Swimming at Clearwater.

After a less-than exciting day at the Renaissance Festival, it is nice to return to camp and get cooled down in the lake.

 Meeka found all sorts of snail shells on the beach.

 We enjoyed the paddle boats, which were FREE.  

Oh, we love free.

 The girls jumped overboard and swam back, and left Nevan to paddle the two person paddle boat alone.  He didn't seem to mind.

 Poor, poor Archer.

 Afterward, everybody went home to quick showers and a warm dinner, complete with bottled-in-Michigan special pop.  It was really good, and I don't even like soda!

Ice Cream at Grandma's Parlour at Oak Haven Farms.

Going to the Renaissance Festival wasn't a total loss, because we found Oak Haven Farms on our way home!

We thought it was just an ice cream parlour, but when we were inside, they told us to go on back and meet the animals.  Apparently, with the purchase of ice cream, visiting the petting zoo and mazes is free!

 Meeka, very serious below, suddenly developed an allergy to having her photo taken and was having a reaction in the form of grumpiness bordering on hysteria, but I managed to get this shot to show Dad how big she's growing.

Michigan Renaissance Festival

We attend the Renaissance Festival in Arizona every year.  When we discovered that we were near the one here in Michigan, and knowing we would miss the AZ one this year, we decided to go.

The first highlight was the spider building a home on Nevan's finger.

 The second higlight was the live mermaid, which they don't have back home.

 And the rest was... not so incredible.  Certainly the environment felt much more appropriate for a Ren Faire, but they had far less to do, and far less family-friendly entertainment than what we are accustomed to.  Bleh. We were done after about 30 minutes, and wandered around for another hour or so before giving up and going home.

 Even the bungee trampoline was half the size of the one at home.  But still fun, no doubt.

 Mayzie got a little archery in.  Her favorite.

Then, just when we'd given up on there being any entertainment that was clean enough for families, we found Zoltan the Adequate, whose show was moderately clean, and just adequate.