Tonight feels almost like the end of summer. I feel like things should start getting back to normal after a crazy busy summer pretty soon after today. We're going to start getting the kids back onto a more normal schedule following a long time of staying up late and sleeping late (although the sleeping late part has been pretty nice). We did our vacation this past week, leaving late Monday morning and pulling the camper up to Holland State Park in Michigan. We got there in the afternoon and headed right for the beach after setting up camp. We had a site on the Pines side of Lake Macatawa Pines campground, which was nice and quiet. Lake Michigan is just like I remember it. The water is clear, the swimming is great, the lake bottom is sand. Around here, the lakes are mostly muck. Sand is much nicer. And sand that was made by glaciers, not industrial rock crushers. We swam at the beach for a couple hours and headed back to camp for dinner, then realized we forgot to pack the grill, so we were pretty much out of luck. We went into town for dinner instead, then made it back to the lake in time to see the sunset. The night made us wish we had A/C on the camper, or at least a dehumidifier, because it was sticky wet. By Tuesday, we had decided that we needed to spend at least another day at the Park, so we arranged to get a new site, but we would have to move. Anyway, we spent pretty much all day at Lake Michigan and it was an absolutely gorgeous day (I burned my back and shoulders right through the SPF 45 I was wearing) perfect for swimming and building sand castles. We had dinner at the campsite and spent another wet night. Wednesday morning we packed up the camper and got ready to move to the other side of the park, but while we were getting the last of the camper buttoned up, Alex managed to lock the keys in the truck so we spent the next hour or so waiting for roadside assistance to come get the doors open. They did, and we moved across the campground and set up again before heading to the beach. It had been a bit rainy and windy Wednesday, so there were some good waves at the Lake, maybe around 2 or 3 feet high. We swam during a rain shower and jumped waves for a few hours, then got lunch and went out to the Ottawa County Fair. The kids had been pretty upset about missing the fair at home, so we thought it pretty fortuitous that there was a fair just a bit down the road from the State Park. But boy, you can sure burn through money at a fair. We got wristbands for the kids at $20 each, and bought 4 tickets each for Beth and me ($1 each) to ride the ferris wheels with the kids. Alex had wanted just to ride the double ferris wheel, so we did, and he spent the entire ride clinging to my arm and wanting to get off. The regular ferris wheel was much nicer, from what I heard from Beth and Missy. Alex and Missy also both wanted to ride the tilt-a-whirl, but about 10 seconds into the ride they both wanted off. They were riding that one without us. I was just about to yell at the operator to stop it already when he finally did; the ride had seemed to go on and on. $5 for lemonade, $3 for cotton candy, $3 for a turn on the rock climbing wall (for me - made it to the top) and we decided to not eat dinner at the fair after all as we had planned. We left right after the tilt-a-whirl because both kids were feeling awful after that ride. Then back to camp. We packed up and headed home Thursday morning.