Labor Day Fun & Back to School

I am a big fan of exploring Michigan (because it is huge and there are so many cool things to see) and I am also a big fan of lighthouses! So on Labor Day we drove 2 and half hours up north to Tawas State Park and saw this beauty of a lighthouse that was there:

This was the first lighthouse that we went to that was not right up on the shore. They had moved it because it had issues with sand building up around it so we took a short walk to the shore and I got this super fab pic of my kids there ;)

Penny had some fun picking up and throwing wet sand:

Then we ate some lunch (with no bees swarming, it was geat!), changed into our swimsuits and went to the beach at Tawas State Park. I feel like this was the prettiest beach we have been to in Michigan. The sand was clean, and perfect for making sandcastles and the water was clean and not all green and gross like a lot of beaches we have gone too. The temps were in the 70's that day so the water was WAY too cold for me but the rest of my family ignored the cold and had fun playing in the waves, even Miss Penny got in on the action!

When Penny wasn't in the water with her dad, she was hanging by me filling up buckets of sand. And after Steven got his fill of chasing waves, he built 2 sand mounds in separate locations and watched to see which one would last the longest.

I also had the boys write their names in the sand and I love how Steven's shadow photo bombed Ben's picture.

 After Ben had decided it was just too cold to be in the water, he built this amazing sand castle:

After Penny's second run in the water with her dad, she was soaking and freezing and she literally burrowed down into the warm sand. Lucy decided she wanted to join in on the fun so I got this funny picture of my girls all snuggled down in the sand. They literally had sand everywhere after this pic:

Our drive home was less than fabulous. We ended up stuck in frequent traffic with all the other traveler's who were coming home from being up North. It added a good hour onto our already pretty long drive. Thankfully we left the beach early enough that we didn't get home too late. I wish we could have stayed at the beautiful beach longer though, I would love to go back there!

 The Tuesday after Labor Day, my boys went back to school. This summer has been super hard and so I thought I would be feeling super relieved to have the boys back in school but oddly, I wasn't! I almost started to cry when the bell rang and Ben turned around and gave me 2 thumbs up and his heart melting smile. He did so much better this year with going to school, better than I did! Both the boys have been excited to go to school each day this week and I am glad that they are liking their new classes!

My poor girls are not involved in anything this year so they get to hold up the "1st Day of Nothing" sign. I am really wishing I had Lucy in something though. She has been super bored with the boys gone and this makes her whiny and hard to deal with. I am having a hard time with the idea that she still has 2 years before she goes to school. I am so hoping that somehow we can swing the cost of preschool next school year.

After dropping off the boys, me and the girls went and joined some church friends for a Back to School Breakfast at The Breakfast Club. I had eaten there once before and thought their food was amazing, but this time I was less impressed. At least my girls did fairly well until the food was gone and so were their manners. We quickly paid the bill and slipped out before any real meltdowns could happen. I swear going out with these girls is like going out with a ticking time bomb

On Thursday the dealership picked up our Traverse to check out the breaks (because they had made a funny sound before we bought it) and they left me with a red Chevy Impala. Well it took them forever to check out and fix the problem (which was a bit annoying) so I ended up picking up the boys from school in the small 5 seater Impala. My boys had NO problem determining that that was our car and getting in it, yet when I got my Traverse back the next day and picked them up from school, they took forever to get in the car because, and I quote, "it was too clean to be our car." Thank you dealership for washing our vehicle because apparently after 2 weeks of owning it, we had really mucked it up! **Also Steven insists that we should buy that Impala too. That kid has a major fetish for shiny new cars**

After school the other day, Steven chastised Ben for chasing girls at recess and also informed me that Ben has a girlfriend. Ben insists he doesn't and from the sounds of it he really doesn't, he just happens to have a girl that is a friend which in Steven's eyes just doesn't make sense.

And lastly after an errand where I literally had to buy ONE thing and Lucy threw a major fit BEFORE we could even get in the store, I started seriously hunting for some curbside pick up and discovered that Meijers will do all my grocery shopping for me for the small fee of $5. I AM SO IN. It's  a bit further than Walmart and sometimes pricier but it is so worth it because I just cannot seem to run errands without some sort of frustrating incident. I am hoping this helps make me just a little bit less crazy!