Michigan's Adventure!

Our last day of vacation before heading home and it decided to be overcast.  Which, considering we weren't spending the day at the beach, was no big deal.  We drove an hour after checking out of our hotel and stuffing our face with those amazing cinnamon rolls again.  Michigan's Adventure Amusement Park is in Muskegon and opened at 11am, which I thought was late for a park to open, but we went with it.

The boys studied the map and decided to start on the Logger's Run ride.  Solid choice!  Pretty tame ride until the big drop at the end and it made for a cute picture!

We went on the Sea Dragon next, which you can see from the first picture at the top of the post.  Big mistake.  I hated it and both boys decided to cry when the ride was over.  Apparently they were too scared to cry while on the ride.  At least that didn't ruin anyone else's time on it.  But, yeah...not fun.  So, we let them go on a bunch of kiddie rides to get them back in the roller coaster mood.

As the kids were getting off the motorcycle ride for the 3rd time, we noticed the dark clouds rolling in.  And by dark, I mean a wicked storm brewing.  We took cover in the gift shop, which kept the boys entertained during the rain.  They tried on goofy hats, drooled over the candy bins, and fell in love with Snoopy and Linus stuffed animals.

We ventured out in the light rain as the storm was ending to grab lunch before they re-opened the rides and attractions.  The boys even played in the arcade for a bit too.

After lunch, we were all about the rides once again!  They rode two other roller coasters, a water ride, many kiddie rides, and the Logger's Run again.  We didn't even need to do the water park and quite frankly, I was done with water stuff after the amount of swimming and beach activities we'd done over the course of the week.

And just like that, our vacation came to an end.  As we hit the 5pm mark, we knew we needed to head home.  Evan took a little cap nap on Scott's shoulders, Scott won a stuffed "Mel" from Secret Life of the Pets at a game, and Sean insisted on a ride on the Ferris Wheel.  Me?  I just wanted to soak in the last few minutes of our summer vacation that was planned with love for months.  I was content just snapping pictures and watching everyone leave that park with a smile on their faces.  We nailed our vacation.  And it's been all we can talk about now for a week.  Memories that will last a lifetime!

Lake Michigan - Holland

Halfway through our Lake Michigan get-away, the kids slept well at the hotel overnight and woke up ready to have breakfast in the lobby.  You can't beat a hotel that does a nice, free breakfast!  And the cinnamon rolls were to die for!

Our first destination in the morning was Windmill Island.  I figured, you can't go to Holland and not see the Windmill!

Evan was grumpy and Scott's not much of a "look and see" kind of guy, so I tried to cheer everyone up and make the most of it.  We went on the first tour of the Windmill and our tour guide was from Holland and moved to the States 12 years ago and moved to Michigan only back in March!  She did a great job explaining the purpose of this Windmill and how it works.  We went up 5 floors!

After touring the Windmill, we walked back to look in the shops and try on the wooden shoes, of course!  There was a playground and carousel the boys enjoyed too.  We spent about 2 hours there and it was the perfect amount of time to see it all.

At this point the kids and Scott were ready for some lunch and a change of pace.  So, we drove to Holland State Park Beach down the road.  This is a great beach!  We paid for admission/parking since we don't have a State Park Pass and as we walked toward the beach there was a huge building that had a concession stand, store, bathrooms, and tables to sit down at to eat.  We all changed and I grabbed the kids some pizza.  We had fruit, veggies, and drinks packed in the cooler.  Then, we found a spot as close to the water as we could find.  It was quite a different experience from the beach the day before, but we made do.  The sand was frying hot!!

We spend the rest of the afternoon building sand castles and moats, swimming all the way out to the "pole" in the water, and jumping in Lake Michigan off of the pier (well, Sean and Scott did anyway).  Let me tell you...it was a hike from our spot in the sand to the end of the pier.  Wear shoes because the sand is on fire and don't bring much with you because you'll have to carry a child...

We reached our limit of the sun around 4pm, so we decided to grab an early dinner at New Holland Brewing Company in town and then head back to our hotel for...you guessed it!  More swimming.  :)

I probably pushed our luck, but I was dying to see a sunset over Lake Michigan.  We let the boys swim at the hotel and relax for a bit and then went back out around 7:30pm.  I don't know why I dressed the boys in khaki shorts and a polo shirt, but they decided to go swimming in their clothes anyway.  I thought they might be done with the water.  Note to self:  Where's the water, there will be my children...swimming in it!

But, oh!  The sunset was just stunning!!!  And so worth every bit of Evan's meltdown as he got out of the water and realized we had no towel for him!

It was our only challenging behavior day on the trip from the boys, but we pulled through and made some great memories today!  And we said goodbye to Lake Michigan, as we were heading to Muskegon in the morning to go to Michigan's Adventure Amusement Park!