulls a yummy cookie!

A seagull eating off of the rail!

The seagulls waiting for their next bite!

Castle Rock

We went to Castle Rock and climbed 169 steps up to the top! It taught me that I am really out of shape and that I better get moving more in life! The views were beautiful and I felt like I was on a mountain!

Look at the beautiful views. I love the look of the lake and also the view of the thick trees!

The wind was blowing really hard as you can tell by Larisa's hair! Now for my favorite part! I told the girls to look forward and have a spitting contest. You could hear Chris saying," No Valerie, Don't have them do it!", but they didn't listen! Then I hear them count 1,2,3, ohhhhhhhh - yuck! Yep they were covered! We all had a great laugh. They thing that was really funny is that we had a talk about this earlier in the week when Larisa spit out the window and hit her sister in the face. I believe I said that you don't ever spit when the wind is in your face. Do you think they learned???

St Ignace

Chris took the day off on Friday and we decided to take a trip up north! We wanted to go to the U.P. and to Mackinac Island! We found a hotel on St Ignace and enjoyed our beautiful drive up Michigan! It is so pretty and green! This is the Mackinaw Bridge. It is 5 miles long, the 3rd longest bridge. For those of you who don't live here - it connects the upper peninsula to Michigan. On one side of the bridge is Lake Michigan and on the other is Lake Huron.
This is a picture from the bridge of Mackinac Island.

When we reached the other side of the bridge we stopped at the visitors center to plan out our evening. Tiana thought this would be a pretty spot to take her picture. Do you think she knew I would take a couple hundred more?
We stopped at a little Indian gift shop and took some pictures! Here is the Chief and his two little girls!
Larisa takes a turn at being the chief!
Tiana loved putting her braids on top of the painted braids!

After that we took a walk down the boardwalk. It really was beautiful and I thought it was a beautiful path! Here is Larisa pointing it out for you!
Larisa and Chris enjoying the views!
Sisters playing on the rocks!
I loved the beautiful vegetation growing on the beach!
One of my mom's favorite flowers is Queen Anne's Lace (yes, I know it is considered a weed) I think it is beautiful and every time I see it I think of my sweet mother. It is all over Michigan and I just finally took a picture of it!