Shiver Bay

My kids and I along with my parents, my sister and her two kids, my aunt and uncle and their two grown children plus their respective families spent the weekend camping along the shore of Lake Superior. I had joked to my dad on our way there that we would know we had arrived once we reached the Canadian border. I should have looked at a map before we hit the road because my joke wasn't so funny once I saw a sign that read 'Canada 100 miles' and we were yet to reach our campground! That and we had been watching the temperatures plummet the further north we drove. They were in the low fifties by the time we arrived. Admittedly, by this point I was convinced that we had made a terrible mistake and that the entire weekend was going to be miserable. And then to add insult to injury we discovered while setting up camp that one wing of my parents pop-up camper was broken and unusable!!!

But despite our rocky start, we had a good weekend. My uncle miraculously repaired the camper. The temperatures remained in the fifties so we put on many layers. And despite the rain (mostly a drizzle) we had many campfires and cooked some meals over the fire. We saw a lighthouse and waterfalls. We threw rocks in the lake. The adults managed to sneak in one card game...scrunched in one camper with five wiggly children surrounding us. The kids enjoyed playing in the woods and building a fort. Oh and my girls LOVED playing in the mud despite my best efforts to keep them out of it. 

Overall my kids have been such troopers as I have dragged them from place to place immediately after being uprooted. Within a week we have moved 400+ miles, gone to camp, stayed overnight at my aunt & uncle's house, gone camping...and now we are headed to my grandparents' house for a few days! Poor Charlotte, when she is tired, asks to go home. And honestly, I don't exactly know how to respond to this request. Because while our house in Illinois is technically still ours until the end of the month. And Joe is in the nearly empty house. (Studying. For 4 more days...) It isn't really home anymore. One relative joked that I should put her in our van and tell her "Welcome Home!" But even that wasn't an option this past weekend as we had ridden up with my parents!

Thankfully I know that her requests to "go home" mostly mean she wants to be with her daddy. And while I can not grant her her wish to return home, I can reunite her with her daddy in one week! Once his boards exam is done we are all headed to Iowa for his first "away rotation" and I can hardly wait. It will be good to "home".