Friday, September 19th

I had packed most of the items for our trip during the week. We just had some finishing touches that needed to be complete.

Bob worked a 1/2 day and was home by Noon. By time we had lunch and finished packing the van, we were on the road by 12:45 pm. We encountered a few construction spots that held us up a little, but for the most part the ride was smooth sailing. We got to the cottage around 3:45pm.

It was wonderful to get out of the car and the girls were happy to be out as well. Bob had told Celie that we were going to go fishing and so the entire trip to MI, she kept asking, "We are going fishing, right daddy?" She would also say "I want to catch a whopper."

We went into the house and checked things out. It was fabulous. The living space downstairs was open, clean, and bright. Very comfortable. Celie saw the dock and the lake and wanted to go outside. Bob took the girls out there and showed them the dock and told them they had to be careful and they looked for fish. 2 swans came up to them to greet them. Once the swan's realized they didn't have any food for them, they swam away. It was almost like the Chevy Chase moving funny farm and cuing the deer - though it was cuing the swans.

We unloaded the van and I worked on getting the house in order as Bob and the girls set out to try to catch a whopper.

It was fun to hear the squeals of delight as Celie saw the fish try to bite her bread bait.

Friday night, we ordered pizza and fried pickles from Thompson's. My dad & Pat came over for dinner and Aunt Sue & Uncle Tom came out as soon as they got into town. The girls and I had made a cake for Uncle Tom's B-day - German Chocolate cake. (We were celebrating his b-day early since we wouldn't see him on his b-day). We had pirate themed plates and napkins and goody bags with pirate items - Uncle Tom loves pirates. We quickly found out that we think that Anna is allergic to coconut. She kept spitting out the frosting from the cake. Then she started really scratching her face and crying. We quickly gave her some benadryl, which was a challenge, and she seemed to calm down. Her face did have tiny welts on it. Drama.

The kids, Uncle Tom included, played with the Pirate goodies and then it was time to the hit hay. Both girls were out in a matter of minutes.

Here is a picture and some video of Pirate Celie.