Michigan I and II

Pictures get bigger when you click.

 

Last summer Laura and I went up to Michigan to hang out at my parents' cottage and see the new addition that had been applied to the lovable old place.  For those of you who don't know, a while back my Dad added a deck onto the side of the house that is about 100 foot long and hold lots of his sculpture.  He teaches classes on the "Art Deck" and also has openings and shows.    

 

The cottage is a few blocks from Portage Lake, a few minutes from Lake Michigan, and seconds from the forest.  It's a pretty damn cool place to hang out for a week.

 

On the way there Laura was lots of fun.

She never wears matching socks

The world famous Art Deck -- at night.

More Art Deck and cute girl

Yet more Art Deck (there's a panorama later)

Me on the Art Deck

It was my birthday while we were there.

So Laura bought me a pińata

And it was filled with toys!

The circus came to town -- all the high-wire folks were in the same family of mexicans

Elephants doing tricks

            

Here's more death-defying action from south of the border.

Laura scares away some birds

This is at sleeping bear dunes

Just about to rain with Me, Mom, and Laura

Gotta see a sunset while in MI

Guess who drew this?

Me, Laura, Mom, and Dad watching the sunset.

Something the matter?

Mom in the new kitchen -- the new addition is really nice

She's cute!

I don't wanna climb another dune...

At the Ramsdel theater which is beautiful

Great fire curtin

Lots of walks when in MI

These are tiny paintings done by my cousin's wife, Sherri.

More Ramsdel.  It's too bad they put on such lousy plays -- we saw "Little Abner."  Ugh.

What did I do to deserve this look?

 

We had so much fun, that we decided to do it again this year.  

 

And now, a special guest commentary on the pictures by Laura Force... 

 

Tie-dyed Laura in front of the cottage

Super Baby—Laura pretending to be a Super Hero with her towel cape

Where the sidewalk ends

We are family---IMMEDIATELY following an electric game of BOTTICELLI- Jake chose Cyndi Lauper—Laura wins!

Oooooooo----kissing in front of the casino where Laura got spooked—ewww~

“What a man, what a man, what a mighty GOOD MAN”—Salt ‘n Peppa?!

 Laura failing miserably at tennis, whining abounded-- emanating from her being…

I bet you’ve never seen this before!!!!  Jake’s dad is so cool that he let his intern and company paint the white flourishes on --- by the way, she used to be a bright form of aqua!  Innovative—I LOVE IT!

 

Loonies

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!  DooooOOOOn’t Jake!!!  And,  Laura couldn’t keep her binkit ORRR a sleeping bag on top of her bed—it kept falling off and she THOUGHT it might be JAKE pulling on it, but it was JUST HER!

AWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!  PEP!!! I CAN’T WAIT to give you the dog ice cream, FROSTY PAWS!

These kids are unearthly cute and just GOOD cuties---Laura wishes she could play with them all the time!!!

Eat-time near the lake that  is no more!

 The kitty “walking like an Egyptian”…at the Art Deck, by a wildly talented and colorful couple called the Barnards---Jamie the painter and his wife, the Wild Barnyard clothes/costume designer!!!!!

Wade in the water---in Michigan---splashy-pie--the kids wanted to take their clothes off but Jake and Laura said no.

The cutest baby of all the babies!

 

 

Here's the Art Deck Panorama that you've been waiting for all your life.  Warning -- sometimes Internet Explorer makes big pictures fit by shrinking them.  You can make it big again by holding the mouse over the picture for a few seconds the clicking on the image expand button in the lower right corner.  You're welcome.

 

While in Michigan I found an Atari 2600 on sale in a thrift store for only $12.

Remember this box?

And the back -- it comes with Combat!

 

 

Laura refused to do the comments on the video games.

 

Not much narrative in this page, mostly because the pictures tell a pretty good story.  But also because I'm lazy.