When I was five years old, my parents purchased beautiful lakefront land in the serene Irish Hills near the tiny town of Brooklyn, Michigan. We never did anything to that flat land until I was seven years old. When I was seven, my parents finally decided to build on that picturesque land. I could not wait for construction to begin. I couldn’t wait to have our own cottage built and be able to vacation at our second home during the hot summer days. My dream was finally becoming real!

After my family’s beautiful cottage was built in 2006, we have been able to do adventurous activities with our family friends that we couldn’t normally do in Plymouth. Some of the entertaining activities we did were: tubing on extremely choppy water, fishing on in morning and watching the beautiful sunrise, barbequing very often when did not rain, playing extreme soccer in my luscious front lawn, and water skiing on glass-like water on calm days.
Also, one of my other unique experiences about the cottage is the variety of smells that sweep under my nose. On days where there are strong westerly winds and sometimes after heavy rain, the whole neighborhood smelled like cow manure from the neighboring farm, which smells very rancid! But on warm, sunny days, the home smelled of freshly cut lawn because the grass grows extremely quickly near my cottage and my dad has to cut the lawn at least once a week during warm summers, sometimes even more!

The smells, the activities, and the friends coming over are why I like my cozy lakefront cottage. When I am there, I feel more relaxed and at peace with nature.