I legit pulled into a Kenosha business park driving to my allergy patch test to watch the peak eclipse.
And can you tell on our solar usage when the eclipse happened?
Eclipse day!
Category Archives: Nature
It’s fall, y’all.
I love this tree in our front yard!
Lesson learned and Pemaquid Point
Last night we had asked Owen to take out the lobster waste and set the bucket inside the garbage bins (because it was too dark to go too the beach and dump in the water—but it couldn’t stay in the house or be left out where animals could get it.
Never underestimate the non-listening power of a teen brain. This is what we found in the morning. He somehow missed that we said to put the lobster shells IN the garbage bin and just left it on the porch. So then he got the glorious job of cleaning it all up! We all had a good laugh.
Then it was off on another adventure—to my mom’s favorite spot: Pemaquid Point!
You’ve seen the lobster dinner, now see our dessert! Everyone loves strawberry shortcake!
Our beach, Mount Battie & food!
There were LOTS of rocks between us and the beach.
Heading back up to the house to get ready for the day’s adventure!
On top of Mount Battie.
Then it was off to the surprise for the kids—Uncle Willy’s Candy Shoppe. They each got $10 to spend there ($5 from Grauntie Rose and $5 from me) and Katie spent all of it plus some of her own while Owen didn’t spend a penny and saved it instead.
This was one of the things she got—fruit flavored if you were wondering.
And this was what I got—it was interesting.
Then we went to mom’s favorite place for dinner—The Happy Clam. And of course I had to try their infamous Blueberry margarita!
Katie was enthralled with the old school playground so she spent most of her time out there! After dinner we took pictures!
Then Owen got involved!
I saw all of this on one walk!
Friday Fave: nice grass!
If you don’t think walking through nice grass is something to love, then you are spoiled and you’ve never had crappy grass to walk on!!
The high school band practice field isn’t top-of-the-line grass but it’s green and soft and feels great to walk on!
Northern lights?!
My mom and I went out to see what we could see—I love that our street is basically a Dark Sky park! It was my first attempt ever at seeing if there are northern lights… I changed my phone’s camera settings, and maaaaybe I see a little bit?
Backyard reading views!
What a beautiful evening sky
Our gorgeous red tree!
The view from our yard.
Beautiful evening sky!
Fall is coming!
I took Olive on a walk this morning and had to stop and marvel at the fall scene down the street.
A bit misty and chilly up at the top today.
An evening at Agate
Esrey Park
The kids love this park—and it’s right down the road from the house—so we took them there tonight!
And the best of the bunch.
My first lilacs of the season!
OMGGGGGGG!!! I casually mentioned to a client that anytime she wanted to bring me a bouquet of lilacs…
And look what appeared on my porch today?!
My kitchen smells sooooo good!
I’m gonna take this as a sign.
Look what happened during Owen’s championship baseball game tonight?!
I’m gonna take it as a sign that both cats found each other over the rainbow bridge, are now looking for their old buddy Fuzzy, and are patiently awaiting our arrival.
A little rock climbing
The kids wanted to go back to the nearby roadside park to climb the rocks again so Anna took them…and got some great pics!
Birch projects await!
Thankfully David and Anna let us put them in their RV to take home so we could keep them full length!
Some of the fruits of David’s labor
At the Eagle Harbor beach!
It was sunny and nice but the water was freezing (as expected). We all walked the shore and looked (somewhat successfully) for beach glass. The kids did go in the water a tiny bit but didn’t swim!
Look what Tom just found on the sidewalk?!
We’re keeping it until the kids get home then it’s being released back into the world.
Katie gave me my first lilacs!
No, they didn’t come off my new lilac bushes. Thankfully.
My first purchased bouquet.
Anna always has a full vase on her island (sometimes fake, sometimes real) and I love it, so I bought a cool vase and bought a bouquet at Sam’s Club.
My first Halo!
I saw this while out today—I’d never seen anything like it and had to Google when I got home.
This might be the best forest preserve we have been to yet.
We had to go pick up a Facebook purchase for Katie’s room and I knew we’d be close to some parks…and it was finally a sunny day…so we dragged the whole family along. We hadn’t been here before but we will definitely be back! Lots of parking, lots of great trails (paved and wooded), pavilions, bathrooms, a lake…and a ton of Pokémon stops!!
A long day’s drive for dad’s tools.
The running joke for countless years has been that Tom was only in this marriage for my dad’s tools. Well, the time has finally come…my dad agreed to give up some of his tools that he just doesn’t use anymore.
So Tom and David drove up to the U.P. with a trailer (and David’s truck) to haul everything back. David had never been up there before so of course Tom had to take him up Brockway Mountain.
They were only there for about an hour and a half siteseeing and loading and then it was back home in the same day! They left at 5a and got home shortly after 10p!
The kids took us to the river!
A neighbor took the kids on a bike ride to the river the other day and that’s ALL they can talk about. They went back a time or two by themselves and really wanted to show us (mostly so we’d let them go by themselves once we saw how they could get there without traveling on the main road)…so we finally agreed.
First you ride through the church parking lot. At the far back corner there’s a strip of grass that you ride across which connects to a dead end neighborhood cul-de-sac. Then you ride up to the front and hop a curb and ride on some grass untill you reach the sidewalk then take that until you reach the next street and then you ride all the way to the end in another cul-de-sac where there’s a…creek. River is exaggerating a bit.
It is pretty back there… Can you see the kids? They are on their favorite rocks. Owen calls one of them his thinking rock.
Underneath is more fun… traipsing through the water in their rain boots.
This is exactly the kind of place I’d have loved to explore and play at as a kid so I get the fascination. I just wish they’d found it before we were ready to move. They’ll just have to explore the new neighborhood…
Sooooooo many lilacs on our walk!
We went for another walk in our neighborhood today—we wanted to see how long it would take Owen to walk to school. Turns out it’s about 15 minutes door to door! (We have no idea how long the bus route will take but we figured at least it’s a backup!)
Anyway…there were a TON of lilac bushes among the whole route. I finally stopped to take a picture with some. These were white but there were all colors!
After our walk on the way home we stopped at the elementary school where I had seen a gigantic lilac bush and had been wanting to go back and snip some for a bouquet. Unfortunately they were mostly dried out so I only got a few small sprigs. Katie wanted to hold them and then turned into a ham.
