Summer 2010 Update #3

The last couple months have been a bit of a whirlwind and as much as I thought things were going to settle down, they really haven't....and with the upcoming holidays, I don't anticipate that life will slow down too much, but I'm back!! I've decided that I'd like to cut back on blogging, though, so you probably won't see posts as often as I had been (before the break), but I am hoping to have something up at least once a week.

So, for the summer update! WAY back at the beginning of August, the neighboring town had one of my favorite groups perform at their Music in the Park, so I made sure to take the kiddos and we thoroughly enjoyed them! (The group was Three Men and a Tenor for those of you who may have heard of them.)

The following day the same town, that had the music in the park, had their Art Fair. I made sure to get some kettle corn while I was there (it's the best!) and my brother's friend was doing a book signing for his newest book, Michigan's Mysterious Lighthouse. It was a beautiful day and there was some truly amazing art there!

The 2nd weekend of August we had a birthday party to go to for my friend's little girl who turned 4 (she's also Morgan's best friend.) I also got to see her new little baby who was only a couple weeks old, then drove to see my other friends' new little one the next day. That Sunday we picked up 2 more calves, too, so that weekend was a weekend of getting my baby fix! ;-) It also ended with truck problems...with our brand new truck...but it was a fairly quick and easy fix...thankfully!

Two weeks later was another birthday weekend with my Aunt's surprise birthday party and Blake's birthday. (They share the same birthday-kinda cool!) Plus we went to Rich's old fire department's pancake breakfast that Sunday and followed that with his fire department's picnic....it was in the mid 90's that day and I really didn't need to eat anything! LOL!

Speaking of fire departments, Rich's burned an old house which I got pictures of, but on my dad's camera :-/ Then a few weeks later his old department burned a house that was on his grandma's new property and Rich had the opportunity to help with it!

This is the house being burned on the family's property. Rich is the one with the yellow helmet.

Watching the fire was so interesting! And the darkness in the picture is from the thickness of the smoke!

Rich is on the nozzle spraying down the tree to keep it from burning.

Family picture :-)

Labor Day weekend was a little more relaxed and on Labor Day we had a picnic with the family. The weekend after that, though, we had a wedding to attend. The wedding was Friday afternoon, so we dropped the kids off with my parents', who were going camping, then carpooled with Rich's parents and some family friends. We stayed that night, came back the next day and ran up to where my parents' were camping to get the kids....a lot of time on the road! The wedding was fun, though, and the kids had an awesome time with my parents' attending The Thumb Octagon Barn's Fall Family Days where they got to milk a goat, card wool and have it spun to bring home, make greeting cards using dried & pressed flowers, take train rides, pump water at old-fashioned pump and lots more! (I'm thinking I'll have to go there next year-sounds awesome!)

Rich and I ready for the wedding! Had to get a pic of us, since we don't dress up often :-)

The newlyweds :-)

A quick pic of the Octogon barn...we drove by since Rich had never seen it before.

Morgan started preschool the following Monday and has been LOVING it! I take her to school in the morning, so she doesn't have to ride the bus with the big kids and she rides the bus home right before lunch. It was a tough decision to let her go, but now that she's going I know we did the right thing :-)

Rich took a couple hours off to drop Morgan off at school with me on her first day...another family pic.

The next weekend was the fireman's memorial festival and the weekend after I had another Girls' Night Out with the girls from high school as well as an open house for a couple who is expecting their first in October. (SO many babies!!) :-)

In between all that I've picked, husked, hung, dried and shelled my popcorn. I ended up with a gallon bag full even though I cut back! I made sure to get them done asap this year and only lost a little bit to the chipmunks who decided to infest our mudroom (they are quite cute little pests though!) I also got 42 quarts of tomatoes canned and 14 pints of salsa...so far....all the tomatoes are picked (due to a frost threat) and I'm just waiting for them to ripen. The garden is basically done for the year-the only thing left out there is our pumpkins! :-)

The kids and I have also been working on several activities/crafts/projects that I hope to share with you in another post....this one is long enough! ;-)

Leap Year

Last weekend, on our girls weekend, we had every intention of making it to the movies to see Leap Year. After the long day Saturday and with a worn out little girl on Sunday, we never made it. So yesterday my sister came home for a long weekend and she, my mom and I went to dinner and saw Leap Year after my mom got out of work. Well worth it!

