June 29-July 1, 2018 Utah Calls

Our visit with Craig and Rashida began Friday evening with the Be One celebration in the Conference Center.  (Here's a link to the full concert.)

In a personal call a few weeks beforehand Gladys Knight made sure that Rashida would be part of her choir for the event!

We celebrated afterwards in traditional Call fashion with ice cream!

First thing on Saturday morning we had to figure out how to escape from The Hoarder's Attic.  

By the way, I tried four different online red eye fixes for Craig.  Can't fix those super power eyes!

Next stop, a health food store for take out lunch.  Craig and Dad put on an impromptu floor show in the produce department.

In the afternoon, we raced down the Alpine Slide.  Rashida graciously let me win.

We rounded out a wonderful day with dinner at Dad's favorite restaurant:  The Roof at Temple Square!

Ever feel like those around you just don't appreciate your brilliant witticisms?  Craig and Rashida taught us what to do.

We loved our visit with the Utah Calls--too short, but sweet!

July 14-22, 2018 Michigan Cooks

Fun with Grandpa!

Grandma played Monopoly Deal with Tytan and Brie also, but they beat her every time!

Grandpa is a great art teacher--and Tytan and Brie drew some wonderful pictures.

Brie has perfected her frowny face.

We drove up to Mackinaw City at the top of Michigan between Lake Michigan on the west and Lake Huron on the east.  The first afternoon we explored the park along the shoreline across from the Mackinaw Bridge.

The next day was Tytan's 9th birthday!!!  We were so glad we got to be there to celebrate with him.

We took the ferry over to Mackinac Island--about a 15 minute trip.  To sound like a local, you need to know that Mackinac (French version) is pronounced the same as Mackinaw (British version).

It was windy on the ferry!

The town is at the foot of the old Fort Mackinac.  Brief, painless history lesson from Wikipedia:  The British built the fort during the American Revolutionary War to control the strategic Straits of Mackinac between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, and by extension the fur trade on the Great Lakes. 

This cute family posed for us in the "Somewhere in Time" gazebo.

We hiked up to the Arch Rock overlook.

We rented bikes in town and rode around the island--an 8 mile circuit.

Tandem is great!

We stopped on the leeward side to skip rocks and swim.  There were lots of great flat skipping rocks.  Bryan got the prize for the most skips and distance!

The water was chilly but that didn't discourage the kids!

Back to town for stops at Ryba's Fudge Shop and Moomers Ice Cream.

The next day we drove over Mackinaw Bridge and down the west side of the peninsula.

Beautiful mom and two crazy, cold kids

We stopped at Petosky State Park to swim (well, Bryan and the kids did), work on rock-skipping skills, and look for Petosky fossil stones.

The stone on the upper right is a classic Petosky fossil that a nice lady on the beach gave us.  Tytan can explain about it.  He found the other two that match.

It was amazing how quickly Tytan assembled his Star Wars vehicle--he can also explain more about that.

Tytan and Grandpa assembled his cool tumbling robot!

We loved being with the Michigan Cooks!

Great job, Grandma!