Playing Catch-up---Waandersfest 2013

Waandersfest 2013 was held at The Shack near White Cloud, Michigan from Sept. 9 to 12.  We left right after church on the 8th and spent Sunday night at the Diekemas. We got there in time for a gorgeous Lake Michigan sunset.
  

We had a relaxing morning with Tony and Jeane, and drove up to The Shack around noon, stopping for lunch at a cherry pie place near Fremont. Jeane rode with us, because Tony had a meeting and joined us at The Shack later.

There are several of these "flower beds" along the driveway as you come in.

For some reason I found them to be quite amusing. 

The accommodations at The Shack are NOT at all shack-like.  There is a definite log cabin/lodge feel to the place.  Our rooms were very spacious and comfortable.  There is a main lodge building with guest rooms and a large dining room, but our rooms were in a separate building, called the Livery.  There were 10 guest rooms in it and also a large gathering room with a full kitchen, tables and chairs, etc.  We pretty much had that room to ourselves, because there was only one other couple staying in our building.

The Shack is on Robinson Lake, a small lake just a few miles north of Crystal Lake and the Wierda cottage. There was no beach for swimming, but there were pedal boats available, and some of us took advantage of those.

Bill and Pat doing some pedaling.

I thought the orange life vests were a nice fashion statement. 

Pedaling the boats was about as strenuous as our activities got.  There was lots of visiting going on in the various gazebos around the grounds and on the big porch of the lodge.  And there was lots of reading going on, as well---couldn't be a Waanders gathering without that. And another activity that some of us enjoyed--jigsaw puzzles!

 

They serve breakfast at The Shack (I wouldn't recommend going there mainly for the breakfast---it wasn't that great.) but we had most of our other meals in restaurants in the surrounding towns---White Cloud, Fremont and Newaygo. We did have one dinner at The Shack--they only do dinners if there is a larger group. One evening there was another group that had requested a meal, so we were included in that, but were given our own room. 

Every evening they serve banana splits---probably the best thing about the place. :) The elderly couple that runs the place are there to serve them---she slices the bananas into the "boat" dish, and he scoops up the ice cream, up to 3 generous scoops---they offer about 6 different flavors and different toppings.

They sell these night shirts--I thought the ladies should all buy them and pose for a picture.  No luck on that.

One afternoon we had a visit from one of our Heynen cousins, Marilyn and her husband Bill Vanden Heuvel.  She had seen my flower bed pictures on facebook, and she commented that they don't live too far from there. So I encouraged them to come over to see us.  It was nice to see them and catch up a bit. 

I think that this was Waandersfest XVIII.  (We missed the first one because we were still living in California.) We've been to a lot of different places in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin.  No matter where we go, we always have a good time.  There were 14 of us when we started, now there are 13, and we miss Herk every time we are together.  And as we all get older, each year that we are together our time seems more precious. I'm so thankful for all my siblings!