The Freezing but Beautiful Beach

Since there were no tulips to be seen in the fields of the tulip festival, Ryan and I bailed out and headed for the beach. By this point in the day, the weather was LOVELY...as in the sun was out and the skies were blue.

But. It. Was. Still. So. Cold.

Ryan wanted to fly the kite I gave him for Easter, so we made our way toward the beach and tried our hand at kite flying.

 I even got to try my hand at it!!

I handed back the reins pretty quickly. :)

And then we did a group shot. Ryan + Bekah + kite =

There was a lonnnnnnnnnnnng pier out there, and Ryan wanted to fly the kite over the lake, so we walked out to the end. {Tons of other people out...proof that everyone was tired of being cooped up, even if it was cold!}

While he flew his kite {which everyone walking by loved - and several took pictures} - I took pics of the lighthouse on the other pier.

Just  hanging out on the pier!!

Planned to go over to the lighthouse, UNTIL we found out that the two piers did not actually connect, and it was a half hour drive around the little bay/lake thingie to GET to the other pier. I was sad, but figured the pictures I had would suffice.

A couple more fun beach shots before we headed out...

There was one other beach I wanted to visit before we left, and it wasn't far away {though a wee bit farther since we...ahem...missed some turns}.

Tunnel Park.

After we FOUND the park {our GPS tried to move Lake Michigan to the other side of the road. Pesky technology...} we walked through this tunnel and....

It's kind of hard to tell in this picture, but that sand is a lonnnnnnnnnnng hill down to the beach. I decided to walk in my bare feet even though it was cold:

It was just gorgeous....we climbed up onto the side of the hill and just watched the water for a while:

 We would have loved to stay for a long time, but we were getting hungry, and in our world {okay, MY world} that translates to grumpy, so we left and headed out for dinner!

Oh, dearest Michigan beaches: how I long to visit you in WARMTH.