Grandpa's birthday performance of "On a Tree by the River..." from the Mikado

Here's something for you all to watch while you are waiting for our summer vacation posts. We celebrated Pa's 88th birthday at our place, and he had this prepared for our entertainment.

Adam's ski trip

Adam took a ski trip with some U-M friends and failed to send me any photos, so I took it upon myself to create a video of what I imagined he looked like on the slopes.

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Annual Family Thanksgiving Cocktail Hour

Here we are at the Tavern on the Square in downtown Lansing. This is one of our favorite holiday traditions, always on the Friday night after Thanksgiving. Many orders of the Tavern's version of tapas, and everyone's favorite cocktails.

Family is pulled in many directions on Thanksgiving Day, but no one would miss this event. Our faces hurt from laughter the next day (and there are usually one or two hangovers).

Great season at the cottage

It was unseasonably cool this summer. Tom Turi says it's the oddest summer he's seen in 30 years of living/visiting there. But no complaints here. We had so much fun. Friends and family all summer long - including three visits from Grandpa - and the highlight was the few hours of sunshine we had on the morning of October 10 when Michael and Jen got married on the edge of the lake.

Next year, we'll have some interesting doings as we attempt to make a couple of fun improvements to the accommodations - starring a new bathroom in the spare room in the garage...er....Kenny's Klubhouse. Ken is still planning to go up a time or two more to get that started and wring out the last of the cottage season. For my part, I am looking forward to the holiday season and trying to bring some of what we love about the cottage into our lives in DeWitt.

The next vacation blog posts here will be from....let's see: Manhattan? Chicago? Aruba? Stay tuned.

This one is a favorite from my photo shoot today

Next year, people under 40 will remove the dock.

OK, this was fun to do once. But next year, the weekend before Halloween, we will have offspring here to do the heavy lifting. Once again, we had help from the Kreugers and Mark Miller, and Tom Turi came along with his 4-wheeler to help pull the boat lift out of the water.

Tom is spending the winter in Georgia, near two of his kids. Mark will be up all winter; Kreugers come up off and on, and Ken will be up a time or two more before he has the cottage winterized. But this is my last weekend - unless we have a miraculous Indian Summer weekend in November. Not holding my breath.

I spent some time around sunset standing in the water, rummaging through the landscape to see the beauty of the fall up close and personal. Got some photos I really like.

Fire in the fireplace now, and ratatouille on the stove. Ken left around 4 or 5; I'm staying over to make the most of my last weekend here. Just about to uncork a bottle of wine.

We make these waders look good.

Don't we?

Kenny's new red wagon with the pneumatic tires and drop-down sides.

Ken went to TSC and struck gadget gold. This cart was just one of the really cool things he got. Another was a "come-along" ratchet pulley thing he used to pull my kayak launch (stairs) out of the lake all by himself - without pulling a muscle.

Ready to take out the dock

In this photo you can see the late fall profile of the lake - the leaves are off most of the trees except the sturdy oak right next to the shoreline, which hangs on to rusty orange leaves till very late. Skies are grey, so is the water. Note the sudsy strip across the lake a few feet out. Wonder what causes that.

Kenny looks ready to go, still smiling, still futzing around in the Klubhouse. He brought in a load of firewood for later. Right now it's mild outside - about 60 degrees. Some breeze but not biting.

The lake is high - Ken measured it 5" higher than last week. Think of the amount of water required to raise a 10,000 acre lake five inches!

Tom and Ken took the pontoon out earlier this week. Anyone who was worried will be glad to know the motor is fine.

The dock is wet and looks kind of lonely out there. It will sit on the left side of the yard, amid the evergreens, and wait for next summer.

The sunset tonight

The sunset tonight was really beautiful. I bundled up in my vintage 1970 green ripstop down jacket and my Hack-Ma-Tack hoodie and admired the view from the dock. Ken called from the road to make sure I was seeing it.

I'm staying overnight here to extend what inevitably will be one of the last weekend stays of the season. It's been classic Black Lake, from Friday's fire in the fireplace to Saturday's rib eye on the grill to this morning's apple crisp (Northern Spy and Macintosh combined).

Calm lake, hip boots, crisp fall paddle

The calm lake was irresistible, but it took my hip boots to guarantee a dry entry and exit and no wet feet. It really does feel like floating on air when the lake is this clear. There wasn't another single watercraft on the lake.

Ken helped the Kreugers take out their boat lifts and dock. That's Ken on the left, in case you didn't see him in his camo britches. The Kreuger's are terrific neighbors - they let us use their cottage for wedding guests (Grace, Brad, Angelo) and invited us in for white chicken chili after the dock work. Her chili was great and I have a new addiction: Lynette's apple bars. Must get recipe.

Wedding at the lake!

10-9-2009 11-18-28 PM_0035, originally uploaded by karenandkenstock.

Jen and Mike got their wish - the sun came out for their lakeside wedding ceremony. Lots of pictures on Flickr - http://flickr.com/photos/familybychoice. The official wedding photos are yet to come.

Read more about the wedding on Jen and Mike's wedding blog: http://jentrimble-mikebalcom.blogspot.com