Back to the beach…Cherne style…

We spent our third (and last) week of summer vacation in Grand Haven with my family – parents, sisters + husbands, and the kids and I (Ben was only there part-time because of work). What happened is that my parents liked the Hammond idea of renting a house close to the beach, so they jumped on the bandwagon. We have truly enjoyed being able to spend quality time with family this summer, and our week in Grand Haven was awesome!

Once again, I have some fun…and funny highlights from our week in the Haven:

Go Big or Go Home…
Our family, specifically my Mom, is known for doing everything 150%. A “Mom motto” would probably be, “If you can’t do it right, don’t do it at all”. Well, this week was no exception…we literally packed their Saturn Outlook to the roof with piles of food, games, and beach supplies, and then packed our Honda Odyssey to the brim too.

We particularly had food coming out of our ears…partially because one of my sisters recently decided to go vegan and my Mom has a number of diet restrictions because of her health, including no yeast, chocolate, lettuce, etc…so every meal we had multiple options – meat or vegan lasagna, regular or boca burgers, beef/chicken/bean tacos, cornbread or yeast pizza. It was crazy amounts of food, but the even crazier part was that I was convinced that we were going to have massive amounts of leftovers, and honestly, we didn’t!

One example was the night we ordered pizza from this local joint, Palermo’s. We didn’t know anything about it, but decided to get the large pizza, which they said was a 24 inch pizza. Now, probably someone should have clued in that this was going to be gigantic, but we didn’t, and when it arrived? You just had to laugh, because it was literally two feet across. Talk about “going big”. The amount of leftovers? Probably three or four pieces, quickly consumed the next day.

We also got hit by the “beading bug”; my Mom and sister came across these pendants, made out of a Scrabble piece and decorated in fun patterns. Someone suggested that we string bead necklaces to hang them on, and well…by the end of the week I think we made at least 8 or 9 necklaces, maybe more…

Wii-ing It…
Another vacation pastime after spending a long day at the beach was my Dad’s Wii. Ben and I had never experienced the Wii before, and wow – is it cool. I liked it because I could play tennis and not whiff every time; go bowling and actually break 100; and unlike most video games, you were moving around and having fun as a group of people. My kind of video game!

Renae and Jeremy brought their Wii Fit as well, which led to us all going through the initiation process…which included everyone getting weighed, having their BMI calculated, and their Wii Fit Age determined. Nothing brings a family closer together than knowing everyone’s weight…ha ha. Too much information, right? My BMI was fine, but my Wii Fit Age (calculated by your weight, BMI, and balancing abilities) turned out to be…45. Yikes. I obviously have horrible balance.

I don’t think that we are going to be running out and buying one anytime soon, but it was a good time…and a good laugh watching everyone jumping around like crazy!

Oh yeah, don’t forget the beach!
Yes, between eating and the Wii, we did make it to the beach several times. The kids just love it there. Madi immediately starts digging up wet sand and mixing up some sort of concoction in a bucket or two, and Parker heads directly for the beach tent. While Madi is the active, running around beach girl, Parker is definitely the chill out beach bum type. I think he also likes being close to the snacks.

Madi’s big accomplishment this week was swimming “all by herself”. She figured out that while wearing a swim ring, she could float in the water and ride the waves into shore, even kicking her feet once in a while. It was a major deal for a kid who previously wanted you to hold onto her for dear life. She was so excited about it that when Ben came out on Friday afternoon, she braved the 68 degree water just so that she could show him that she could do it.

One of our evolving projects was the…sandcastle. My parents bought this sandcastle making kit, complete with tower mold and brick maker. Each day our castles grew more and more ambitious, as we figured out what worked and what didn’t. The bricks were cool (and time-consuming), but we couldn’t get them to stack higher than two rows. Actually, I shouldn’t say we, because my Dad was the mastermind (and the primary mason) of the entire operation, but we all lent a hand from time to time. The last day we were at the beach was the “masterpiece”. My Dad and I had a conversation about how they do the giant sandcastles, and we determined that they probably sculpted it out of a huge pile of sand. So, we tried it, and it actually worked! It was huge, included a wall, several towers, a drawbridge, and an extremely deep moat. We even kept Parker away from it long enough to take a picture or two before he wanted to smash it.

