Last Day at the Beach

We had to leave around lunch time on Sunday, so we decided to check out a different beach. It was cheaper to park ($5 vs. $8) and was a shorter walk from the parking lot to the water. We pretty much had the beach to ourselves which was kinda nice!


Playing in the waves and chasing the sea gulls.Someone had left a massive hole...the kids & Chris enjoyed it.

Splash!


More snacks on the beach... For as often as our kids eat, you'd think that they'd be bigger. :)
Swinging! Both this beach (Loin's Club) and Silver Beach had nice playgrounds for the kids.

Downtown St. Joseph & some ice cream

A friend has been to St. Joseph many times and recommended Kilwin's Ice Cream store in downtown St. Joseph. So after a near disastrous dinner, despite our threats of not getting ice cream if they behaved badly, we trekked into downtown St. Joseph for ice cream. (In the kids defense - they did sit nicely for close to 45 minutes, but that was how long it took to get our dinner, and after a busy day, they were just done and squirrely!) This was the last night of our trip and our first visit to downtown St. Joseph. Hopefully next year, we'll have more time to spend and I can check out some of the little shops there.

Carousel

In addition the the train station that is at Silver Beach, there is also a spray park, a small Children's Museum, and a carousel. We rode the carousel once on Friday afternoon during our second trip to the beach and again on Saturday afternoon. Brendan kept calling it a Ferris Wheel and while he was kinda shy about getting on it Friday, he asked to go again on Saturday.




They also had out crayons & markers for coloring as well as chess & checkers. Chris decided to try to teach Brendan. He actually was kinda interested and kept asking to play the rest of the afternoon.

More Silver Beach

The kids had so much fun at the beach yesterday, that we went again today. They actually got pretty wet yesterday, so we put their swim suits on them today. They didn't get in the water, but Katelyn did end up sitting down in it a few times inadvertently. I think that Brendan also got surprised by a couple bigger waves and got water up above his knees.

There was a lot of pond construction today.
Then of course the pond had to be filled...and eventually destroyed and rebuilt. :)

Yes, she eating again!
Our "set-up"...definitely bringing an umbrella next year. But I love this picture of her buried under her hat. :)

Getting a tour of the pond.

Train!

On Saturday morning, we made sure that we got to the beach in time to watch the train come into the station. (We were also afraid that the beach might be more crowded on Saturday!) Brendan was a little shy about the train at first - I think that he remembered that its horn was going to be loud - but he quickly warmed up to it.

The Pier

The pier at the mouth of St. Joseph river was on the other side from the beach. There were some dunes that you could play in...Brendan was determined to climb up the "big pile of sand". But it was really hot and even with sandals he soon said that his feet were hot.
Looking out on the lake from halfway down the pier. There was a railing on the edge, but it stopped about halfway out. So much to Brendan's disappointment, we did not go see the lighthouse up close. We had the kids' lifejackets in the car, but neither of us wanted to go back for them, and there was no way that I was going to let them out there without them!
Looking towards Silver Beach

A Beach and a Train

During our first morning at Silver Beach we heard a train come by. We couldn't see it from the beach, but did remember driving over some tracks to get to the beach. Turns out there is an Amtrak station just east of the beach and a train comes through every morning. It just doesn't get much better for Brendan...all the sand a boy could ask for PLUS a train!

Inside the train "station" - there wasn't much to it, but there was a Pizza place. So after our morning at the beach we all shared a Hawaiian pizza before going back to the hotel room for nap time.