Sand Is Harder to Wash out of Curly Hair

We spent a week looking at this view:

My parents-in-law rented a house on a little lake in northern Michigan, and the back wall of the first floor was almost entirely windows.  We could look out on the water from the kitchen, the dining room, and the living room.  It was beautiful.

(Burt Lake, ten miles long and five miles across, is not really a small lake.  But the town I where I grew up is on the shore of a Great Lake, so regular lakes seem small.  Have I ever told you about the first time I saw an ocean from the shore?  I was unimpressed.  So what if you couldn't see the other side?  I could get that at home.  The Atlantic looks basically like Lake Huron, it just smells different.)

(Also it has tides.  But who needs tides?  Tides are just a recipe for debris, in my opinion.)

At any rate, Burt Lake was lovely.  A few feet below those rocks you can see in the photo, we had a small amount of sandy beach, so the kids could play.  And they did, enthusiastically.

Unfortunately, the weather was less than optimal for a water-centric vacation.  Most days were in the low 70s and quite windy.  We did not swim at all.

Ironically, the weather at home the day after we returned was in the 90s.

Fortunately, the not-swimming was not such a big deal to us.  Blaise doesn't swim, obviously, and Camilla will put her feet (and ONLY her feet, and woe to you if you suggest any more extensive submersion) in the water verrrrrrrrry gingerly if you coax her carefully.  But who needs that kind of trouble?

Anyway, she loved the dock.

One cool thing about the part of the lake where we stayed is that it has an enormous shallow area.  See in the picture up top, how the water is a light color until a couple millimeters below the horizon?  That entire area is only a few feet deep, sandy, and clear to the bottom. 

We made the kids wear life jackets on the dock.  But the funny thing was that if they'd fallen off, they would have been able to stand up in the water.  I went in with my swimsuit on one morning to retrieve a pink Croc (Bryan's, of course) that had fallen in the water and my suit didn't even get wet.

If you read Faith & Family, you know that I was blogging last week, but I couldn't do it from our rental house, which had no Internet access.  I wrote from the parking lot of a local Burger King, catching their wireless network under a pretty tree.  Definitely a first for me.

I'm accustomed to being able to check my Internet while I nurse the baby to sleep in the bedroom, and pretty much everywhere else I go.  It was disconcerting to grab my iPod and remember that there was no wireless.  Not a state of affairs I'd want to live with full time, but surprisingly peaceful in small doses.

Because my parents-in-law had rented the house, we told them we'd plan, buy, and cook the food for all the meals we ate while we were up there.  They normally eat out a lot while on vacation, and so did we before we had kids.  But eating at restaurants every night is not only prohibitively expensive now that we have car seats and tiny shoes to buy, it's way more of a pain when you've got a baby and a toddler to manage.

So cook we did.  And I've made a new resolution: from now on if I commit to prepare more than one meal at a house that is not my own, I am bringing my own knives.

Except for a Wusthof paring knife my dear sister bought me for a Christmas present a while back, I don't even have particularly nice knives.  But they are sharp, thanks to my father who sharpens them for me - with a stone and everything - on a regular basis. 

The knives at the rental house were not sharp.  And that is a HUGE understatement.  I was excited to find a Calphalon santoku in a drawer when we got there - I use my own cheaper santokus constantly - until I realized that the owners of this house (who live there themselves except for six weeks in the summer when they rent it out) must be using this knife for some other purpose than its intended one.  Perhaps for clubbing very small creatures (like spiders) to death?  As a club I could see how it could be useful.  As a cutting implement?  Not so much.

In fact, I think the most dangerous activity I engaged in the entire week was trying to cut up apples for a tart.  Because there was not a conventional knife in the place fit for cutting anything but butter, I had to use serrated knives.  It was not pretty.  Some rough language was (almost) involved.  Dangerous, I'm telling you.

And bear in mind, I rode on a boat without a life jacket at one point during the week.  But this was much, much more unsafe.

You know who rode on a boat with a life jacket?  Adorably so?

