Its been a whirlwind around here..

As I mentioned as soon as we closed on the boat we were told it needed a new home as they planned to have the dock rented for the 4th of July weekend.  After some begging they let us stay a few more days if we moved it to a less desirable spot.  Once we got it parked, Max and I headed home to cook for 87 hungry sailors that night.  When we signed Max up for the Jr sailing team we were told that we had to plan and cook dinner for the racers when they come back from the weekly Wednesday night races as part of the fund raising for the team so with almost no help in planning or cooking from the club we found a few basic meal calculators online and bought the stuff to serve taco's, beans, salad, and cupcakes.  Lucky our two exchange students were still with us and everyone got to participate in the process!  Dinner went well and we ended up raising over $300 for the sailing team that night.

The next morning Max had to make a quick trip to practice with his goat that he bought almost two years ago to show at the county fair as part of 4H but still had not yet shown due to COVID.  This process usually involves cleaning up after the goats a bit and then putting a leash on Shadow (his goat) and practicing walking around a bit.  Showing in Pack is sort of like a dog agility contest where the animal and the person have to learn the course and be able to work together.  Its an interesting idea for a farm animal that I'm sure would much prefer to be out grazing in the field rather then running obstacles with a 13yr old boy.  None the less the goat seems to put up with it and seems to really like treats which helps quite a bit!

About lunch time we were headed to Mackinac Island in an attempt to get one more trip in with the girls before they would head home the next week.  We decided to make it a quick trip.  We drove up that day to a near by camp ground where we would spend the night then head to the island the next day to take in all the tourist things before heading home the next day.  Once we got to the camp ground we got the girls tent set up with no problems but it seemed when our kids had used the tent last fall for a school camping trip they had managed to knock the tent over broke at least 3 of the poles then didn't bother to tell anyone and just packed it back up.  Needless to say the tent Amy, Max, and I were saying in was a bit janky now and was barely wanting to stand up.  With the help of our neighbors and their tape and some interesting lashings we got it stood up with the rain fly sort of on it.  It was a pretty night and we all enjoyed some time on the beach and walking around the camp grounds a bit that night.

The next day was fantastic.  We got up and caught the 930 ferry over to the island.  I think Amy and the girls sampled fudge at every single shop on the strip :).  We rented bikes and did the 8 mile ride around the island.  Treked our way up to pictured rock?  Not sure if that's the right name but there were a lot of steps involved which really reminded me how out of shape I was.  The girls took the horse and carriage ride to get this historical tour while Amy, Max and I hike up the hill to the fort to check out the changes to the Scout cabin up there and check out skull cave which Max had high hopes for.  Unfortunately Skull cave was nothing like Max imagined from the Goonies and he soon lost interest in exploring the other cool sounding locations at the top of the hill there.  After lunch and a bit more exploring we headed back to the mainland where the girls did some shopping before heading back to our campsite.  Unfortunately for us with the janky tent it rained that night.  When I say rained it really rained a lot to the point I was not sure the rain fly was really even there.  The three of us got soaked, attempted moving to the truck where some sleep happened but not very much before Amy gave up and went back to the wet tent and sleeping bag in a effort to stretch out a bit more.  I'm not sure any of us got much sleep that night.  But the girls seemed to weather it well and stayed dry and warm.  From there we headed in to a big breakfast at the local buffet place.  It was fantastic and I probably ate for at least 3 people.  After that it was time to head home.  

On our way home Amy and I talked and decided if we drove back up to the boat the next day maybe we could move it to Toledo Beach where they said they had room for us for a few days before leaving to join our cruising club on the summer cruise.  But of course the 4th of July was coming up and we needed to find some fireworks for the girls to take in first!