Vacation Story: July 5th in Algonac, Michigan...

My sister in law Heidi's grandmother and other family live in Algonac, Michigan. Algonac is about an hour and a half from where my parents live, and it's located on the southern end of the St. Clair River. Since Heidi's parents and sister were in Algonac visiting (from New York), she wanted to go up to the family 5th of July celebration. She talked me into going with her, since she wanted to take the 3 girls (Angela and my 2 nieces) with her. This was probably NOT one of my best decisions, but that's how my whole "vacation" (and I use that term VERY loosely) turned out.

When we first arrived in Algonac, I noticed the streets were already getting crowded, and it was only early afternoon. And mind you, I really don't know Heidi's family...I only met them when my brother married Heidi.

The 3 girls came without a fuss, because there was a promise of swimming, fireworks, and a carnival....

We first decided to go swimming....in the St. Clair River....and BRRRRRR the water was chilly. It was over 80 degrees outside though.

Rebecca and Bailey were not thrilled to climb down the wall into the river.

Angela and Rebecca standing on an old wooden pillar that is under the water. We think the pillars are from an old dock.

This speedboat kept flying up and down the river, which sent big waves over to us. Did I mention that the water was COLD.

Heidi's cousin Ruth came in with us..she's on the far left... Heidi is the one making faces at the camera.

My sil Heidi...can you tell she's almost 4 mo. pregnant in this one?

Rebecca and Bailey got cold pretty quick, since they have no body fat on them. Angela has always tolerated cold water well, so she was disappointed that we couldn't swim longer. Angela wanted to float from the boardwalk down to the spot we were swimming, but no one else wanted to.

Right on the corner from where we got in the water was a huge mullberry tree....full of ripe fruit...yummy! Angela and Bailey enjoyed them...Rebecca wouldn't even taste one.

When we got back to the house, Heidi's grandmother was sitting by the channel watching the wild swans.

Of coarse I had to take lots of photos. This is the daddy swan, and he was not too happy with me. I wasn't even close to them, but he kept hissing and reaching up out of the channel at my camera.

The girls were given some old bread to feed the swans. Mom led them over to us fairly quickly. Dad still hissed at all of us.

Something I found interesting was half of the cygnets were white, while the other half were grey. I don't know if the ones will stay grey or not...and I don't know if this distinguishes male from female...but both parents were white. I won't bore you with my dozen more swan shots.

Heidi's grandmother grew a lot of pretty flowers, including this poppy.

I hadn't charged my camera since I had left Georgia, so my batteries were starting to die. Oops. It didn't matter to much, because Heidi's family did NOT want their photos taken. Alrighty then...no more photos. I did manage to get one of dinner....Heidi's mother is grilling the burgers.

I wasn't real comfortable there, but what was I to do? Dinner was good...and filling. The girls also seemed to like it....but then again, Angela eats most things.

After dinner, we changed into 'cooler weather' clothes, so we could go down to the carnival/fair. I'll post some fair photos with the fireworks shots in the conclusion...don't want to put you to sleep.