Becoming a Bradley: Mackinac Island

I feel like our family can own up to the title "Michiganders" now. We have been living in Michigan for almost 2 months, but nothing felt official until this past week.

We drove 2 1/2 hours north to the great land of Mackinac.

Kyle was our fearless leader in the "white car." This distinction between my "white car" and Kyle's "black car" was made a few months ago. Avery would only go to the car if we said "go to the white car" or "find the black car."

The trip started getting a bit long (and hot on Avery's side of the car. Notice the green blanket shielding her from the sun's rays?) so I got moved to sit between the car seats and entertain the kiddos.

And really, what's more entertaining than taking selfies? :)

We stopped for lunch in Mackinaw City (the northern most city in the lower peninsula) and shopped around some touristy stores.

And took touristy pictures. Sidenote: doesn't Kyle look like such a Dad in this picture? Something about the sunglasses, the polo (which even has a Dad pocket on the chest that he used!), and him wanting a picture of his arm getting gnawed off...I think parenting is getting integrated into our very makeup now.

We then headed over to this cool lighthouse, where we declined the fee needed to tour the inside, and snapped a few pictures from the outside.

It was a gorgeously hot day, resulting in some incredible photo ops.

I settled myself on a picnic table to unabashedly nurse my son (yes, I've turned into one of those moms. I used to be terrified of nursing in public but I guess after doing it for 2 years straight the novelty has worn off) while Avery fell in love with seagulls.

Or, to be more accurate, fell in love with chasing them.

Her running form has really improved,

although we still capture plenty of goofy-runner's-arm picutres. :)

And doesn't Avery look Maggie Gyllenhaal-esque here?

Anyways, she was beside herself excited about being on the coast of Lake Huron.

Or at least I think it was Lake Huron...

it's kind of hard to know where the dividing line between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are.

But since we were on the east side of Mackinac Bridge our family decided it was Lake Huron.

And once we had that decided, we had no other choice but strip off Avery's shorts and let her take on Huron's waves.

And take them on, she did.

Until she got a mouthful... :)

Sawyer dipped his toes in,

I got my summer spattering of freckles,

and Kyle got tanner by the minute.

Basically, we were just a cute family,

doing cute things (like matching,)

on a cute beach.

The water was really shallow and super rocky.

Which Avery thoroughly enjoyed.

She sat in that water and tossing rocks for 45 minutes straight.

Which resulted in the most waterlogged diaper I have ever seen...

That's about when we decided to call the beach quits and drive across the famous Mackinac Bridge.

It was opened November 1, 1957 and is nicknamed "The Mighty Mac."

The main towers are 552 feet tall.

A total of 4,851,700 steel rivets were used in its construction.

There are 12,580 wires in each of these cables, making the length of the wires throughout the bridge 42,000 miles long.

The width of the bridge is 68 feet and total length is 5 miles.

It weighs 1,024,500 tons and cost $99.8 million to build.

And it is what we used to cross over into the Upper Peninsula that day.

We checked into our hotel in St. Ignace,

and immediately hit up the beach that our room opened up to.

There were still rocks on this beach, but at least there was sand as well.

And anywhere there is sand, there is sure to be happiness.

After our day full of beaches we rinsed the kiddos off in the sink and got ready to call it a night.

"Why did you rinse them off in the sink and not in the tub," you might ask.

We didn't want to get Sawyer's bed wet! :) We still need to keep Sawyer and Avery separate at night (something about Sawyer still waking up to nurse and Avery singing loudly for at least an hour in her crib before she falls asleep) and our pack n' play didn't fit in the bathroom.

We then put Avery's crib on the other side of the room and put an ironing board on top of the extra bed.

We draped a blanket over it, which provided Avery her own separate area to wind down in. (Plus she couldn't see Kyle and I still awake in our bed watching Men in Black 3 with headphones on our laptop.)

Although it was pretty crazy sleeping arrangements, both kids slept GREAT. It made for very happy children and parents the next day!

This is the ferry we took to cross the lake to Mackinac Island!

The spray behind the ferry went out a good 50 feet from the boat.

It was an overcast day,

but we decided to test our luck and sit on the top of the ferry.

It didn't last long once the rain started...

We got a tour underneath Mackinac Bridge.

The water looked so different between the two days we were up there.

And 45 minutes later we were back on land.

The cool thing about Mackinac Island is that no motorized vehicles are allowed on the island. So your modes of transportation are horse and buggy,

your own two feet,

or bicycles.

So naturally, we decided that biking was a great option!

We rented a Burley trailer to put Avery and Sawyer in,

and two bikes for Kyle and I.

We even wore helmets for the first time of our lives to set a good example for our little ones.

We started biking the 8 mile loop around the island. It was beautiful!

2 miles in Sawyer needed to eat, so we pulled to the side of the road. Kyle and Avery ventured to the coastline and made a cairn.

I had no idea that these rock formations even had names, but apparently they do.

And they were everywhere!

Anyways, our weather began turning for the worse and Kyle and I were faced with the decision to turn around and return our equipment, or to embrace the elements...and we quickly chose to "make memories" and go for it.

And it was awesome! We were soaked to the bone, but our kids did incredible. We just pulled the flaps down over them and we didn't even hear a peep. After we finished the loop and opened up the trailer we saw Sawyer holding Avery's sandal in his mouth...so we aren't sure what went on in there, but apparently they were having fun.