If you haven't seen previews for Leap Year, let me share the synopsis with you:

"A woman (Amy Adams) heads to Ireland in order to force her boyfriend (Adam Scott) to accept her wedding proposal by scheduling it on leap day, the only time when he couldn't refuse due to the country's tradition in this Spyglass Entertainment romantic comedy. Shopgirl's Anand Tucker directs from a script by Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan. Matthew Goode co-stars as a handsome innkeeper who throws a wrench into the woman's plans." - Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide

What a cute movie! It was one of those movies that gave me a warm cozy feeling. I loved that it took place in Ireland! The scenery throughout the movie was just beautiful. It took me back to my trip to Ireland when I was in high school and made me want to go back! (Plus I have a bit of Irish in me, so that definitely helps my love of Ireland and it's people!)

The chemistry between Amy Adams and Matthew Goode was amazing! Their love-hate relationship was adorable and I'll admit that I fell in love with both their characters. I couldn't help but want things to work in the direction that things were heading, which leads me to the next point...

The movie is totally predictable, but I think every romantic comedy is. It's the journey to where you know the movie is headed that makes it so fun and worth watching! :-)

Leap Year is a definite must see for every romantic comedy loving woman! It is also perfect for a girls night out! ;-)

Our Girls Weekend Getaway!

I have to start off by saying that I had a great time last weekend with my mom, sister and Morgan. We went down to where my sister lives to see some of the sites on Saturday and Sunday and it was better than I imagined it would be!

After a 2 hour drive and picking my sister up, we traveled another 45 minutes to a place called The Chelsea Treehouse. It was an indoor play area where Morgan could be a little monkey while the 3 of us adults sat around a table and chatted. They served some delicious food there as well! I had a shaved ham and provolone cheese sandwich on a pretzel bun with a spicey honey mustard sauce-YUM! Plus the side of black bean and corn salad was just plain delicious! Morgan had a hard time realizing that we were there for her and kept coming up to us thinking it was time to leave. I'd tell her she could still play for as long as she wanted and she'd take off, a little confused, and continue to play :-)

We then walked over to The Chelsea Teddy Bear Company, where we not only learned a bunch about their company, but also a lot about the history of teddy bears. I had no idea there was so much history! It was very interesting and well worth the trip!

The big bear when you first walked in the door.

The World's Largest Teddy Bear! It took all the workers a whole week to make it and the visiting kids love playing on it. The girl who gave us the tour said she even takes breaks laying on the one leg-LOL!

This was the largest display of teddy bears in 2005. It has since been beat, but I thought it was pretty neat :-)

Another really neat thing is that all the teddy bears that are for sale are either made there or designed there and contracted out. Morgan picked out this frog and I had them design the little shirt. I also got a chick for Blake and I got myself a giraffe-they were just way too cute! :-)

After that we walked around the little town and checked out some their shops. We ended up finding some beer that Rich has never been able to find in our area, so I grabbed a 6 pack...then my mom grabbed the other 6 pack for my brother! Yes-there were only two 6 packs, so we wiped them out! LOL!

My mom wanted to check out a bakery in Ann Arbor, called Zingerman's Bakehouse. She was hoping to find bread like what they serve in Germany. I guess she found something that was very similar, but I have to admit it wasn't my favorite. My sister also grabbed an assortment of 4 HUGE brownies that we had later that night for dessert. YUMMY! :-)

The next stop was the Whole Foods Market. I had never been to one before and was able to find all sorts of stuff that I see online and have wanted to try. The only thing is the stores in our area don't carry those products. Needless to say, I picked up a few healthier snacks to try.

