The Nomadic Butler Clan

Blog Post #31 - Written August 27, 2025 Stay: June 26-30, 2025 For this part of our Michigan exploration, we stayed at the Starlight Campground in Mancelona. It was a cool campground with a pool, playground, shuffleboard, pickleball, and other lawn games.  And it was Pirate Week while we were there :)  The kids loved dressing up as pirates, but even more than that, they loved the "buried treasure" easter egg hunt. The camp staff hid 12 shells around the campground...our family found 4 of them. They didn't tell us that they usually only allow one per family until afterwards! Woops, oh well. The prizes were legit though; $20 cash, a bag of candy, ice cream for the whole family, and a mining sluice gemstone bag (which was great, because Z had been begging for one since we started the trip haha. Seems like everyone's jumped on the mining sluice bandwagon, must be a lucrative side hustle!). Video: The boys spent some of their egg hunt winnings to play on the  inflatable sl...

 Blog Post #30 - Written August 22, 2025 Hi everyone. This is obviously not your typical travel blog post. But I wanted to share something that's been on my mind lately, and I finally took the time to type it out tonight. I hope you enjoy it and if you feel so inclined, please share your own thoughts in the comments or message me directly! I'd love to hear from you :) I recently had an experience that made me stop and think. A "shake your faith" kind of moment. So I sat back and have been thinking about what I really believe. So here goes. My testimony. Hmm...this feels like a much bigger deal to write down rather than sharing briefly over the pulpit at church. I've been thinking about this for a couple weeks now and decided to read "Jesus The Christ" (by James E. Talmage) because of it.  As I was reading, I was struck by something that I believe very strongly and feel strongly about; and that is 'the purpose of our mortal life' and what 'Hea...

Blog Post #29 - Written August 15, 2025 Stay: June 23-25, 2025  We missed the famous Traverse City Cherry Festival by like 3 days, which was a bit of a bummer. But that's okay, our campground was so cool we didn't even leave. We rode around their sweet BMX bike tracks, swam and played in their little lake, played on all their playgrounds, made some crafts, swam in the pool, biked some more, swam some more, played some more, and had a grand 'ole time. The boys enjoyed the BMX bike course. See videos below.      D started practicing on her balance bike inherited from Q. Fun side note - she's wearing a shirt that I bought for Z at a garage sale almost 8 years ago, when we were just pregnant with him. Video:  Yours truly catching some sick air!  ;) Video:  Megan actually catching real air ...and almost eating a tree haha Video:  Q braved one of the advanced runs . Love that kid! Video:  Z crushed the advanced run , made it look easy once he worke...

Blog Post #28 - Written August 13, 2025 Stay: June 20-22, 2025 We stayed near the Silver Lake Sand Dunes at Dunes Harbor Family Camp, a Christian-based, family-friendly campground. It was a huge campground with lots of fun activities for the kids. We had such a fun time here. This would be a fun spot for a week-long family reunion or vacation with friends. The first day we arrived, after we set up the trailer, we biked over to the archery range and the boys got to try out some little compound bows. Video of  Z shooting the bow & arrow Video of  Q shooting the bow & arrow That first night, we also joined the campground worship song circle. The kids loved drumming along :) We learned a bunch of new worship songs and also led the circle in signing one of our favorite songs, Amazing Grace. And since Megan just finished reading a book about the writer (John Newton), she shared the backstory of how he came to write such a powerful song. (And if you haven't seen the 2006 movi...