Boyne Falls

Last month we took my parents to Gatlinburg, TN and then this past weekend we took Stephen's parents to Boyne Falls in Michigan. Since we were so close to Mackinaw City, and because it is Stephen's mom's favorite place to go, we decided to drive up the extra hour to spend the day there, and Stephen's sisters joined us as well. It brought back a lot of great memories for me, because growing up my extended family went EVERY year for the Labor Day Bridge Walk, and I hadn't been back at all since 1998. I miss it!

Here are some pictures from our time with Stephen's family...

The bridge...and the lighthouse



Titus and Damaris on the cannon and Ft. Michilimackinac...which unfortunately was closed along with a lot of the town - this of course was very disappointing to Stephen who is a huge History nut, and had not been back to Mackinaw since 1998 either.


Family picture...and the Fort itself.


Driving over the bridge (yes, we packed 8 of us in our 7 passenger van :) )


Titus being silly...


Valerie


Stephen's mom


Stephen's dad


Bethany


The lighthouse across the bridge and in St. Ignace...the picture on the right is actually where they used to bring huge freighters carrying over 25 train cars from the lower peninsula to the upper peninsula for shipment. It of course doesn't work now, but it is pretty cool to see!


Looking at the bridge from St. Ignas...and from Mackinaw City

Then we headed back to Boyne Falls to the place where we were staying, which is actually a ski resort for Boyne Mountain. The weather was so nice, so it was strange to see snow on the mountain! And then Stephen got a crazy idea to climb up Boyne Mountain...which from the picture didn't look so bad - but it was a lot of work to climb it! We had to stop at almost every ski lift post and take a break when we got up toward the top :)

Stephen at the bottom...half way up


We made it!


Stephen and I


Looking down at where we stayed...


The surrounding countryside


More scenery...it was just too pretty at the top of the mountain!


Damaris had fun playing in the dirt while we were gone ;)


Back down...safe and sound :)


Of course the kids needed baths after playing in the dirt...and what better place than in a big jacuzzi, right? :)


On the way home...Damaris being silly and putting an animal cracker in her hair :)

The weather was great and we had a wonderful time!! We hope to all get up to Mackinaw City together again sometime this summer, and hopefully get over to Mackinaw Island. I know Titus would love riding the ferry over there!

More pictures to come for Damaris's birthday...soon...I hope.