Labor Day Weekend

We spent Labor Day weekend up at the cabin. We had vacationed there in July, when it was cold and rainy. When we returned in September, it was bright and sunny and the water was 70 degrees! Weird!

Day 1:

Mark kept throwing a ball far into the bay for Lexi to chase, and then another ball near to the shore for Lucy, who doesn't like going into the water if she can't touch the bottom (she usually just jumps from rock to rock). Most of the time she did not feel that the ball was well-placed enough for her preferences, and would just stand on a rock, staring alternately between the ball and us, as if to say, "You'll have to do better than that."

...and she would do that until Lexi, having fetched her own ball out in the bay, swam back to snatch Lucy's ball, too. Of course, no water is deep enough to keep Lucy from besting Lexi.


O played with Grandma:

and read with Nana:


I took photos of pretty things. Surprised?



That night JB, Grandpa, Mark, Marty Feldhake and I went salmon fishing. Well, I did not fish; I was the staff photographer. No fish were injured in the making of this trip, much probably to PETA's pleasure, but our dismay.

Grandpa and Mark fished from Pooh Bear. The lake was smooth as glass!


JB and I took to the waters in Marty's boat.



Us girls also went shopping in Detour, where Olivia wowed the shoppers and shopkeeper with her love of jewelry. Marian would put a bracelet on Olivia's wrist and Olivia would hold out her arm to admire it. She's a girl through and through!

We also stopped at my favorite jeweler's: Dave's Up North. He seems to have erratic hours, so it was a treat to see him open. Oh, the treasures! There were 3 pendants that I loved, totaling $375. That's affordable, right? :)

All in all, it was a fun first day!

2.) The Magical Life Jacket

Before we left Grand Rapids for our U.P. vacation, Mark pulled the boy’s old baby life jacket out of the attic. It had “JB Hunt” written in black marker on it. Mark said that Austin used it too. But what he failed to mention was that it is magical.

On the day JB and I went to the Soo, Mark and Marian put the life jacket on Olivia and took her for a ride to Hessel on Grandpa’s boat, Pooh Bear. As soon as she got on the boat, Olivia was out like a light, and slept the entire one-hour ride.

The Sunday before we left JB, Austin, Lauren, Chris, O, and I rode Pooh Bear to Cedar Campus to catch the morning sermon. We didn’t have much time to get there, so when Uncle Austin took the helm we got a choppy 45-mile-an-hour ride to Cedar. As soon as we got into the boat, Olivia was lethargic. I mean, it was like she had taken a tranquilizer or something. No normal human could have slept a wink on that choppy, windy, cold ride, but it was as though the life jacket made Olivia oblivious to the elements. Her eyes sometimes fluttered a little, but she pretty much was out the whole time.

She didn’t cry or fuss at all about being jostled about on the boat. But then during the service JB noticed a bright orange substance on his shirt and Olivia’s. We think she got a little seasick and barfed a while after we had landed.

After church we boarded the boat again, and took a calmer trip back to the cabin. No sooner than I sat down with her, she was fast asleep. I thought that perhaps it was the hum of the engine, though she doesn’t quickly fall asleep in cars all the time. Not only did she sleep for the whole boat ride, but also as she was handed off the boat onto the dock, was walked through the marshy grasses to the car, rode the short distance in the car back to the cabin, and came inside and was laid on the living room floor. Fast asleep.

Those who know Olivia know that this is STRANGE behavior for her. She does not sleep. She especially does not asleep when she’s away from home and is surrounded by people. But apparently none can resist the drowsy power of the life jacket!

I lay her down on the floor, with the life jacket securely around her, and there she slept, with cabin activities going on all around her, for some time.

4.) Narnia

On Tuesday of our vacation a group of us took a hike to Narnia. Narnia is a magical place near Cedar Campus that makes you feel like you’ve stepped out of the wardrobe and into C.S. Lewis’ imagination. After a quiet and picturesque journey through the woods you find yourself walking in between massive moss-covered boulders and in and out of more trees. Keep walking and you’ll eventually come to the turquoise waters of Lake Huron. Narnia was discovered by Cedar Campus (perhaps even Grandma and Grandpa Hunt, though I’m not sure), on part of protected state lands next to its property. They have since received permission for their campers to enjoy the place, as long as no one wrecks anything.

I have always loved walking to Narnia (well, hiking in the woods IS one of my favorite things) and enjoyed taking Olivia to one of my favorite places.

I wish I had taken photos of the paths between the boulders. Another time…

They recently replaced the old Narnia lamp and sign with this. Tacky. I checked eBay for a better one. No dice. Someone may have to go to England and get a real one to bring back.

