4th of July weekend

We had a SWEET 4th of July weekend. Pete just happened to start residency with what people have said is the easiest rotation (Neurology) and we are living it up. He was given Friday and Monday off! Maybe this residency thing isn't so bad ( haha... I say that, but I'm preparing for the worst). So we took advantage of the time off and went camping. We found the sweetest little campsite, right on a lake. This campground is supposed to be a 3-mile hike in, but we found a road to get to it that is a quarter mile away. There isn't any parking on that road, so we parked our car there just temporarily, carried all our stuff in, then Pete re-parked the car and rode his mountain bike the 3 miles to the campground. And wow, we arrogantly thought that there wouldn't be any mountain biking in Michigan (no mountains=no mountain biking, right?), but boy were we wrong! The state park we were camping at has miles and miles of hilly single track trail that goes through the forest, over rivers and next to lakes. Absolutely beautiful! We are already planning to take advantage of our parents coming out in a couple months and sneak over there together to try out more of the trails.

So we found this great site and spent the day swimming, playing in the sand, resting, eating, hiking, and exploring. And just when we thought our camping experience was complete, this man who lives on the lake and had stopped to talk to us as he was hiking through, paddles over to us in his double kayak. He then unloads a few loads of firewood for us to use, then leaves his kayak with a couple life jackets and tells us it's ours to use and that he'll pick it up in the morning. Seriously?! We were blown away by the generosity of this man. He then swims back to his home on the other side of the small lake. So we took turns taking the kids out for rides and it totally made our day!




As we were hiking around Dan picked this up and said, "Look! A big wock!" and was going to then take it down to the lake and throw it in. But upon closer observation, we found that this "rock" was a turtle with very sharp claws that was hiding in its shell. When Pete came to inspect, Dan said, "I fot it was a wock!" He thought it was pretty cool that he had picked up a turtle.



Joe was actually really good almost the whole time, I just put this picture in because I thought it was funny. He sported a white onesie the entire time. Pointless to have him wear anything more when he's constantly wet and dirty.



No camping trip is complete without smores.


One last kayak ride before bed.

Saturday night we went to a ward barbeque, complete with a hay ride and all (a lot of our ward lives out on farming land). We took the day off Sunday. We needed a day to recover from camping. Even though it was SO much fun, camping with 3 little kids is a ton of work and we were seriously exhausted. As were the kids. Then on Monday morning we went rollerblading around a nearby Metropark that has a great biking trail all through it. Rollerblading together is one thing that I love to do... Pete pushes a couple kids in the double stroller, and I push the single. It works great! Then that night we joined the crowds down at Willow Metropark for a barbeque and to watch the fireworks. Happy 4th!

Joe showing us his hand after eating about a half a bag of Doritos.


This picture is compliments of John. Not bad.