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It is Sunday night and the end of my week-long summer vacation. I always get so excited thinking about an entire week off that I can spend with Jess and Will and then it seems it’s gone in the blink of an eye. I always look forward to going on road trips, playing at the beach and in the water, and enjoying my time with my two favorite people. Well… we had a fantastic time together, though we never made it to the beach… more on that later.

In a nutshell, we went to the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes at Empire, Fishtown in Leland, an Art Festival in Suttons Bay, Petoskey for an outdoor recorder concert and Harbor Springs for a batch of Tom’s Mom’s Cookies, the Northwest Michigan Fair (twice), lots of Moomer’s ice cream, Friday Night Live here in Traverse City, and lots of playing together.

I will say that we tried going to the beach last weekend, but Will immediately announced in a stern tone that he had no intention of going to the beach. It actually went like this: “I not want go beach, Dad.” While we gave up that day, we gave it another go on Monday when we tried to pull a fast one: we were going on a “picnic” that was conveniently located at the beach. Unfortunately, as soon as we turned into the parking lot Will’s stern tone from the previous day gave way to a much more emphatic “I NOT WANT GO BEEEAAAACHHH!” So that was that. No beach for us this year.

Beach aside, it was an absolutely wonderful week in northern Michigan. Will loved running down the Sand Dunes (unfortunately for me, he didn’t want to touch the sand on the way up so I carried him on my back) and he was thrilled with the fair – riding horses, tractors, and a few different rides.

So now that Summer Vacation 2007 is complete, I am already counting the days to Spring Break 2008, which happens to be 230 days from tonight. And what a beach that has!