We had a great week at the lake!!
Bye Canada!
Lansing? Ann Arbor? State vs Wolverines?. This is so Vivien in the Fire Down Below... which is why mom couldn't resist taking this while Dad was driving.
5 hours later we finally made it to our cottage on the lake!
Papa and I are surveying for good measure.
First stop Meijer... got some bourbon by any chance?! Only in the USA
Mom was very excited about buying some Mrs. Butterworth's syrup that you can't get in Canada. She tried to convince me that if all of the adults left the room, Mrs. Butterworth would come to life and start talking to me.
After an exaggerated eye roll, I said "oh yeah, what would she say to me then?"
Uncle Kenny, without hesitation, said Mrs. B would say "Hey Kid, where do your parents stash the booze, smokes and cash around this place? And oh yeah, be sure to eat your pancakes too. My syrup is da bomb"
However, if you really want to know what Mrs. Butterworth says in the commercials, then click here
"silly" face pics on the deck of the cottage!
My Papa John is the man.
He always does an amazing job looking after all of us. And with the family in Michigan together and, of course, with a wedding to execute, he was in super Papa mode!
But, regardless of how busy he is, he always makes time for cuddles with me.
And because it was a busy week, with lots to get done, Papa John didn’t have enough time to enjoy the dock and the water, but we were able to squeeze in a few precious sessions together
This pic mom took. She loves it.
One our favourite days on the lake was what we called ‘The Refugee Trip to the Sandbar’.
Papa John and Grandma collected everyone separately on their little boat and drove us all (slowly) to the sandbar on Lake Chemung.
A gorgeous sunny Saturday, lawn chairs in water, random floaties, bags full of chips and cookies, a football, a beachball and an endless supply of liquor. Add in 11 Millson refugees and you have the recipe for one heck of an afternoon.
As you can see.
The only thing mom was missing was a Fox News bikini :) (sorry, inside joke). Dad already put it on the Christmas list for this year though
Eventually the adults reluctantly agreed that the children should probably have more than just juice boxes and chips for sustenance so we sadly left the sandbar to return to our cottage for an evening BBQ (and MORE drinks).
But how do you get 11 people on a 2-man boat? The Millsons have it all under control, no worries.
We MacGyver’ed the little boat to pull floaties (and thus family members on the floaties) behind it. We might have lost Uncle Brad a couple times, but Parker was able to retrieve his dad. Good job Parker!
Crossing Lake Chemung may be a little shorter than the 75 miles from Cuba to Miami, but it certainly felt like the same distance and a similar type of journey. In fact, upon arriving at our destination, I half expected to see Tony Montana at the detention centre shouting “I am a political refugee and I want my – insert expletive word here - human rights, now! Just like the President Jimmy Carter says!”
After our journey the adults did manage to feed the children (meat of some kind) and let us play until 10:30pm on Papa John’s boat. While they enjoyed drinks on the deck and told old stories.
No visit to lake Chemung is complete without some golf at Faulkwood Shores Golf Course.
Because the kids were not able to golf as part of the wedding festivities being held later on in the week, I convinced everyone that I needed a special round just for me… you know, spend some quality time hitting the links with my Aunt Erica and Uncle Kenny (I was kind enough to invite mom and dad too)
Uncle Kenny took my word for it that I could operate a golf cart independently (well, better than my mom could anyway). That was good enough for him and I chauffeured my aunt and uncle around the course. I also managed to hit my own ball for a full 9 holes, even out of the sand. Faulkwood PGA, here I come!
One of the many perks of golf is that my mom always packs a plethora of snacks! However, we didn’t consume just any snacks that day, we got Scooby Snacks!!
“Zoinks! Like, Scoob eating scooby snacks while golfing is so much better than being chased by monsters”
“Right Raggy!”
This summer I got introduced to a glorious game called bocce ball. Brilliant game, really. Dad and I paired up as a team and played a round robin tournament against Team Erica/Kenny and Team Mom/Grandma.
Mom and Grandma got totally smoked, and Aunt Erica put up a good fight, but we were ultimately victorious in the end!
Mom loves her Presidente Margaritas at Chili’s so Papa John treated all of us to a fantastic dinner! Mom also loves her cottage traditions… and this dinner at Chili’s is certainly one of them!
We also tried our best to take advantage of own personally designed activities at our cottage…. Such as baseball practice, lounging on the dock with a cocktail, leading US troops to army man victory on the living room floor and Dad grew a beard. All exciting stuff.
But the time came when we all needed to get ready for the impending wedding activities… so we kicked our arts and crafts skills into high gear!
And before we knew it the day of the rehearsal dinner had arrived! The festivities included a round of golf and a BBQ afterwards (and some organizing / rehearsing happened too of course)
On the day of the wedding Dad cooked a glorious breakfast for us.
And I was able to get in some “Battlefield Chemung” with Grant.
All of the wedding pics we took are in the next post below. I think Mom’s friend Joanna said it best when she looked at the photos and said “I LOVED Erica’s wedding colours. So beautiful, fresh and fun – just like her!”
Good times at the cottage! Already looking forward to our visit next year!
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