Our trip so far...

First, I want to post some pictures of our girls. They were taken by grandma and grandpa while we've been away. The first one is of Ivy, when she and Grandpa went to see Disney On Ice. She was so excited and then had such a great time while they were there. I guess she kept telling Grandpa that evening at bedtime, "thank you so much for taking me, grandpa..." over and over. I am so glad she had a great time. Her favorite part of Disney on Ice was Tinkerbell. She has always loved Tinkerbell, so it made sense to us!

The next picture is of Genesis during a bath. Like I have said before, she likes to growl a lot and she often gets this look on her face when she is displeased with something. It is one of my favorite :) In this picture, she was probably being told not to turn on the hot water.

This one is of the girls together in the tub. We miss them so much. We also just got word from my mother in law that they are both sick with ear infections and coughs. Of course it would hit them both when we are away. At least we know that they are in good hands and being very well taken care of.

Onto our trip. It's been a very relaxing time so far, as it has rained every single day and been really foggy. Our drive up was uneventful, but beautiful as well because a lot of the leaves are still on the trees and the colors are amazing. We got to our hotel in Mackinac City at about 8pm and then went to an Irish Pub for supper. We spent the rest of the evening at the pool and hot tub- there was really no temperature difference between the two. The pool felt kind of gross :)

We slept in the next morning and missed breakfast, but it was so worth it. Then we caught Shepler's Ferry over to Mackinac Island and spent most of the afternoon over there. It was gorgeous... with the Victorian style homes and buildings, the quaint Bed & Breakfasts, the fudge shoppes, the Grand Hotel, etc. I did not take these pictures, but they kind of gives you a taste of what the island is like.It is a very unique island in that no motorized vehicles are allowed on the island. So visitors can either walk, ride bikes (that you can rent per hour or per day right after getting off of the ferry), or horse and buggy. You don't have to worry about getting hit when crossing to the other side of the street! There are about 500 people who live on the island year-round. They have a school of 70 students, a football team, ballroom dancing, and lead just about the same lives as we do... although, there is only one grocery store and everything else shuts down for the season around October 23rd every year. We were fortunate and caught their last day that they were open. When winter arrives, the ferry's continue to go back and forth to the island and Mackinac City, but when they can no longer run because of ice, an "ice bridge" is used by snowmobiles to go back and forth. The ice bridge is lined by Christmas trees, to tell the locals where exactly to go. There is also a private airport on the island, and locals can hop from the island to Mackinac City or St.Ignace by chartering the planes for $50.00 a person. It was fascinating to learn about.

We left Mackinac City the next day, and went up to St.Ignace, which is right over the bridge on the Upper Peninsula side. We were quite disappointed, however, because St.Ignace had also closed down the previous day. There were a couple of lone shops open, but nothing to look at, really. So we got in the car and headed up to Sault Saint Marie. The fog was pretty dense, and just kept getting more so the more Northern we went. We decided to pull into the Chamber of Commerce when we got into town to get some ideas of what to do while we were here... for two night and two days. Hmmmm, surprise surprise... it's also the end of season here, and everything has shut down. So we drove around for a while, and then checked into our very nice hotel that has a fire place and jacuzzi.  Luckily it was so nasty outside, we didn't really want to be out in that anyway, so we just snuggled down into our room and watched tv and read. We brought both our laptop and IPAD along so we could both be on the internet and watching whatever we want at the same time. Pretty nice. We ate at Applebees last night and then came back and swam until about 10pm. Then back to our room to sleep... and sleep we did, until 9:30 this morning! That is really sleeping in if you're used to being up with little kids, so we have been enjoying it very much.

We spent the morning down at the Soo Locks. Here is an explanation of the Locks, taken from wikipedia.com: The Soo Locks allow ships to travel between Lake Superior and the lower Great Lakes. The locks pass an average of 10,000 ships per year.^[4] This is achieved in spite of the locks being closed during the winter from January through March, when ice shuts down shipping on the Great Lakes. The winter closure period is used to inspect and maintain the locks. The locks bypass the rapids of the St. Marys River where the water falls 7 meters (21 feet) from Lake Superior. Sault Ste. Marie gives its name to both the Canadian and U.S. cities at the site, in Ontario and Michigan, respectively. The Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge between the United States and Canada permits vehicular traffic to pass over the locks.

We got to see two huge barges go through the Locks and it was an amazing experience. Here is a picture of Soo Locks, again, not taken by me.

And now we are back in the room, relaxing again. Tonight we will eat at a Chinese buffet down the road and then probably go swimming again. We leave in the morning to go back down south over the bridge to Charlevoix/Petoskey area. There will be a lot to do down there, so now that we have relaxed and caught up on some sleep, we can have some real fun! :)

 Have a super Tuesday everyone.

Here is a recipe for 7 Layer Salad. I am in the mood for some right now, but of course can't make any since I am not home. My MIL introduced me to this salad a few weeks ago... I had never heard of it before, but I fell madly in love with it.

• 1 pound bacon
• 1 large head iceberg lettuce - rinsed, dried, and chopped
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 1 (10 ounce) package frozen green peas, thawed
• 10 ounces shredded Cheddar cheese
• 1 cup chopped cauliflower
• 1 1/4 cups mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 2/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Crumble and set aside.
2. In a large flat bowl, place the chopped lettuce and top with a layer of onion, peas, shredded cheese, cauliflower and bacon.
3. Prepare the dressing by whisking together the mayonnaise, sugar and Parmesan cheese. Drizzle over salad and refrigerate until chilled.