We returned to Mackinac Island last week, a two-day excursion we look forward to all year long. Retreating from the headline-heavy world feels really good right now, and the island felt especially welcoming this year. You have to get there by ferry and, as Dash says, there are “bikes and boats and horses–NO CARS.” We usually board the ferry from Mackinac City, but this year we drove over the bridge to take the ferry from St. Ignace so the kids would get the bridge experience.

Bonus–far shorter lines for the ferry. Isaac, Dash’s brontosaurus, was most enthusiastic about his windshield view.

One of my favorite things about returning to the same places every summer is the kids’ familiarity and sense of ownership. Nella off that ferry? She was all “this is MY  island.” Knew every turn and where to go. And by where to go, I mean the fudge shop, of course.

I’ve written a Mackinac post now four years in a row, so I won’t bore longtime readers with the same story. Also, I’m in the back seat of  a car typing this on our way to Sleeping Bear Dunes, using my hotspot WiFi, and Ella Enchanted is playing so loud, I can barely think. So moral of the story up front: We went to the same places, were smitten by the same views and laughed that the kids maintained  the same awe for the horses (which works greatly to our advantage when we’re enjoying a meal by a window and need Dash to settle down).

But pictures, I have a plenty.

If you’re a Midwesterner and haven’t been to the island yet, plan a trip, take your family. An American summer charmer, this little island is.

Dash’s romper from a little Michigan Etsy shop I love, The  Little Spoons

We stayed at the Island House again, the oldest hotel on the island. We love all the secret nooks and crannies.

Sunset at the only elementary school on the island–overlooks Lake Huron. It’s heaven, I tell you. Heaven.

Silver dollar pancakes at the Pancake House…every year.

Mission Point lawn is by far the place place to practice cartwheels and handstands in all the land.

And another visit to the public library. Have you ever seen a more charming library? Oh, I’m sorry. Pardon me while I take this stack of books out to the picnic table on the deck that overlooks a Great Lakes lighthouse.

Until next year…we love you Mackinac.

Greetings from Northern Michigan, Summer Friends!

We are knee-deep in Michigan summer adventures, and Heidi and her kids just arrived late last night which means our kids are completely high on life right now.  I do believe I heard the last giggle after midnight last night, but we’re good because it’s 9, and they’re still sleeping. I repeat, it’s 9:00, and I’m sipping coffee without a kid in sight! The summer gods deliver. But they haven’t given us a fish yet.

(FaceTiming Daddy)

So we have this big Camp Bliss day planned for when our little cousins all come up for a family weekend. And since, when I have 100 pressing things on my to-do list, I like to take something of little priority and make it my all, I have put a lot of time and thought into making this day special. Like real camp. You know, Arts & Crafts Lodge, flag raises, t-shirts, theme songs, the whole Parent Trap gig. In fact, after I packed up an already overloaded van to drive up here and had Brett carry one more giant bag of supplies to the trunk, he took one look at the jewelry engraving tool and bag of feathers sitting on the top and said, “Now, what could you possibly need these for?”

“Not a word!” I snapped. “Those are Camp Bliss supplies, quite possibly the most important bag in this car.”

On the craft line-up are a couple of fun and easy camp-ish crafts that are super easy to implement at home, and since it’s mid-July and Lord knows there are a good handful of moms out there clawing at the walls and praying to the summer gods for inspiration, here’s a little hint. Get a whistle. Put it around your neck, tell your kids you’re a camp counselor and proclaim one random summer morning Camp Day. Make them do things they’d normally do like run through sprinklers and play tag, but call them “camp activities,” and they won’t know the difference. Throw some glue and feathers and beads on the dining room table, call it the Arts & Crafts lodge and put on the Parent Trap soundtrack. Bam. You’re done.

Craft inspiration of you need some:

Leather Camp Necklaces 

Leather Necklace Cording
Leather Medallions (we got our pre-cut ones at Hobby Lobby, but if you have a bunch of kids, Michael’s sells a big bag of leather scraps that you can cut into whatever shape you want. Or, these wood medallions work great)
Paint Pens

Use the paint pens to decorate the leather charms, hot glue some feathers on the back, and there you have it.

Clay Camp Pens

When I was a camp counselor, our campers made these every year. All you need is some cheap pens–the kind where the ink insert can slide in and out (we used these) and Sculpey oven bake clay.

Pull the ink insert out and use the Sculpee clay to cover the pen shell.

Make sure you leave the original hole in the pen for the ink insert to slide back, and keep the thickness of the clay pretty thin so it bakes and hardens.

Bake the pens WITHOUT the ink insert for appropriate time (15 min. per 1/4 inch of clay. We baked ours for about 25 minutes).

Let cool, slide ink insert back and then give in to the urge to make 100 more for all your friends.

I hear kids stirring, and my coffee needs a refill.

Happy adventuring, campers!

The kids and I leave today for our epic annual road trip to Michigan where we’ll spend the rest of the summer. My niece is traveling with us, and after a whirlwind day of preparing yesterday, I proclaimed to everyone in the most shhhh-she’s-saying-something-really-important voice I could muster, “We leave the house at 8:00!” Brett poked my niece and laughed, “So, basically noon.”

