A cold wet day.........rain does not stop play...............

We had planned another day out with Danielle while she was home. Her husband was remodeling their home and sent her off to spend some family time. So we planned a day at the beach and a picnic. Gabby and Cooper were to come too so they could also have more time with Danielle. So Monday dawned all wet and cold. We decided to go anyway. In England we would carry on regardless of rain or anything else. So we packed up a picnic and off we went first to our secret beach.
It was misty and windy by the time we got there but the rain had passed.

See the mists in the trees

So the kids put on their life jackets and off we went to the beach and searching for Petoskey Stones, I was hoping to find some nice ones after the storm. I even found a rare piece of beach glass.



The kids did not notice the cold. The adults sort of did.


Reminds me of days at the seaside in England, if we had planned a day out by golly feet went in the ocean even if it was with coats hats and scarves.

When Cooper got cold we decided it was time for our picnic. So we went up the road a little to the school house.


Danielle enjoyed her sandwich. We took all the fixins and desserts.

The kids played


Laura needed to pee so she tried the old outhouse as it was unlocked haha

We then decided to go up the drive up dunes. There we did a little walking and watched for deer. Look at this lovie

We had not been on the Cottonwood trail before so went to check it out. It was too windy so only went a little way, enough to know we want to go back next time. This trail goes into the dunes and I thought it would be all sandy and hard going. It wasn't so we will certainly go back on a nice day.

Gabby chasing down Cooper hehe

The dunes full of Ladys breath

Another walk took us to this view



The kids played with Danielle,


I dont know how they still had so much energy.



Cooper seems to love it with his cousins. Special times that they wont appreciate until they are grown. Cooper slept for a few moments until we stopped.

It was afternoon and time to head home. We stopped for ice cream







Before we drove up the dunes we stopped at the Oleson farm at Oneida. This is one taken over by the park and it was open. So we went inside. How beautiful it was. Those farms at Point Oneida are just so beautiful. It had to have been hard to give them up. The olesons built stores in Traverse city in later generations and have been true benefactors to our heritage here.


Across the road, that I am sure was not there when these farms were founded

There were people working on some of the farms along the road at Oneida. They have crews stay in some of the farm houses so they can work during the day time. The redo and restore things to how it was back in the beginning as much as possible. This August we really must get out there for heritage days
This is inside the Oleson farm


We were lucky to hear some Sand Hill cranes. We had just been in the meadow when we saw them



We saw one more deer. can you see her?

So that was the end of a lovely day and I think we were all happy we did not let rain stop play.