Sea Suites Boat and Breakfast

I have to tell you about the place we stayed on our trip, because it was so stinkin' cool! I actually found it on Pinterest, so three cheers for Pinterest today!

We stayed at the Sea Suites Boat and Breakfast, which is one of only five "floating inns" in the United States.

The boat is located in Douglas, Michigan, right around the corner from Saugatuck, and it's in a corner of the marina that allows you to have great views of the water without sacrificing privacy and quiet rest.

There's a nice area to sit at the front of the boat (though the weather wasn't really conducive for it the weekend we were there) and another area at the back of the boat. And then the entire top is a deck with room for lounging in the sun (when such a thing exists) or under a canopy. There's also a grill/fridge/sink/TV up on that top deck. (Side note: their website shows pictures with a hot tub on the top deck, but that's not there anymore.)

I confess that as we walked up to the boat for the first time, I got a little bit nervous. I wasn't sure if it would rock very much in the windy waters, and I also was nervous about sharing such a small space with people I didn't know. I'm thrilled to report neither worry turned out to be an issue! The boat did NOT rock, even though we experienced a pretty significant storm early Sunday morning, and there were two other couples on the boat with us, and we rarely saw them and never heard them! Privacy was definitely high quality there, despite the small space!

Here's a quick tour of the boat. The sliding glass door to the right of this picture is the front door of the boat, and this is the spacious living area. Ryan and I sat out here Saturday night, while I worked on the blog, and watched TV for a little bit. We also enjoyed looking at the scrapbooks there on the coffee table, which told an interesting history of the boat!

 Here's a fuller picture of the living room, taken from the kitchen. Comfy couch that seats a bunch of people, lots of natural light, and not cramped at all! There are also two living room chairs on either side of that lamp in the middle!

 And here's the kitchen! It's a full kitchen with full sized everything and lots of storage. The island seats eight and can fit everyone on the boat even when all the rooms are full. The innkeepers, Pete and Sally, provide some space in the refrigerator for guests to keep food (leftovers from dinners, out, etc.) and have a cabinet full of tableware and silverware for guests to use as needed.

 This is the long hall that goes down the rest of the boat. The kitchen island is immediately to my left as I took this picture. There are four staterooms, and at the end, a door out to the back seating area.

And here is our room! We were in room three. :)  I took this picture standing in the doorway to the hall. The door you can barely see on the left goes into the bathroom. The bed is a queen size and SO comfortable. (The sheets are to-die-for!) There are nightstands on either side of the bed, and a ceiling fan overhead. The window looks right out on the water and into the marina. So relaxing!

 Across from the bed was our TV, and underneath that, the closet. (It had a different name, but I can't remember what it was.) It was really spacious! We kept about half our luggage in there. As you can see, there was also a chair for resting.

 Beside that, a luggage rack and the sink. You can see the door to the hall and the door to the bathroom over on the right.

 And here is the bathroom! Spacious shower, and a little table for storing your stuff. And of course, the toilet. (That is a whole learning curve in and of itself.)

I was SO impressed with the size of the room. It didn't seem cramped at all. We were completely comfortable in there, even with all our stuff. And it was really comfortable. We spent a good chunk of our time on the boat in our room, since the weather wasn't good enough to be outside, and we didn't feel claustrophobic at all.

A quick view out our window...

 Ryan took this picture of me on the back of the boat, overlooking the marina.

 A TERRIBLE photo, but I never went back up to the top deck to take a better one. This is a photo of the upper deck.

 Ryan on the back area of the boat. This would have been perfect for evening coffee, had there not been such cold, rainy evenings!

 I almost forgot to show you this! Every couple aboard had a welcome sign! (Sally apologized for getting my name wrong. Didn't bother me. I still got delicious breakfasts, so I was just fine!)

 This steam tugboat that sits next to the B&B. It has a pretty cool story. Pete told us part of it.

 Even had our own little lighthouse visible from our room! (Light was burned out currently, but it was still cute!)

So here's the bottom line. We loved our stay at the Sea Suites. Pete and Sally were a lot of fun, they made us so comfortable, and they are GREAT cooks. We loved every part of our stay there, and like I said earlier, it was so private, despite having other people on the boat.

I do think it would be fun to go back with a group of people I knew, so we could all hang out together in the living room without awkwardness. :)

But if you're going to this area, stay here! Worth it! :) Thanks, Pete and Sally, for a great stay!

The Start of our Annual Birthday Trip, Destination: Saugatuck, Michigan!

Hey, it's podcast Tuesday! We've got all kinds of stories from our week of speaking and our vacation...and below you'll find some pictures from our vacation, too! :) ENJOY!

 Listen here!

In case you're new to the old blogaroo, allow me to catch you up on our birthday trips! Ryan and I have birthdays that are just about three weeks apart, so when we first got married, we elected to begin a tradition of taking a trip near our birthdays as sort of a gift to each other. (We still give gifts to each other, of course, but this is a fun thing we've enjoyed doing. You can see all our trip recap here, if you're looking for vacation ideas!)

So three years ago, we headed to Holland, Michigan, for the tulip festival, and there were SO MANY THINGS about that trip that were hilarious disasters. Heading the list was the lack of tulips, which didn't bloom because of the Polar Vortex that winter. We said we didn't want to go back to Michigan for a birthday trip again, because it was too risky if we wanted warm weather. Wellllllllllll, then we decided to try it again this year, and wouldn't you know it. Freezing cold and rainy the entire weekend. Isn't it so funny?

So here is a peek at the start of our trip. Annual photo:

Also. Can we pause to ask how we are into FIFTH annual anything? Sorry we both look a little blah in this picture. It was early, we were tired, and clearly under-caffeinated.