In an effort to win this one, I’m whittling all the things I had planned on doing before leaving this morning down to only the most critical. So I’m repurposing a favorite blog post from last year–one that certainly stroked a lot of buried childhood memories for readers. Which–speaking of–can we stop here a moment and pay tribute to the buried past of Blockbuster Video? I was packing the relics we now refer to as DVDs to bring the other day and recalled the memory of hitting up a Blockbuster on a Friday night as a kid. And you know what? I miss it. There was something special about having to get off your butt and make the effort of driving to a video store to see a good movie. The anticipation that came from waiting. The sensory cocktail you experienced when you walked in–the candy, the popcorn, the “Coming Soon to DVD” promo video that played far above hearing specialist recommended volume from the giant TV hanging from the ceiling. All those new releases lined up in alphabetical order against the wall. We’d start at A and ever so slowly make our way around the perimeter of the store–giving extra time to the display in the middle where employees made their recommendations because we were curious to see what kind of movies “Mitch” liked (Ew, Candyman and Alien 3? You’re out, Mitch). Trying to convince my mom to rent Scent of a Woman, hoping she wouldn’t flip it over to find the rating (not a chance), and settling on The Mighty Ducks instead (whatever happened to Emilio Estevez?). Waiting in line with knots in my stomach knowing it was quite possible Mitch would scan Mighty Ducks, stare at his screen for a minute and then inform my mom that Wild Horses Can’t Be Broken was still checked out and there was currently a $23.62 fine. Yeah, Blockbuster, man. Totally miss it.

Crap. That paragraph just set my 8:00 leave time back.

With no further ado, the “Where Babies Come From” adventure from our road trip last year, originally posted July 1, 2015.

Where Babies Come From: Cabbage Patch What-the-Hell Magic
Setting: Helen, Georgia.

Our first stop in Georgia delivered gorgeous weather, a river tubing adventure and some picturesque landscape…

…but first, Babyland General Hospital, brought to you by the I Don’t Know What the Hell portion of the trip.

Somewhere in the mountains of Georgia on our way to Helen, a sign emerges: Babyland General Hospital THIS WAY. It has a Cabbage Patch Kid logo on it, so I did what any other 6-year-old-trapped-in-a-37-year-old’s-body would do. I held up traffic to pull a U-turn.

“We’re going to Babyland, kids. Let’s go see where Cabbage Patch Kids are born.”

“What’s a Cabbage Patch Kid?” Lainey asks. And wherever it is that dolls go to die, Glennis Willamina rolls over in her grave.

“Cabbage Patch Kids were the coolest dolls you could own when Mommy was little. I had one. Her name was Glennis Willamina.”

A side road directs us to a plot of land where we are greeted by giant stone statues of cabbages with baby heads coming out of them–don’t worry, this gets weirder–and an impressive plantation-style structure, the hospital.

And inside? Sweet Jesus. Let’s just say they aren’t kidding around with the whole hospital thing. Nurses wearing scrubs and stethoscopes roam the facility, encouraging you to listen for announcements of “a live birth” and letting you know that all the babies in the nursery are available for adoption. I pick up a doll from one of the many cribs and take a long whiff of its plastic head.

“Oh my God, it smells exactly how I remember.” Sweet baby powder and childhood magic. “This is so weird.”

What’s weirder is watching a live cabbage patch birth at the magic crystal tree where a whole crop of Cabbage Patch Kids are, um…photosynthesizing?

These heads? They move. Yes, move.

A Plus for Imagination, Xavier Roberts. In fact, I’m kind of disappointed Xavier Roberts didn’t marry Lisa Frank because can you imagine their babies? Too magical for this earth to handle, that’s for sure.

When a mother cabbage goes into labor, all are called to the tree to come cheer her on. That’s when my dad calls.

“Can’t talk. At the magic crystal tree. Cabbage is in labor. Head’s crowning. Gotta go.”

There’s an I.V. with green juice. And the nurse sterilizes the cabbage’s–er, “area” and checks to make sure the baby’s not feet first to rule out a “branch delivery.” And everyone has to yell “PUSH! PUSH!” while the nurse buries her arm down a cabbage for much longer than I was comfortable with and finally pulls out a head. Cue clapping. Cue baby’s first immunization of “imaginocilin.” Cue half the crowd tearing up from the magic of it all and half, like me, left in a cloud of WTF.

“That was the weirdest thing that I ever did see,” my friend Ragan says. I’m a little bit stunned. So I react appropriately.

“Kids, get in line. We’re adopting a baby.”

Was it special? Indeed. Should you go to Babyland General if you’re in Cleveland, Georgia? Hell, yes. If not just to see for yourself.

(Lainey, holding her right hand up and saying her adoption pledge before filling out paperwork)

The kids named their new baby Millie Jackie (Glennis Willamina rolls over again), and I have to admit, we’re all in love. “Mom, why do you keep smelling her head?”

She’s the real deal. Cute as a button.

And when we’re not sniffing Millie Jackie’s head, we’re enjoying summer from the Chattahoochee River…

It was Take Your Naked Barbie to Dinner night in Helen, Georgia this week.

Why can’t we just have normal experiences with dolls?

Moral of the Story: The 80’s are alive and well and reside in Cleveland, Georgia. Revisit with caution.

So here’s the real question…do you remember your Cabbage Patch’s name?