With summer in its final countdown (don’t deny it, just embrace it), we wanted to share with all of you the whirlwind that was our summer. Turns out, it was a pretty busy time and — in order to fill you in properly — it’s going to take more than one post!

Part I:

The McKinney’s

We had a few rounds of guests, this summer — all of them very special and dear to us. Our first guests were my older brother (Benji), his new wife (Brandy), our oldest niece (Skylar), and Brandy’s daughter [our newest niece] (Lulu).

It was a lot of fun hosting them and — even though they weren’t able to stay with us for very long — we crammed it full of Michigan magic. There were lighthouses, movie houses, the cherry festival, hiking in the dunes, beaches and (of course) cherry picking!

We even had the chance to put our guests to work shelling peas from the garden and pitting all those cherries we picked!

We packed each day as full of fun and “pure Michigan” as we could. Perhaps that’s why it seemed as though their trip was over almost as soon as it had begun. I truly wish they could have stayed longer — especially since it was the first time Skylar has ever had the chance to visit her uncles and their little ten acre kingdom. Maybe we made enough memories to make up for all that lost time… and perhaps planted the seeds for their next visit.