Spring is in the air....................

Saturday was a lovely day with blue, blue sky. Too nice to stay inside.

Tristen came for the day and we had promised a day out, so off we went. I think they enjoy going out with us (Cooper came too) because first off we stopped at Enerdyne in Suttons Bay, science and nature.
Tristen loves that shop. Cooper is beginning to. The lady said they burst through the door all full of energy and she just loved that. They got away from us haha. Phew!!! It's a great place to explore and they each got a trophy.

We found when we got back to the van that in their excitement they forgot to close the door. Sheesh.......
so next on the agenda was to stop at the cafe in Lake Leelanau where they got a hot chocolate with cream on top with drizzled chocolate. I bought them one of the huge peanut butter cookies to split. They are the size of 4 cookies. Tristen said to Cooper "Grandma's are just the best".


We all enjoyed our drinks on the way to Sleeping Bear lakeshore and our first destination. We stopped at Port Oneida in order to go down on the beach. We get some exercise walking back up those steps at least. It was cold and windy so they didn't want to stay there long but went up into the trees and sought out adventure there. We had shown them the progress the Beavers had made and Tristen took a picture of their lodge.





The water was very blue this day. The ice gradually melting



We saw deer in one of the back fields but had seen so many when Gerry and I went earlier on in the week that I didn't disturb them. On our way out we saw several in the open fields on both sides of the road.

Look at the ice balls.

Frozen snow balls created by the water


We carried on towards Glen Arbor, it's so nice to see these places free from tourists. They will soon be back.
Next stop was Glen Haven. The boys enjoyed that beach more, not so windy.





After they expended some energy there we headed for the dunes.

I was worried about the wall of ice. Gerry doesn't think about the "what if's" like I do. I was worried the wall of ice would fall like an avalanche, kids have been killed on the dunes when things happen unexpectedly. All was well though and they climbed almost to the top before sliding down.


Next we headed to Empire and they played on the playground while I got pictures of the beach. I met this lovely chap and got a kiss.




The ice is really melting fast and I enjoyed watching the swath of broken ice balls bobbing in the waves under them. A few years ago we had ice caves when Lake Michigan really froze. There were a couple of ice bergs out there haha.

All of that is water under the ice. The loose pieces were churning in the waves

We didn't see any deer today in town. The last couple of times we went into Empire there were deer out in plain view. This is Bar Lake right there in Empire. North Bar is a great place to take kids to swim. Back in the day, no one knew about it and now, well you really can't go there and be alone. As I keep saying, I like empty beaches.

Tristen had to be home by 6.30 and so we had to leave. We stopped at the Hayloft for supper.
COOPER

TRISTEN



Poor Cooper was tired out with all the walking, playing, climbing and excitement. He loves being with Tristen. Tristen is coming on Wednesday they are on Spring Break, we said we would take them to the children's museum. Cooper went to bed early and crashed he was so tired.