Bryan's parents have a small-ish motorboat and Camilla spent quite a bit of time on it.  I was shocked, because this is a girl who, when I dare to crack the car window more than a centimeter, screams, "Mama!  It's TOO BLOWY!"  So I imagined that boating would not be an activity she'd enjoy.  But I was wrong.

We didn't take the baby on the boat.  We'd brought a baby life jacket in case, but he balked so violently when we tried to put it on him that we figured he would be so distracted by the horror of buoyancy-wear that he'd be unable to enjoy the ride.  Anyway, I get seasick very very easily, so after I took one short trip out from the dock and back, I just stayed in with him.  We were both happier that way.

It was a good week.  We made s'mores and I only got a handful of mosquito bites the entire time.

Summer, we love you.

Comments

[Amy F]

Ah, vacation on the lake! Upper Midwesterners unite! Our family's cabin's lake is 5 miles long, which is decent for Northern Minnesota, but also not considered a big lake. My babies have hated life jackets too. This was the first year my kids enjoyed lake swimming (immediately after taking swimming lessons) -- they're 5 and 3. We bought knives for the cabin after going crazy a couple years ago. And my mom helped hunt down mixing bowls and other critical things that apparently other people can live a week without.

[Lindsay]

I have always loved water. I never saw the ocean until last year. I had seen lakes, but they always bothered me. I grew up a water baby, and then I was a swimmer for a very long time, but the sensation of getting my feet in water with sand and vegetation? It was highly uncomfortable. I always had to scrub my feet afterwards. I didn't like it. I can handle it better, but it still freaks me out.

I hated life jackets. I've never had to wear one. I could swim fully by about the age of 3 or 4. I still remember going to a birthday party and refusing to wear one. The birthday girl's mother was exasperated and annoyed; my mother had to promise her that I wouldn't drown and that I'd be fine. It was actually pretty amusing.

I love the curly hair, and I'm glad you all had a great time. :o)

[Jen]

Now I really want to go on that vacation! It looks wonderful.

[Laura]

Burt Lake! Fellow native Michigander here-- and I spent a couple of summers right nearby on Douglas Lake at the university field station during grad school. Love that part of MI. Not too far from the "real" lake either! :)

I especially like the gas station/ice cream/bait/hardware/grocery establishments up there. Where else can you buy worms with your ice cream cone? Gotta love "up north".

[Diane]

That seems like such a lovely way to spend vacation. I'm jealous of your sharp knives! My knives are terribly dull, but I'm so afraid to use something sharper (even though I know a sharper knife is technically safer.)

I love that last picture of Camilla and Bryan. She reminds me of a curly-haired Violet with those sleepy eyes.

[JEN]

I love Burt Lake. I grew up very close to there. Wireless internet is something of a new concept. But they are getting there. Glad you enjoyed your time off!

[Petroni]

Looks like you had a great time! I love the view from the house, and I love the photo of Camilla and Daniel on the dock.

I feel your pain about the knives. I tried to make chili at the condo we rented at Lake Tahoe in January, and there were NO decent knives. I was chopping onions and bell peppers for a double batch, which was no fun at all with the condo's horrible knives and glass cutting boards. (I hate those glass boards. I hate the sound the knives make against them.)

[Christiana]

Have you considered that Camilla doesn't like the road noise when you open the car window? I am very sensitive to the sound of road noise, myself and cannot stand having the windows down for more than a moment or so. I get awful headaches from it. Very strange, I know, but what can I say? So maybe it's not the wind that Camilla doesn't like? Especially if she likes being on the boat.

[Kate]

Camilla is a growing up to be a really lovely little girl. And look how big Blaise is already!

BTW, where do you find onesies in C's size? I have a long lean 23-month-old and thought we were at the end of the line with the Carter's 24-month size.

[Sarah @ This Heavenly Life]

That swing overlooking the lake looks like maybe the most perfect seat in the world. Sounds like you had a beautiful week :)

[Louise]

Your kids are getting so big and beautiful!!!