Ludington Vacation - Part II

Our next adventure while in Ludington was our annual bike trip up to the Big Sable Point Lighthouse. It was storming earlier in the day but cleared up nicely so we could make the trip. We've made this trip every year and now that Allison has a mountain bike with gears the ride was MUCH more pleasant for everyone. The ride is a little more than 2 miles each way from our campground. Part of it is bike path but the majority is an old two-track gravel road that goes from the campgrounds straight north along the Lake Michigan beach to the point. It was a special night so they had old fashioned games, tours up in the tower, educational information about the lighthouse, and s'mores around the firepit. During the educational portion, the host used Nathan and Allison as helpers while explaining how the lighthouse lense focused all the light into a narrow band to make it visible for a greater distance. Take a look at what that does to someone's face while they're in the thing!

Afterwards, the kids played around by the beach before eating s'mores...

The next day was spent mainly doing laundry, relaxing at the beach for kayaking and swimming, visiting the skate park (more later), and, of course, going to House of Flavors for ice cream in a waffle cone.

Nathan also got hooked on skimboarding while at the beach. We ended up staying until sunset and were the only ones on the beach...very relaxing. Here's a video of one of his wipeouts... but he ended up getting the hang of it and mastered the 180.

Kodak moment...

Sunset skimming...

Ludington Vacation - Part I

Sorry for the delay in posting, but we just returned from our annual week-long camping trip to Ludington State Park. If you like camping and have never been there, you MUST go. The state park is huge with three campgrounds in the park sandwiched between Hamlin Lake and Lake Michigan. We always stay at the Beechwood campground which is next to a boardwalk on Lost Lake which connects to Hamlin Lake. This was our 9th year going and it's still as fun as the first time. We spent the first day on the boat fishing with Papa Weiss. He continued fishing on day two and ended up with enough for us to have a fish fry and fill a one gallon zip lock as well. We caught bass, bluegill, rock bass, and walleye. On day two, we floated down the river from Hamlin Lake Dam to Lake Michigan to play at the beach and ride the Lake Michigan waves in the kayak. Of course, we made the trip to town to get ice cream in waffle cones at House of Flavors (Heidi's favorite) and Nathan noticed they built a new skate park at Stearns Park in downtown Ludington... but more on that in a future post.

Here are a few pics from our first couple days...

Papa Weiss with some large bluegills. Don't be fooled. Papa has VERY large hands...
Nathan and Allison riding the waves on Lake Michigan...
Nathan and Heidi doing the same...
Ally "The Fish" McDaid swiming in the waves...

2nd Annual Pettibone Heights Karaoke Party

July 12th was the Second Annual Pettibone Heights Karaoke Party up north. For some reason, it's been disguised as a birthday party (last year for Michelle and this year for Nick) both times but the highlight has been when Pameoke (a local lady named Pam with karaoke equipment) shows up, the tunes start cranking, and the drinks start flowing. It seems like almost everyone took their turn "on stage" belting out songs in almost every musical genre from country, to rap, to rock, to hip hop, to ???.

At Bob's request, there was a karaoke "battle of the sexes" with the guys facing off against the girls. The guys chose to perform Poison - Talk Dirty To Me, Great White - Once Bitten Twice Shy, and Eminem - Without Me (the clincher). The girls did Shenia Twain - Man, I Feel Like A Woman, a second song that escapes me, and Salt-N-Pepa - Shoop. With Pameoke being the impartial judge, the guys won again this year. But don't worry girls, you've got a year to sharpen your act for next year. And Pameoke promised to bring a prize for the winner next year.

Unfortunately, our pictures of the evening are somewhat limited so I'd love to have you all send us any pictures you have from that night. Maybe we'll put them into an online photo album and link to them from this posting so everyone can see them. Here are a few that we do have along with a couple videos that are worth noting. As always, click on the picture to enlarge. And Angie, don't worry...the Faster Pussycat CD is in the mail (the '80's rocked!) :-)

Who Let The Dogs Out!!

"The Girls" rockin' out...
"The Guys" putting the proverbial "nail in the coffin" with a rendition of Eminem - Without Me (shirtless at Scott's suggestion)...
The whole group having a good ole time dancin' & drinkin'...

Allison's dance routine that she did to almost every song for about 2 hours straight...

Bubba & Papa Weiss taking thier turn on stage... What A Wonderful World

Keith, Angie, and Reygan gettin' down...

Hope everyone can make it back up for next year. We'd like to keep the fun going.

Congratulations Nathan! We're so proud of you!

Nathan entered and finished his first triathlon today in Rockford (Rockford Area Kids Triathlon). He had a hard time falling asleep last night and when we woke up to thunderstorms we were wondering if it was still on. By the time we got to Rockford the rain had stopped and the sun was actually peeking through the clouds. It ended up being a very nice day for a race... a little cool. Nathan was a little nervous before his race started. We watched some of the older kids start their races in the pool and then go out to the transition area to begin the bike portion.