Is that a Waterspout?
One morning, my parents, the kids, and I headed to the beach, with Kristin, Sam, and Jeannie to follow later. We lugged everything down to set up “base camp”, got situated, and then proceeded to start our beach activities. Dad and Madi were flying a kite, and my Mom and I headed out into the water to ride the waves.

Picture this…I’m holding Parker and the inner tube while my Mom tries to get on in between the crashing waves. After she got on, we realized that I was going to have to hold onto her to prevent her from riding into shore and we all started to get drenched from the waves, including Parker. My Mom and I were cracking up, but Parker wanted to go up to the beach because his face had gotten splashed (my fault) and so here I am, trying to keep my Mom from floating away and trying to yell to my Dad to come out and help. We finally decided to just have Mom float to shore, and I got Madi’s attention to come over and hang onto Mom’s inner tube while I got Dad. It was funny, because Madi kept saying, “I’m hanging on to you, Grammy!”

While we were distracted by all of our adventures, the sky clouded over, and our beach neighbors came over and said, “Uh, is that a tornado on the water?” I look out, and see two waterspouts out on the lake. Yeah, this could be a problem. Plus, the sky above us is positively black, the beach is emptying out like crazy, and all of a sudden, there is gale force wind. One beach umbrella launches straight up into the air and into the water, so my Dad leaps out to get it, our other umbrella turns inside out, and the tent is about to blow away…our cue to beat a hasty retreat.

The next ten minutes or so, we pack up everything, run it all up to the car, rescue Madi’s boogie board from floating away in the water, console her because she was convinced that her inner tube and boogie board was going to fly away, get completely out of breath…and by the time this was all done? The sun was out again. Figures. We still headed back home, because we were NOT going to bring everything back down to the water again, and Madi was still pretty traumatized about almost losing her stuff.

Later, Ben told me that the waterspouts were on the news…I guess it’s a pretty unusual phenomenon, but hey, I wasn’t about to sit around taking pictures – we were out of there! Also, I’m glad that we ended up leaving, because the wind stayed pretty strong, and the beach is not much fun when sand is whipping into the side of your face the whole time.

“The List”
At the beginning of the week, I made a list of all the things that we could possibly do during the week like blueberry picking, shopping, beach, musical fountain, and riding the trolley. We didn’t take the trolley ride, but Sam, Kris, Ben & I went down to the musical fountain on Friday night. It was a bit underwhelming after watching the absolutely mindblowing opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. (Could you even believe that 2008 drummers could be that synchronized?) The funny part was that on the walk back, we passed The Kirby Grill and Ben saw one of his buddies playing with a band inside! We didn’t pay the cover to go in, but we did sit outside and listen for a couple of minutes. Crazy.

What your kids won’t tell you
As the week progressed, I found it interesting what Madi was willing to tell my sisters and Mom that she would not tell me. I found out (from them) that she is nervous about going to preschool, that she calls my grandpa “Big Grandpa” and that she was sad at first that she didn’t have any friends in her ballet class (She has a friend now). All of these things? Didn’t have a clue, especially about her being nervous about school.

It just reminded me that sometimes as parents you might ask the wrong questions or your kids might not feel comfortable telling you things. I think in this case it was a little of both; Ben and I have been “talking up” school like crazy, and she probably didn’t want to spoil our excitement. Also, I had not really asked her if she was nervous about it, because I thought it would put ideas in her head. Boy, I guess I was wrong about that!

Well, now we are home for a while, but I have great memories and deep gratitude for my parents for bringing us together from all over the country. We may even go back…in two years!