We were running errands and decided to go have lunch!
Why not have lunch out in the middle of the week?
Author Archives: Jen
Even when Katie’s not home…
Maggie sleeps in her room!
Katie, Owen & Papa on the raft!
Owen got to go out to the raft with Tom last year (he is a strong enough swimmer to go on his own, but Tom went since it was a new experience). So we assured everyone he would be okay to by himself this year, but Katie wanted to go this year, too, so Papa had to join!
We’re changing the front door again!
We really like the purple door…but it’s actually the wrong shade. When we leave the door open, the bright royal purple really clashes with the dusty plum of the front room. Yes it’s a minor thing but it bothers both of us…so we got our our trusty paint wheel and picked a new color! Stay tuned!
Work and fun in the kitchen.
From Grannie: Work and fun in the kitchen. Katie made Papa a pretty plate of raspberries and blueberries. Owen cut the whole watermelon. Then they both cut slices. With lots of laughs and silliness in between.They were safe with knives. I try to be a good Grannie!
Can I just say that if I had asked them to cut a watermelon, I would have gotten eye rolls and attitude all around. Grandparent Camp must be magic.
Pomegranate margarita?!
We decided to try out a new-to-us Mexican restaurant and damn if it wasn’t super delicious! They also had pomegranate margaritas on the menu so of course I had to try that!
Redoing the rooster!
So I really REALLY hated to get rid of the rooster I “stole” from our friend Allison but it just doesn’t go with our new decor…so spray paint to the rescue!
Now it will continue to live on and be a reminder of all the great times we had in Virginia! Stay tuned for the final reveal once everything is finished!
This is very hard for me!
…but I’m doing it. All of these boxes (shipping boxes AND random ones that would make great shipping boxes) that I’ve hoarded are being flattened and going to recycling. Please tell me I’m not the only one who hoards boxes.
This meme sums it up perfectly:
The bar has been named!
We have been trying to think of a name for our bar since we moved in. (Granted we hadn’t given it that much thought, but we would throw out random names.) Nothing was right.
The previous owners called it the Long Bar—I thought it was because it was a long bar…but it was their last name (LOL). Doh!
So I posted on Facebook and TiVo and got some good suggestions!
Hudson Bar
Time Flies
The Dirty Secret
The Dirty Habit
The Dirty Major
H³ Bar – Hudson Happy Hour
Major Bar
Barry McBarface
Bartholomew Drunkins
Hold My Beer
Pub Club
Ground Control
Major Tom’s
Major Tom’s Retreat
The UMF
Peep Bar
The Jolly Major
Oohrah Inn/Bar
Semper Fi Saloon
Major Intoxication
Major T’s
FU Bar
At Ease
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
AND THE WINNER IS…
Ground Control! Yes, lots of Ground Control to Major Tom references were made and suggested and Tom liked that one the best (and the bar is going to be his “me room” with all of his military memorabilia).
Grandparent Camp handoff!
One last adventure before the transfer!
Gabby’s Graduation!
Gramma and Grandpa were headed to Gabby’s graduation party on Moccasin Lake in the U.P. (near Munising) so it was a perfect time to make the transfer. They got to spend the day with their cousins and had a great time!
Owen’s first raft ride behind a Jet Ski!
Waiting patiently.
First time in a hotel with them. We were tired enough, we all slept!It’s almost time to make the transfer…heading to the U.P.
They stopped at the deer farm in the U.P. near Brevort.
She just floomphs anywhere.
She let Gramma do piggies!
Back to the lake again!
The kids had such a great time Gramma and Grandpa took them back again!
Watching the designer work!
Don’t get excited thinking I’m showing too much… this is not the final look. This is just one picture of many different options she tried.
To be honest as she was doing it I was liking it, but /skipping a lot of design and redesign/ it ended up waaaaaay too flowery and poofy so I asked her to redo it. Those pics will come later!
Dairy Queen smiles!
Unexpected Room Attacks
I really wasn’t planning on cleaning Katie’s room (even though I desperately wanted to throw every single thing away because she’s really ungrateful). But it happened. I just could not stand this disaster any more. (And moreso because she swears she’s cleaned it and it’s always still a pit.)
- Lots of stuff shoved in the closet. I pulled out about five bath towels.
- I have no idea why this stuff was even in her room! Christmas cupcake wrappers and toothpick flags?!
- All the clothes we pulled out from all the little hidey holes she shoved stuff into.
- Just a regular shot of her room.
