A new summer tradition

Right before we moved here two years ago, my brother-in-law took his family on a little family vacation to the dunes in Michigan where they stayed at a cute little campground called Silver Lake Resort and Campground. They enjoyed visiting the dunes and camping together and just exploring the cute little town filled with nothing but recreational vehicles to drive on the dunes. They couldn't wait to have us join them the next year with Mike's "fun truck", aka his rock crawler. 

So last year we did join them and made it a whole family affair, including their mom, their other brother, Mark, and even Juan came from Texas to join us. After playing around in Mike's truck, Matt came back on the hunt for his own "fun truck" to tinker around with over the next year. 

This year, the dates were limited, so we had a few less people, but that's okay because trying to pull a camper and a trailer with two trucks made things a bit more complicated. 

We stayed in an adorable little cabin, while Matt's family stayed on the campground right beside us in their camper. We were able to eat most of our meals together and just shared one common fire pit. We had two days on the beach while the boys played around in their trucks. Matt's truck had some transmission problems, but Mike's truck was able to save the day and pull it to the rescue. David was also able to use it to pull some other trucks out of areas where they got stuck. It's definitely more of a boys' weekend, especially since I personally don't find much thrill or enjoyment in all the truck stuff. But going for a walk on the beach two days in a row was nice. Chrissy's mom met us for one of those days on the beach since she lives just a couple hours from there. 

The timing of the trip wasn't the best for me with a new job starting right around the corner and also being just a few days before I had to take a big certification test, but I was able to skip out on a few activities to get some last minute test prep in. I almost didn't go, but I'm glad I decided to go in the end. 

It's definitely a fun tradition that I have a feeling will continue for many years (as the "fun trucks" continue to evolve). I'm hoping Juan can join us again next year. My mother-in-law had surgery the day we left, so she was pretty disappointed she had to miss it. Apparently they used to come to these dunes as a family when Matt and Mike were growing up.