Photographs: Vacationing at Lake Michigan

We vacationed at Lake Michigan recently, and I finally had time to finish culling and editing the images from our vacation, our third vacation with our dear, Victory!  You can view the snapshot of our vacation here, which I posted upon our return from Lake Michigan!  (You can also view our vacation last year with Victory to Quebec City here; and you can view our vacation two years ago with Victory to Montreal, Quebec here.)

Our family, along with our furry family members, rented a house for a week within a short walk to the lake!  Fortunately, we only had one day of rain during our vacation!  We got to spend a week with my parents, my sister, and our little nephew, Liam!  Doug and I went for morning walks together along the lake, and we even ended up crossing over into Indiana on our walks!   We did not pack the Hound About for this trip, so Victory did not come with us on the long walks, especially since it was very warm outside.  Victory did well on our trip and she loved the beach and she got along well with her ‘Uncle Nick!’ and her ‘cousin’ Liam!

Doug enjoys good bourbon, so we went to the Journeyman Distillery and took a tour with my sister and brother-in-law.   Doug has built quite the collection of different types of bourbon!  We also ate several times at the Distillery’s restaurant, the Staymaker.  The food was very good, and bourbon was incorporated in every menu item!  We also took a day trip to Notre Dame, and the dogs did really well on campus.  We did not even have to get out our Ergo for Victory during this trip!

My Dad and Doug made it to the Casino where Doug doubled his money while playing blackjack, while my Mom, sister, and I did some clothes shopping in Michigan City.

We also played lots of Dominos.  Doug is officially the reigning Domino winner.  Nobody can seem beat him!

We really enjoyed our time at the beach and the lake.  Doug and I went swimming in the lake quite a bit.  The water was very beautiful, clear, and clean!  It was a little rocky walking into the lake, but there was plenty of sand when we walked out a bit into the lake.  I even found several heart-shaped stones on the beach!  We had planned to take Victory in the lake with her life jacket on, but we decided not to this time.  Doug was scared Victory would get too scared.  (Doug is an over protective Daddy to Victory!)  Victory dipped her little white paws in the water, though, shown below, similar to her first time at the beach while we vacationed in Quebec.  Liam also dipped is feet, for the first time, into the lake, too!

Most of all, we are grateful for our time away together.  We enjoyed spending time together; getting away; having a change of scenery; and having days where we had no plans and were able to take each day as it came.  Even after 14 hours in the car on the ride home, Victory still spotted her exit to her house, and she loved coming home and going into her garage, like always!

Happy Friday!  Have a great weekend!  We are soaking up the last several weekends relaxing at our pool, while it is still open!