When Nathan's race began there were three kids in each lane of the pool (ie. very crowded). They all started at once. The swim was the toughest part for him. He got very winded but didn't give up and made it to the swim finish and climbed out of the pool. I threw him a towel and we headed out to the bike transition. A quick prep (shoes & helmet) and he was off and flying on the bike. He had a little trouble on the bike course because it wasn't well marked and he stopped because he didn't know where he was supposed to go (the volunteer at that turn was busy talking to someone and didn't point him in the right direction right away) but he figured it out quickly and kept moving. He was able to pass 4 racers during the bike portion. Once the biking was done, I joined him for the run portion (parents were allowed to run alongside). After working so hard on the bike section, he was completely winded when we began the run. I told him to set his own pace in the run and I'd stay with him. He went slow at first trying to catch his breath but was able to pass two other racers in the first quarter mile. One of them passed him back when he was going slow to catch his breath but Nathan immediately sprinted to get back in front of that kid. He then passed two more runners at around the half-mile marker and finished with a sprint to the finish line. His final time was between 21 and 22 minutes (didn't get an exact time) which was faster than when he did a practice run up north.

Nathan finished 12th out of 22 kids in his race. We were so proud of him for gutting it out after ending the first section toward the back of the pack. There were a couple points where the look on his face said he wanted to stop but he didn't. In fact, he turned it up each time someone tried to pass him during the run so he didn't get passed for good at all during the bike or the run.

After the race there was pizza, hot dogs, and sports drinks for all the kids. After all the races were complete they also had an awards ceremony to present trophies to the top three finishers in each race and medals to all finishers. All finishers received a medal and a t-shirt. Nathan had a lot of fun and said he wants to do it again (after a rest of course). But he did say he'll need to work MUCH harder to prepare for the swimming portion next time.

Congratulations Nathan!

Click pictures to enlarge...
Preparing to start. Nathan is in the middle of the picture (just to the left of the number 4 in the pool)



About to make a pass at the 1 mile mark of the bike portion...

Finishing strong!

Crashed on the ride home :-)

Triathlon Update

Nathan has been doing a good job of keeping up on his training for the triathlon next Saturday by swimming, biking, or running a set distance every day. Over the weekend, he got a taste of what it will by like by doing the full triathlon at Pettibone Lake. He did a 50 yd swim, 2 mile bike ride, and 1 mile run in exactly 25 min 16 sec. We took a little longer than we should have during the transition between the swim and bike but overall he did great and (the important part) he seemed to like it. He said the swim was the hardest part because it's hard to catch his breath. The middle half of the run is what seemed to slow him down the most. But he did sprint the last 50 yds or so to finish strong. The race is coming up next Saturday (July 12th) and we'll be cheering him on.

Dock Dogs

We spent the 4th of July weekend up north at Pettibone Lake fishing, kayaking, swimming, lighting/watching fireworks, eating, and just soaking up the sun. While there, we let the dogs cool off in the water and had fun trying to get some good action shots of them jumping off the dock after the water toy. We've seen the Big Air Dock Dogs at the Sport Fishing and RV Show at Devos Place in Grand Rapids. We really should enter Zoe (our Labradoodle) and Remy (Scott's English Springer Spaniel) in one of those and see how far they can go. Zoe gets good height but I think it would be hard to beat Remy's distance... For these shots, Scott was throwing the toy from shore and the dogs would run the full length of the dock and dive off. I was in the water at the end of the dock trying to time the camera just right. Very tricky...

Zoe at take-off...

Remy just before landing...

Trail Cam

I decided to set up my trail cam behind the trailer up north last week. After one week, there were 52 pictures on it. Over the course of three days, there were 32 more pictures. Come to find out, quite a few were shots of Nathan and Zach riding their quads (the camera is on a tree right next to their trail loop which they tend to zoom around many, many times). But there were also a number of shots of deer too. Here are a couple.... Click on a picture to see it enlarged. And the last shot is of a mysterious animal captured on the trail camera. It may be wild. But it seems to have noticed the camera.

Dance Camps

This past week was very busy for everyone. Allison had a 3-day dance camp. On top of that, cousin Breanna was staying with us for a few days and her and Allison went to another dance camp at Body Language Dance Company. There was a lot of practicing going on at night. Aside from the dancing, the girls made crafts, painted nails, and met some new friends. Here is a picture of the girls with thier nails painted and a video clip of their dance routine. Allison is in the bright blue shirt. Breanna is in the far corner in the light purple shirt. Sorry for the low-quality video but it's a big download...