Skip to main content

Another Day in Paradise

I make no apologies for my adoration of Interlochen and my life at the moment.  I only wish all of you were here with me!

The girls had their first day of rehearsal today.  Since it's Monday (technically a day off for the kids), they only had rehearsal for 3 hours in the morning, and the rest of the day was ours.

Hannah and Anna were champs, getting up at 7 a.m. to go running.

Rehearsals were a success, although Hannah doesn't like having to count 90 measures of rest in a John Williams' piece :-)

Anna practicing with Hannah
Glo loves her orchestra and the music they are playing.

Lunch.

Anna then spent an hour with Johannah, helping her rehearse her next set of audition excerpts.  Johannah has no desire to be put in the lower orchestra anytime soon.

Afterwards, we were off for the day.  Our destination?  Sleeping Bear Dunes, voted "The Most Beautiful Place in America".  Seriously.

We've been here for five years now and never visited the dunes.  They are only 30 minutes away.  Boy, we have been missing out!! 

We first drove "the scenic drive".  Anna was our tour guide, and we both learned a lot while the girls completed the Junior Ranger program.  

We just HAD to stop here (hey, it was on the way!)

Feeling guilty about biting off the bear's head...

This was 600 feet (or some other unbelievable number) above the lake

Two of these toes are related, and the other hopes she will be be :-)

When we pulled into the parking lot, I told the kids that it wouldn't take more than five minutes to climb the first dune.
Yeah right, I think I heaved up a lung.

These three made it to "the benches"--the highest point on the dunes.

Now THIS is my kind of picture!  See me?  In my orange shirt?  Don't I look wonderful--skinny and tanned and young?

Yeah, she's a BABE!

No wonder we were afterwards finding sand in places we didn't know we have :-)

SUCH a great day!

We finished off the night by driving to Grand Traverse Pie Company for individual slices of pie which we took home along with our two large Pizza Hut pizzas.  The Bachelorette was on at eight, and we weren't ready for the fun to end.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Place

I'm writing this, not as a complaint, but as a plea.  If anyone has any advice, I would greatly appreciate it. My children are talented.  In fact, every child that I have ever met is talented in some way.  That's the fun thing about meeting kids--discovering those hidden talents. Some of the talents my children possess are very public--you guessed it...music.  Some aren't so public--kindness and generosity. My kids are frequently judged by other children because of their musical talents.  Other kids see them as "snobs" because they play their instruments well and because they are willing to share those talents whenever asked. My kids never play with arrogance.  They recognize that they are better at music than most kids their age, but they never, ever show it.  In fact, they are very generous with compliments towards other kids and their efforts with music.  I have raised them to appreciate anyone who tries to do anything with music--it's ...

Redefining Charity

I like attending church on Sunday for many different reasons, but I dislike the meetings for one very large reason:  discussions regarding charity. In case you don't remember your Sunday School lessons, charity is defined as the pure love of Christ.  If you were to actually look up the word in a dictionary, it would say, "See John Kennedy". That's right.  My wonderful husband is the perfect embodiment of charity. His life basically moves from one charitable act to another. Take any given Saturday.  He can found building some large structure on our property because I think we need it.  He can be found, rebuilding a pond for an old Indian woman who lives alone and needs some help.  On his way to a church picnic, he will stop to help an old woman reseal her driveway, missing one of his favorite meals in the world:  a POTLUCK! Other days?  He stops to help any person on the side of the road with car troubles. He'll drive 2.5 hours to a ...

The TOOTH that Broke the Camel's Back

1.  Take an already busy doctor and install an EMR (Electronic Medical Record) in his office.  Kiss him goodnight at midnight as he begins to "preload" charts for future visits. 2.  Host a general authority of the church for our stake conference this weekend.  Receive a long "to do" list of jobs just five days before the conference. 3.  Feel stress because John is stressed.  Try to do his jobs around the house so that he doesn't have to worry about them. 4.  Have 16 puppies. 5.  Decide to build outside area for puppies.  Borrow backhoe from neighbor.  Watch John work long past the setting sun, and wake up before anyone else to dig. 6.  Use our own tractor to move the dirt.  Watch bucket malfunction, cut the fuel line and destroy the fuel pump.  Try to catch the leaking diesel fuel in a bucket. 7.  Catch cold last weekend.  Dread colds like a hemophiliac dreads a small cut.  Nurse fever, congestio...