Travel back in time...

Imagine if you will, being back in 1850 traveling on a canal boat in Ohio.... We visited the canal boat today in Grand Rapids. We have seen the Volunteer many times running on the towpath trail (well, Alan has seen it many more times than I have!).

The tour was a 45 minute ride in which people in period costumes explained what life was like back in 1850. Imagine ripping down the canal at a whopping 4 miles an hour to Cincinnati (in a mere 6 days!). It was quite interesting and the fall weather was beautiful. When we got to the locks (the only operational historic lock in Ohio), we had to be pulled by the boat employees.

We also learned what a Mule was (not a donkey!) The mules pulled us along the canal.

Imagine me forgetting to grab our hoodies for the ride though! Good thing I had a blanket in my car to keep us warm. Well, it was warm at our house when we left, who would have thought it was going to be so cool. Looks like Zack was not so thrilled that I forgot his coat. oops!

After our boat ride we took a tour of the mill. 

Camping at Pokagon

It's definately fall around here again, and that means weekend camping trips!  Now that we don't have soccer interrupting our weekends, I'm hoping we'll take a few more trips.  For this trip we went to Pokagon state park in Indiana.  We camped in our favorite campsite... the one with the big rock!

 The kids also love the nature center at the park.  We went on our first nature walk with a guide.  We learned a lot - most especially how to correctly identify posion ivy!  We got a new saying "hairy scary".  good to know :)

 Zachary made a milestone lately - he can now conquer the monkey bars!!  That is very exciting (but also sad because he's not so much a little boy nowadays).  He did a great job, made it to one side and back again.

 We also went on a hayride around the campground.

 We all had fun - until the driver scolded everyone for causing straw to fall out of the wagon.  Geez, what a crank!

 Even though Sydney was really hoping to find many caterpillars, we only found one wooly bear.  We brought it home, but it's not looking so good.  We did find a little frog that was really cute too.  Thank god the kids let him go.

 The kids stayed up really late riding their bikes around.  Well, at least 9pm seemed pretty late since it was so dark out (and chilly!).

 Nighttime is also time for s'mores.  Yum yum yum!  My favorite :)  The kids even had theirs the "right" way this time, with toasted marshmallows.  They liked them, but they still like eating all of the parts separate.

The kids did stay up until 10:30 both nights, so that was late for them.  But with the heater cranked in the camper, we all sleep in pretty late, so I don't mind too much.

 Sunday morning we went down to the beach.  We were surprised to see 4 beautiful swans swimming in the lake.  When we first saw them we thought they were fake!

 The beach was empty - but still a fun place to explore.

 They begged Daddy for a super push on the swings.  Hang on tight kids!!

 This is a pretty cool picture because Sydney took it.  I don't know if she purposely tried to get me off center or not, but I think so.  I think some of my random mumblings about shooting pictures has rubbed off on her!!

 A beautiful day at the Inn as well.  Some day we will stay at the Inn for the weekend, to see how the "other half" lives :)