4th of July in South Haven

As much as we loved our family vacation to Holiday World last year, we decided to take a longer (but less expensive) vacation this year by staying at my parents' cottage in South Haven, MI. We've been to South Haven with Reese a few times before (when he was about 3-months old and last year with Lindsay's family), but it had been a while since the three of us had the opportunity to get away to one of our favorite vacation spots.

On the plus side, the week we were there (over the 4th of July), it was over 100° in Indy 5 of the 8 days we were gone. However, it was still in the mid-90s in South Haven the entire time we were there - don't worry, the day after we left, it was only 78°! - so we spent lots of time at the beach, in the pool or in the air conditioning.

Lindsay had spent the weekend with a couple of friends at the cottage and Reese and I joined her a couple days later. Here we are jumping right in to the water the day Reese and I got there:

The next day, we went out to pick blueberries. I picked about 5 pounds for a Blueberry Wheat Beer (which is now fermenting in the basement) and Lindsay picked some for us to eat during the week. Reese, however, decided it was appropriate to just pick and eat ALL the blueberries. He probably put a grand total of 30 blueberries into our buckets, the rest went right into his mouth :)

One of Reese's favorite things was getting out on the water. We took a few dinghy rides down the Black River. Notice his awesome sunglasses:

Here are Lindsay and Reese getting ready to go under the bridge to the South Haven harbor:

My parents came up a few days later and we had a great time with them. Again, Reese just wanted to get out on the water, so the five of us when out for a dinghy ride:

We went to the farmers market on the 4th and Reese loved helping out by pushing the stroller around:

Reese really enjoyed getting to see all the different kinds of food at the farmers market:

This is one of my favorite views from downtown South Haven:

After the farmers market we stayed downtown for the South Haven 4th of July Parade. It was a great small-town parade featuring tons of local politicians and probably every fire truck and police car within a 25 mile radius. Reese had a great time waving his flag and trying to catch candy:

Cici came out to the farmers market and parade with us and 

We went out on Lake Michigan one day and it was pretty bumpy. Lindsay and Cici didn't love how choppy the water was, but Reese loved every minute of it. All this from a kid who wouldn't even step foot on a boat last summer:

No fishing for us on this trip but it was still nice to get out on the lake:

Heading back into the harbor:

Reese loved helping Bo drive the boat down the river to the dock:

Reese had been blowing bubbles in the water and Bo decided to show him up, so he shoved his entire face into the water and blew bubbles. Reese thought this was the funniest thing ever!

There were pretty decent-sized waves on a few of the days, so we went "body-surfing" a few times and Reese really enjoyed it:

Reese, Cici and Lindsay had a great time putting together a puzzle while we were there:

Reese also had fun making jello jigglers with the Michigan-shaped cookie cutters Cici picked up in Saugatuck:

Uncle Taylor even came by to celebrate his birthday, but Reese just wanted to hang out and text on Taylor's phone:

We had a great week-long vacation and we'll definitely head back up there again.