- Yes, a partially eaten donut. Rock hard. There’s not supposed to be food in the bedrooms for this very reason.
- More random stuff shoved into a drawer.
- Two bags of candy for my work that she didn’t have permission to eat.
- And why put a bed sheet in the drawer in your room where it goes…when you can shove it in another completely random drawer?
- And everything that was stuffed in just three drawers of her dresser.
We both worked in there for hours. We did all the laundry (at least 4-5 loads—which she had assured us all her laundry was done), picked up all the toys and crap, tossed all the garbage, organized things, and created two boxes of crap for her to go through and sort. If she doesn’t want to, it’s going straight into the garbage. This is her LAST chance. If she can’t keep it remotely picked up, she’s losing things. I hope she’s having fun at grandparent camp because life is changing when she gets home. I told Tom if he ever wanted to be a drill sergeant, now is going to be the time.
And when we moved the nightstand…
Sidenote: I did run across these. Cue ugly cry.
But lest you think we’re just picking on Katie…Owen’s room is getting cleaned out, too. I didn’t move from my initial position (between his desk and the bed) for almost two hours—there was so much crap shoved and crammed in/on/around/behind/under his desk/bed/drawers I wanted to scream. I mean I was duly impressed…but I wanted to scream.
Swim shirt and bathing suit he couldn’t find for weeks? Under the bed. A pack of winter thermal shirts? Desk drawer. Missing laundry bags? Under his bed. All the school notebooks I’d asked him to find that he claimed were gone? Everywhere. Dirty clothes? Everywhere. Candy wrappers? Everywhere.
And of course Katie notes!
I took out two bags of garbage, a bag of recycling, and did four loads of dirty laundry (when he said it was all done) including about six bath towels and 83 socks. I picked up approximately 712 Lego pieces, 128 Pokémon cards, 300 random playing cards and other assorted game pieces, a shoebox of markers/pens/pencils, and about 13 spiral school notebooks that have 2% schoolwork and 98% drawings in them. I steam cleaned the carpet and half-heartedly dusted. Oh, and Tom put up a new ceiling fan!
Life will sure be different for him post-grandparent camp as well.
I realize most of this is par for the course for kids and kids their age but I just. couldn’t. any. longer. I don’t mind a little mess or being unorganized. But both rooms were flat out disgusting.
Stay tuned.
YAY OWEN!
So Owen is still sometimes afraid of…weather. He doesn’t like wind or storms. So Gramma and Grandpa had a funeral to go to (that the kids didn’t need to go to) so I said it was fine to let them stay home alone. But Owen was VERY concerned because it was supposed to be stormy.
7/24 – Owen is watching the weather like a hawk. They both are afraid of thunderstorms and lightening. He especially is watching Tuesday for the funeral and is afraid of being alone if it storms. It is predicted to storm of course. I won’t leave them here alone if it is going to storm. We’ll watch the weather closely and if it storms we’ll make sure he is safe and not leave him alone. We’ll figure it out. Best case scenario is that the weather changes by then and it won’t storm! I told him that too, it’ll probably change by Tuesday. He seemed relieved and took it all in. He told me about the incident at Mike’s when he couldn’t reach you and it started raining and he was scared.
7/27 – The weather forecast changed so we did not get a single drop of rain. Kids did well. Katie wasn’t hungry so I guess she didn’t eat. I got her to admit she has one candy. But before we went, Owen was a champ. He said he’d be okay with it even if it rained or stormed. He said I have to learn to deal with it (or similar words). I asked if his counselor taught him some coping mechanisms and he said yes, and it helps/helped. I texted him once we got to the luncheon and they were fine. I know he played on his phone but he promised to share and he did. They did go outside for a short while and they watched TV. So, I think it was a huge stepping stone for him. Yay Owen!
Birthday shopping trip!
Katie got a birthday check from Gramma but she wanted to spend it in person…
From Gramma Jean: We went to Dollar Tree tonight before dinner and she wanted a basket to shop! Got two pair of flip flops and some other stuff, spent $12. I told her I would give her the balance so she had to get pencil and paper and figure out how much that would be. I said she could take the rest to granny’s and she said, not to be mean but shopping there is worse than here! (Choices of stores & options) I’ll give her the balance in an envelope. She’s funny. I pretty much let her choose what she was going to buy. She carefully thought about each one. Cute.
Yep those are my kids!
This just in from Grandparent Camp—two of those little dots out there are our kids! They really only get to swim in a lake up north—they are pool babies—so this is a special treat. Katie is freaked out by fish in the water potentially touching her but Gramma Jean says she’s in up to her neck so this is a big deal!
