For the past week I’ve had Lila and Eva with me up in Keewenaw in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I grew up here, and we’ve been staying at my parents’ house.

We’ve spent the last few days at our family’s cottage (we call it a “camp”) on Portage Lake. The photos of the ducks and the chipmunk are from there.

The girls swam at the camp, and we took two short trips to the beach at White City where they swam and played in the sand. The lighthouse photo is from there.

Click on the photos to view them larger.

We celebrated Eva’s birthday and the girls got snorkels and masks. Lila swam a lot in Lake Superior and Portage Lake, despite the cool lake temperatures. “It’s warm!” she declared. Lake Superior was 44 degrees, though we swam in more protected bays so they were probably a bit warmer.

Eva preferred to splash in the waves near the shore and play in the sand.

Oh, and on Friday at the camp I took the girls for a real sauna. The temperature was a soothing 145 degrees, and when I tossed a little water on the hot rocks, they gasped “I can’t breathe!” Funny. I showed them how to breathe through a moist washcloth, and they sighed in relief under their washcloth-masks. We took some more steam to draw out the sweat, scrubbed up and got all sudsy, and then went to rinse the soap off in the lake.

Now, back at my parents’ house, the girls are sitting here playing with legos. Tonight we’ll wash clothes and pack up the car. Tomorrow we drive back down to Saint Charles near Saginaw.