Little Eden

Our unexpected surprise trip of the summer was to hook up with good friends Brooke and Kumar and their family at Little Eden.  Scott is on the "standby" list each summer, so we get called at the last minute if any family needs to cancel their week.  Otherwise, the wait list for this camp is like 20 years long.  Crazy!

This year, it was for the Kandel family week, so we tacked it on to the end of the kids' trip to Chicago and Goshen.  The logistics, as usual, were a bit complicated.  It is coming to mind now that as I was trying to get to Chicago to see Carrie, the flights were totally full, so Scott at the last minute decided to fore-go his two days of alone time at home, and at my request, came to the airport to fly with me just so I could fly at his status and make it there.  Flying standby in the summer is no fun at all. I'm not complaining; that's just the way it is.

Anywho, we made it to Little Eden on Tuesday and stayed for 4 nights.  It was perfect timing.  We had beach time, lake time, and friend time.  We ate at the cafeteria, so no cooking.  We got to bed late and slept in.  The kids had the run of the camp with their friends.  They went fishing, boating, and swimming, with no real schedule at all but to make it to the cafeteria; otherwise they'd miss their meal opportunity.  The weather was absolutely perfect.  No rain, 70-80s during the day, and 60s at night.  For northern Michigan, it was NothingToComplainAbout.com.

A definite highlight was a couple of trips to the shores of Lake Michigan.  While extremely cold, the boys really had a good time jumping off the pier.  I wish I knew how many times they did it!  The video captures it the best.  I think this is the only picture of Brooke and me!  Pathetic.

 Also at the beach are the sand dunes.  I could not believe that Mikayla wanted to try it, and she climbed it quite easily for the little legs that she has.  What a trooper!

The last day, there were a bunch of scheduled kid's activities.  One was a watermelon contest.  They threw a greased watermelon into the lake, and the winner was anyone who carried it up on the beach.  There were lots of struggles and splashing, and even Mikayla wasn't afraid to get right in there.

Another contest was a boat race down the creek that runs through the camp.  Kids created their own boat and floated it down the river. Luka had his prepared a day in advance.  TJ finalized his literally 1 minute before the race started, and it consisted of a frisbie from the craft barn, with Mikayla's flip flop on top of it.  Really?  Well, it actually won out of all the age groups and all the boats.

The full gang left to right: Anika, Karina, Jace (their cousin) TJ, Luka, Mikayla, and Xavier.

Luka had a bawl at the craft barn.  It would open everyday after breakfast, and he knew he could just charge his crafts to the account.  What a great way for Luka to be entertained.  He came home with more crafts than he could remember even making.

The kids were for some reason very obsessed with "decaf" as they call it.  Here's a typical site in the morning, Luka having just crawled out of bed, and fixed himself a cup of decaf from the cafeteria.