It was cold and rainy the morning we left, we couldn't get our GPS to take our destination address, and we were laughing already about the mess this was turning out to be. So it came as no surprise that a semi blocked my view of the Welcome to Michigan sign and now our scrapbook memory of entering Michigan looks like this:

Sigh.

We had to switch up some plans immediately because of the weather, so our first stop was in the lovely town of South Haven, Michigan. Neither of us had ever been there before, but I really wanted to see the lighthouse I'm always seeing in pictures!

So we went right out there on that beach, where the temp was in the 30's, it was starting to rain, and we were layered up in hats, coats, and we would have added gloves if we'd brought them!

First glimpse!! See it out there at the end of the pier? (Ryan wanted to climb on the rocks.)

 So. Cold.

 I have to confess it was much smaller in real life than it always looks in the pictures I see online. But it's still a lighthouse, and I love them!

 How glad was I that I was NOT on that sailboat out there?

Found a coffee shop on the beach. Closed. Because of course.

We decided to go ahead and have lunch there in South Haven, so Ryan read some reviews quickly and decided on a little restaurant called Clementine's. Our food was really good! (Ryan got some sandwich that had seafood on it and I had a salad with really flavorful chicken!)

After lunch, we decided to walk around for a while, check out some of the shops, and maybe hit up the local coffee shop. You know. Maybe.

 We found this cute little coffee shop called The Living Room, and it really felt like one! (So much so that someone took a nap during his coffee. Yes, you read that right. DURING!) Good coffee, great atmosphere, and a nice warm-up break on a chilly day!

(Sorry about the lighting. I'd call it my halo, but we both know better.)

 One of our favorite stores on our little tour around town was this shop that had a HUGE third floor that used to be a ballroom. Original wood floors, exposed brick walls, huge wall of windows: our Fixer Upper minds were spinning!

So that was our visit to South Haven! We left there about mid-afternoon and drove to our home base for the weekend. A bed and breakfast, or more specifically, boat and breakfast, that I can't wait to show you tomorrow!

The Date Inspired by the Letter I

We are home safe and sound from our annual birthday getaway, and I can't wait to tell you all about it! But meanwhile, we have another date to report in on...remember our alphabetical dates? We're up the letter I!

I'm not sure what possessed me to think last week was a good week to sneak in an alphabetical date, with everything else we had going on, but it actually did work out really nicely!

So, here was our date inspired by the letter I!

This is what happens when you're trying to get 100 things in the picture, and it's windy, and you're on a major highway. Possibly my worst picture of all time, but oh well. Here you go!

We started our date at Indiana Wesleyan, since that's where we were for my speaking engagement last week. Convenient that it starts with an I, right?

It was so windy that day, but it was lovely and warm, and we took a stroll down memory lane by walking through campus, like we used to when we lived over there!

We paused in the rotunda where all the busts for the Society of World Changers are housed, and Ryan did a photo opp with Bill and Gloria.

(I won't lie. The busts still creep me out.)

He decided to imagine what it would be like to be the next inductee.

We couldn't leave campus without visiting our beloved chapel.

We went inside and sat for a bit, remembering all the days of yore when we spent much prayer time there!

Then...we went on our annual pilgrimage to...

IVANHOE'S!!!

 Oh yes. It's that time of year again.

Strawberry shortcake covered in ice cream!

So huge. So not good for you. But so delicious, and at once a year? I'll eat the whole thing, thankyouverymuch.

That was our I date! Much fun!!

The Shafferland Shuffle

I feel like you don't need a shuffle this week, because you've been shuffling through my week ALL week! But watch that stop me from subjecting you to a shuffle anyway! HA!

* So about a million years ago was one week ago today: Mother's Day and my birthday! It really does feel like forever ago! We hosted Mommapalooza 4.0, we celebrated my birthday, AND we had Phoebe all day. It was one delightful and busy day!

* I kept right on celebrating my birthday on Monday, because I still had my free Starbucks drink coming to me. I got the S'mores drink for a treat, and it was delish. Monday was also the start of the speak-four-places-in-four-days tour! Ryan went with me to Fairfield Christian Church, and we had a great time with the ladies there. (And my Mom showed up to surprise me!)

* Tuesday morning, I went to a women's Bible study at Lakeview Wesleyan church to speak with them. They were so warm and kind! Know what else was warm and kind? My coffee and trip to Cato that followed it! I do miss Cato. Ryan and I needed some down time that night, so we went on a nice sunset walk. It was so lovely!

* Wednesday was our big day! Ryan took a vacation day to accompany me to Indiana Wesleyan, where I spoke at the first ever Staff Council retreat! So thankful that went well (at least I think it did, anyway!) and also so thankful that Ryan went with me! It helped so much to have him there! After we were done with that, we did our date inspired by the letter I. Still haven't had a chance to tell you about that! Next week. :)

* Ryan also took Thursday off work, just to get a much-deserved break, and he elected to come with me to my final speaking engagement of the week - at Point Isabel United Methodist Church. Great way to end the week! (Also, please THOROUGHLY enjoy how the stained glass behind me looks like bunny ears on me. I crack up every time I see these pictures!) We got to spend the rest of the day together and it was so nice!

* Because our week had not been eventful enough, we took a little road trip on Friday! We had been looking forward to our little getaway to southern Michigan, but apparently our luck with Michigan returned again, and on May 19th, it was in the low 40's and we were in hats and sweatshirts, trying to enjoy the beach! But you know the Shaffers...we'll make the best of it, even if it's not ideal weather! :)

 * Yesterday was another cold and rainy day, but we didn't let that stop us from having some fun together! Many adventures to tell you about next week, but let's just say the day included (but was not limited to) the following: much coffee, a pie tasting, naps, and SHOPPING!!!