Austin jumping off of a boulder into the shallow bay. Very safe. Correction: very safe if you’re crazy like Austin.

A pair of swans visited us in a little inlet. The one in front was hissing at us a lot. Probably because three of us were pointing cameras at them and trying to get close. But still. We were there first! They just floated on up to us and then copped an attitude. Rude swans. But still pretty. Someone pointed out how perfectly clean their bodies are, but how their necks are dirty because they can’t reach them to clean them. Interesting.

9.) Lucille and the Beach

One of my favorite parts of going to the cabin is watching Lucy run the beach. The first time she went up she wowed Grandma by running and running and running in circles on the beach at a breakneck pace, repetitively. Grandma was unaware of Lucy's dedication to aimless carefree running and was quite entertained by it.

This year proved no different, but with the added bonus of her bff Lexi accompanying her. Over the course of the week the dogs had several different people throw tennis balls for them. Most memorable were the Schreimer girls and their cousin. They marveled at how high Lucy can jump and how fast she can run. (A random couple who were walking the beach also marveled at Lucy's abilities--apparently it's legal to walk the beachfront along the lake, even on private property, and these people were not shy about walking through our yard. The man said that I should enter Lucy in races.)

Typical Chewba beach routine:

• Run.
• Run.
• Run.
• Watch tennis ball get launched into water.
• Consider racing Lexi for it. (Only like going in cold water if there are enough rocks to hop in order to get to my destination.)
• Let Lexi chase ball while I bark at the human's feet.
• Jump up very high in attempt to steal human's other tennis ball.
• While Lexi swims back with her ball, watch other tennis ball fly down the beach, not in water.
• Tear up sand chasing ball and barking madly.
• If Lexi is out of water by then and chasing new ball, will easily outrun her.
• Bring ball back, shaking it in mouth in very fierce, vigorous fashion. I am to be feared!
  
• Listen to human tell me to drop it.
• Or, I mean, DON'T listen to human's command to drop it.
• Prance around with ball in mouth, wanting it to be thrown again.
• Realize it won't get thrown until I drop it.
• Concede.
• Watch tennis ball get launched into water...

U.P. top ten: 10. Soo Trip

JB and I have decided to do an "Upper Peninsula" top ten, counting down the 10 most exciting/memorable parts of our vacation at the family cabin on Lake Huron.

So our number 10 memory was our trip to "the big city." Read: Sault Ste Marie. No, there isn't a mall here. There isn't Starbucks or Jimmy John's. You won't find a big museum or art gallery. Or a hot music scene.

But they've got a Wal-Mart and TSC, which I bet is big city enough, if you ask any Yooper.

JB, I, Austin, and Lauren first hit up Karl's Cuisine, our favorite Soo restaurant. While we are partial to this man who catered our wedding and made our wedding cheesecakes, Karl really is a great chef. We met friends and fellow Spartan alumni Mike and Cassie Panik there for lunch. The last time I ate at Karl's, I had this amazing chef salad. I wanted it so badly yet again, but also wanted to branch out and try something new. So I got something new. And a side chef salad. Which really was more like a regular-sized salad. Plus a large piece of our wedding cake: turtle cheesecake. I ate all of it. Then we got a massive stromboli and two pasties to go. A trip to the U.P. really isn't complete without pasties, ya know.

After lunch we went to the super awesome Soo movie theatre, where they take American Express, but they don't take Visa. Who doesn't take Visa??? Hicktown movie theater. Who doesn't have a Chase ATM within a 50 mile radius? Hicktown Soo. (AND Hicktown Nashville, I learned. Definitely can't move to Tennessee now!)

We saw Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I enjoyed it.

While there, we saw giant movie posters advertising Tim Burton's latest adaptation: Alice in Wonderland. Has anyone else seen the scary Johnny Depp rendition of the Mad Hatter? It's even freakier in bigger-than-life movie poster size and you're minding your own business at the theater when BAM! there it is. This happened to me at a Grand Rapids theater. Celebration Cinema is lucky I didn't have a full bladder because they might have had a mess to clean up.

I love Alice in Wonderland and also Johnny Depp, but seriously, I don't like his Mad Hatter. CREEPERS. He looks sort of like Madonna here, if you ask me. However, the colorfulness of the other posters won me over, so I want to see it. Just not the part with Johnny Depp. Then again, I was fearful about watching Transformers, and ended up loving it. We'll find out March 2010 if I pee my pants in the theater or not.