petoskey stone hunting...

On the Saturday that Jeff's parents were in, we decided to go petoskey stone hunting.  We had been told about a particular stretch of beach that was supposed to be a good place to find them.  It was a coolish day, so we thought rock hunting would be a good way to spend the afternoon.  We had no idea about how great our afternoon would be!!

The directions were pretty straight forward... however, they turned out to be a little more difficult to follow that they sounded.  We were just supposed to follow one road, north, until we hit Lake Michigan, then turn left.  Sounded easy enough... BUT that one road kept ending and then picking up a little ways over.  In the end, we made it and boy was it worth it!  We went down this dirt road, and every so often you would see a little trail through the woods.  We parked by one of those little trails and sent our "scouts" on ahead.  They ran back all excited and said that this would be a good place to set up camp.  Before we even made it to the beach (which was just a short walk through the woods), they were already running back to show us their first petoskey stone!!  We were shocked when we came out of the wood and onto the beach... it was beautiful!! 

 Jeff's parents on the beach...

My kitchen strainer got to go on a field trip...

:-)

They were so excited to hunt for more stones...

Then they figured that there might be better ones in the water...

Those little specks in the distance are Jeff and the kids...

They weren't as far out as my wide angle lens made them look.  They waves were great though... they had so much fun playing in them.  While on their chaperoned tubing trip they took at the resort a few days before... their chaperone took them over to the lake and showed them how to somersault through the waves.  They did that FOREVER this day!

A beautiful, beautiful beach... all to ourselves....

Clara's pride and joy...

We found a bunch of petoskey stones that day... but this was probably the best one of the bunch!  It was just amazing to look at!

Rocks on the beach...

Still hunting...

I have to admit, it was very addicting... you just couldn't stop looking for the petoskey stones!  We all got a little caught up in it!  I think the only reason we finally left was because we forgot to bring snacks!  :-)