We did a little more site seeing. My sister drove us through Ypsilanti, so I could get pictures of the Michigan Firehouse Museum...mostly for Rich, but I thought it was neat too. By that time it had already closed for the day, but just the outside was a neat site to see! :-)

By the time we finished thinking of places to see, it was time for dinner. We had decided on a German restaurant called Metzgers. I ordered Jagerschnitzel with a side of German potato pancakes (w/ applesauce-yum!) The restaurant had a true German feel yet it was still Americanized. Our waitor was even German! I think my mom really enjoyed that she could experience a little bit of Germany again. (She misses being over there!)

We ended the day at my sister's place. I set up Morgan's little princess tent. She thought it was so exciting to be able to camp in Aunt Katie's house! She made a candy necklace, we tasted the brownies and wrapped up the night snuggled up in chairs, drinking wine and watching Julie & Julia. Morgan even stayed up until 11:30 so she could be with us. :-)

Morgan with her candy necklace.

Mom snuggling with Morgan ready to watch the movie.

We took things easy on Sunday. We took our showers when we felt like it. My sister trimmed the split ends off my hair and we had a nice little brunch before heading off to the local mall. Being that Katie lives in a much more populated area, the mall was much bigger than any Morgan had seen before. She was able to experience escalators and thought they were a ride. I don't know how many times we rode those things just because Morgan thought it was fun! LOL! Plus she got to play in the mall's play area, but kept having melt downs...at least 4 of them and a final big one as I made her leave. She was just way too tired! We headed towards my sisters' with one little stop to give the car a 'bubble bath' (what Morgan was told it was-she liked that!), dropped Katie off then headed home.

The weekend was truly great! I wish we could do weekends like that more often, but once a year is enough to keep it exciting when the time comes. Until next year! :-)

Another Girls Getaway!

I am really looking forward to the upcoming weekend! I can't believe that I'm getting more time with the girls this weekend, but with different girls! I'll be leaving Saturday morning with my mom and Morgan to go down to where my sister lives. We were hoping that my nieces would be able to join us, so we'd have all the girls in the family but, when their parents are divorced, not everything works as you hope.

This is going to be our 2nd annual girl weekend. My mom started it when Morgan was 9 months old as a way for me to get away for my birthday. The last couple years we were not able to go with my parents being away in Germany, but they're back now and it's starting up again! We have all sorts of plans including going to an indoor play are for Morgan, then a toy museum, maybe see a movie at the theater and going to an ice festival! We'll be staying at my sister's place this year and I can imagine that it's just going to be a laid back good time. I can't wait! :-)

These are a couple pictures from our 1st girls weekend. We went to Frankenmuth that time and did some wine tasting at St. Julian's. Since I was 3 months pregnant with Blake, and Morgan was a baby, she and I did some sparkling juice tasting! Yum! :-)

Morgan has always been a little goofy. This was while we were waiting to eat at the Black Forest Brew Haus & Grill.

This last pic is of Morgan's first time in a pool! She was able to swim in the pool at the hotel and it was so neat seeing how she went from scared to being silly and having fun. :-)

I'll be sure to post pics of this weekend sometime next week! :-)

Girls Night!

Take some old friends...

Feed them some yummy food...

Add a couple drinks...

And you've got a girls night that was a ton of fun!

And it was all thanks to our beautiful hostess! :-)

As sad as it is, it took a very devastating funeral to bring old high school friends back together. We met up for our first girls night this past Saturday and kinda made it a housewarming for Amanda as well. (Thank you to those of you who planned it-you did a wonderful job!) We're hoping that it's the first of many to come. It's hard to believe that many of us were at Amanda's for over 8 hours! I haven't had a night like that since college! I actually didn't get home until 2:00 am! (Yeah-I really need to get out more-LOL!) I SO cannot wait until our next girls night in February! :-) (And without naming names, since I didn't ask permission, thank you for allowing me to steal your pics!)