July Updates on Mackinaw Road

Cheers to July! (How is it already mid August?!?) The month was filled with lots of family and friend time, evening swims, morning coffee on the screened in porch, and cocktails on the patio. (You can find the Beach Cabin Cucumber Fizz recipe pictured above here.) The July Updates on Mackinaw Road include an IKEA duvet hack, a new card game, new shoes, a beach read, tried and true (and some new) Back to School Items, and the most clicked links through Like to Know It.

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July Updates: DIY (ish) Leland Gal Bedding

Let’s start with the IKEA duvet hack. (You can check out all of our IKEA pieces in the Beach Cabin in this post.) A few years ago, Maggie, owner of Leland Gal, was having a moving sale and this beautiful fabric was there. I didn’t think twice and snagged it as soon as I could. It is the perfect design for our beach cabin in the trees. I wanted to be sure to make a good decision in my use of the idyllic fabric. We had an old IKEA duvet sitting in our basement. Specifically, it was a green striped duvet that went very well with the colors in the Leland Gal fabric. As luck would have it, the fabric fit the top of the duvet cover perfectly. A sweet friend helped me by sewing the fabric on the top of the cover. And voila! It was finished. And that’s about as hacky/handy as I get!

A Fun New Card Game

My sister and brother-in-law brought a super fun card game to the cabin. It is called golf and is a card game that basically plays off of the scoring of golf without the need to actually play golf (thank goodness!). It takes some strategy and the more you play the more you can predict different plays. We tried it with our 12 year old and I think our 9 year old could definitely have joined in too. Golf comes in a pack of 4 games that include Hearts, Euchre, and Solitaire as well. At $9.99 for the pack, it is worth an order!

New Shoes

I have been having knee pain all summer so decided to up my shoe game. I had been walking to the beach in very flat and unsupported shoes. These new shoes seems to add a bit more of a cushion and I like how they look. I maybe should have ordered them in a color other than “sand” though as they really do match the color of the sand at the beach, making it difficult to locate them at times. Lesson learned.

July Updates: New Year in Havana

Next Year in Havana is probably my favorite read of the summer. A historical fiction story set in various times in Cuba showcasing the country’s history, the story follows a family and flip flops between the time period when Fidel Castro was coming into power and also the country after Castro’s death. It is a story of what it was like for some to leave Cuba and what it was like for others to stay. There are some twists and turns, family secrets, and of course some romance too.

Back to School

It’s hard to imagine that it is already time to think about going back to school. Below are some backpack and lunch storage options that we have either had and liked or would like to try. This water bottle has lasted the longest and the top makes for easy drinking/less spilling. Our son’s backpack (similar) has lasted for a few years now- it is not treated delicately. I appreciate these storage containers because we can nest them. We don’t have a lot of room in our kitchen so anything that saves space is a win. The kids have also used these for several years now and they have held up well. I like that everything is in one container, making it more likely that the said container will make it home at the end of the day. We got a lot of use out of our thermos last year. Perhaps the spoon attached to this one would help our spoon supply to stay steady during this school year.