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June 2022 - Lake Michigan

We started the month at Snowbird watching movies and swimming in the mountains.  We also swam at the Wilsons on Memorial Day.






We spent Father's Day driving 13 hours to Lincoln, Nebraska but we couldn't miss out on our annual DAD pictures.  These kids sure love their Dad and I'm so grateful he's my partner in crime.  


Alexa and Tyler had their last violin recital with their teacher, Brooklyn.  They are switching back to their old teacher now that she's home from her mission.  Their recital was western themed and they played one duet together, and then each played in two other group songs.  

Alexa planned her birthday party at the neighborhood park.  We did carnival games like 3-legged races, potato sack races, etc. and had a water balloon fight and BBQ lunch.  We made a lemon birthday cake and she decorated it all by herself.  The neighbor boys rode back from the party in the back of Kyle's truck.


She has been hanging out with Kalle any chance she gets.  

Kyle and all the kids went on a hike to a suspension bridge in Draper for Activity Days. 


We had an epic 2-week road trip to Michigan for our Sweeny Family Reunion.  We left on Father's Day at 6am, yay for Kyle!  We stopped in Lincoln the first night and then drove on to Minneapolis the second day.  We stopped at the Lego Store and rode roller coasters and a carousel at the Mall of America, and then met up for dinner with Kyle's friend, Justin.  








On Day 3 we drove to Wisconsin Dells to swim at the biggest water park in America--Noah's Ark--and then stayed in Madison that night.  

On Day 4 we met up with Maria and then killed some time eating kosher donuts, cheese curds from the Mouse House, and playing at the free Zoo in Madison.  Then we drove to the lake house in Michigan and cursed Chicago traffic on the way there.  











We spent a full week on Muskrat Lake in Bloomingdale, Michigan and it was absolutely wonderful.  The lake house had lots of water toys, indoor kids toys, ping pong, a barrel of video games, card games, puzzles, and was full of cousins and good food.  We played all day and stayed up late playing cards every night, especially Scum.  Tad and Liam also loved doing puzzles with Grandma.  It was so nice to be with the family, although we did really miss Adam and Karen.













We spent one day on Lake Michigan and rented a sail boat there.  The water was choppy and Brendan and I both lost our lunch, but it was still really fun.  I am always amazed at how huge Lake Michigan is.  We were hoping to take the ferry from Wisconsin across Lake Michigan but it would have cost $600 (!!) for the 2.5 hour ferry ride.  

On the way back we stopped in Chicago where we saw Sue the T-Rex, went out on a glass ledge 1300 feet in the air, checked out our reflections at the Bean, rode the Centennial Wheel, and introduced our kids to deep dish pizza and Chicago hot dogs (spoiler alert: they didn’t like either of them).  Tyler was incredibly scared of the Willis Tower, but Liam kept asking to go back after we left.  Tyler did love all of the revolving doors in Chicago, and Kyle was excited to visit the church from Dresden Files.  This was our kids' first time in a "really big city."





















It was a long drive with 5 kids (28 hours there and back, not including any stops!) but the kids did really, really well.  Even little Nathan was a great traveler.






June videos:


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