Gramma said later that they were out there for HOURS. Yep, those are my kids!
The bar is coming along…
We absolutely love our bar and it’s totally amazing…but it was missing a few things.
We really wanted footrests—so dad and Linda offered to pay for them as a housewarming gift! Tom installed them today and they are perfection!
And I’ve always wanted a slot machine and long story short we looked at a few (and I adjusted my expectations) and we decided on this one (it’s not crazy noisy)! The kids are going to go crazy! (That isn’t quite the final resting place—Tom will build something.)
More things are coming, too!! I can’t wait!
Kids at the canoe marathon!
From Gramma Jean: Owen and Katie wanted to go see the start of the race so the three of us went to DQ and then parked at my old office and walked down to Joe’s to watch them. It was fun and they enjoyed it.
When the kids are away…
You can leave at the drop of a hat for dinner out with old friends and new friends an hour away to celebrate National Tequila Day! We drove to Aurora to meet at El Jefe.
Anna and Jami were meeting for the first time but they said it was like they already knew each other! (They met just by posting in my Facebook business group and then friended each other.)
The Al Pastor tacos (me) and octopus (Tom) were both delicious. We also loved the guac trio, the oysters, the flaming cheese, and the margaritas!
The only bad thing was that the music was SO STINKING LOUD that we couldn’t even hear anyone at the ttable—so we really only got to talk to the people directly next to us.
Tom’s looking at trucks!
David recently got a new truck and the boys are just totally geeking out over it. It has totally refreshed Tom’s want of a truck and he’s been researching so when he’s ready, he’ll know what he wants.
Well we were out today and drove by a dealership so I made him stop. And I had to take a picture of me next to the bed to show just how ridiculous the size of this thing is.
This thing is so high it has running boards that pop down when you unlock it—except the battery was dead so it didn’t work so I had to practically pole vault to get in. Still being in recovery I probably shouldn’t even have tried but I thought I could do it easy.
Ha ha. Ha ha ha. What a joke. I barely pulled myself up and crashed into the seat. I just can’t imagine having a vehicle that high and hard to get into (I know it would have running boards but still—yikes). So time will tell.
Staples be gone!
Today is my follow up #pissygallbladder appointment to get my staples removed. I’m wondering if the doctor will even recognize me. If only I had my CCTM in the hospital I would have looked MUCH different.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when removing the staples but I honestly wasn’t expecting him to just pull them straight out! It didn’t hurt and it makes sense that’s how they do it but it was just weird.
I asked about the sizes of the gallbladder and stones because they were supposed to give me pics and never did. First he said the big one was the size of a marble but then he said the size of a small egg. And the other ones (which were hundreds?) were the size of small peas. I’m not sure he knows/remembers/cares but regardless, that’s a ton.
Off to grandparent camp!
It’s time for a road trip to take the kids to Michigan for Grandparent Camp! Usually we go all the way to Grayling but we decided to try something different this year and meet halfway!
I’m not sure what Katie is pissy about other than that’s her normal look these days. (I told you!)
One of the few times she’s sweet.
Our meeting point was Bilbo’s, one of our favorite restaurants from East Lansing that we hadn’t been to in 20 years (since we got married and left Michigan). We were excited that Kalamazoo was the halfway point!
Making the actual transfer! We’re free! Good luck and Godspeed!
Seriously though, the kids absolutely love this time with the grandparents and couldn’t be more excited… especially after Covid put the kibosh on camp last summer. Here’s to making memories!!
We both forgot a key store.
Backstory:
So Tom and I had been to what felt like every decent furniture store in a pretty wide radius trying to find the exact last piece we needed—and just couldn’t find anything. We finally found something that was comfortable and about the right color (we thought) but we got it home and meh—not it. (It clashed with the other gray couch since they were different tones.) So we decided it was a temporary piece and we could take our time finding exactly what we wanted and maybe even get something made.
FAST FORWARD TO TODAY
We were chatting today and someone said something about La-Z Boy. And I was like wait, whaaaaat?
Yes, we’d forgotten about the huge furniture store in town. UGHHHHH. So we decided we had to go just to say we did—and surprise—we found a perfect piece. BECAUSE OF COURSE.
So good news…we found something we like a lot better. Bad news? We’ll need to sell the other couch when this one comes in in September. But at least we have good seating in the meantime!
Why does a haircut make him look so old?
I then told him to give me a look—
And then of course I had to get a picture with him—
