Y’all remember last year when I got to go behind the bar and stick my head under the thimbleberry margarita spout, right?
Well, this year I wasn’t expecting that but I did want more of those delicious thimbleberry margaritas… The kids were at a birthday party so the four of us headed out.
But let’s start at the beginning…
Step 1. Thar she is. Thimbleberry margaritas. 💕
Step 2. Soooooo good.
Professional (me) vs Amateur (Linda) 😂 Round 2 coming shortly.
Step 3. Ask to go behind the bar to get a picture. Get told no because there’s a camera. Say “Well I’ve been back there before…” and get the response “OH THAT WAS YOU? I REMEMBER THAT! COME ON BACK!” 😍🙌
Step 4. Get a third drink because VACATION. They also aren’t that strong.
Papa and Grannie bought Katie a smaller kayak so she could do it herself…but for now she was still tethered to Grannie. Owen does really well in the bigger kayak!
Normally I wouldn’t do this much makeup on vacation but we are having a family event at the house—probably 40ish people I didn’t know, haven’t seen in 30 years, or have seen twice in my life. So yes, there were margaritas. 😜
I couldn’t get a good enough look. My best guess is they just kept getting new themed stickers and added them. Or they did their entire extended family? I really want to say the dad is military (I think I see a cover on one the figures) and there are three sets of 6. So a family of six? I queried on Facebook and a grandma gave me a good idea:
I think they are grandparents and it starts with them and their kids and their kids grown up with their own children….etc. That’s my theory now that I am in that grandmother kingdom.
One thing I love about our family is our traditions. Today we’ve spent the day together celebrating Christmas in July—something we started about six years ago when we got tired of the hustle and bustle during December.
We eat lots of food (Aunt Marilyn always brings german potato salad, Lisa T brings a corn salad, Lori brings taco salad, Aunt Marge brings shrimp and pizza lasagna, and there’s lots of grilling of brats, burgers and ribs—we all have meat sweats by late afternoon since we just can’t stop eating).
We do a white elephant gift exchange—and without fail, one of the women somehow ends up with a tool and ends up just giving it away after trading is over.
We take a family photo—and everyone gives my mom grief—but because of her, we have family photos dating back a loooong time. And I take a cousin photo.
Depending on the location, there’s a fishing contest or turtle races or both, there are lawn games, sometimes there are fireworks and a campfire and s’mores.
There’s always cards (euchre, of course, since we’re midwest people).
And eventually a game of Cooties breaks out and we relive the best stories from the glory days when we all played Cooties for a week when we camped together (Greg was a master from a young age, and today he proved he still has it).
So we all got to wondering…is our family the only one that plays Cooties? Do you have any idea what Cooties even is? I asked on Facebook and predicted 90% would have no idea, and I was dead on. If you don’t count the people directly associated with our family, 91% of the people didn’t know what I was talking about…and most of them thought I was talking about the box game Cootie. (To be honest, I totally forgot the box game was even a thing when I initially posted!!)
So what IS our cooties? I went to Google to see if I could find a succinct definition and I really couldn’t find anything. What? Google failed me? Eventually I found this, which is the basis of our game:
It’s an infection tag game, whereby one person has the cooties and must try to pass it on to someone else. You can’t get the cooties if your fingers are crossed. So if you are the one with cooties, you must catch someone who isn’t paying attention (hence my fingers crossed in the photo). There are lots of good stories, but the best one (and is the aforementioned one with my cousin Greg), is as follows.
We were all packing up and rolling out after a week of camping (pretty sure it was the annual trip to Harrisville). I don’t know how old I was, but it was before my parents divorced, so it was before 4th grade—I’d guess I was maybe 7 or 8? We were in the Oldsmobile ’88 pulling our popup camper, slowly driving out towards the campground exit when we see Greg (who is 4 years older than me, so right about pre-teen) FLAT OUT RUNNING towards us waving his arms crazily. Of course we stopped, assuming we had forgotten something or there was some other emergency (he had cut through the woods to get to us). My mom rolled down her window (was it my mom? how is this part hazy?) and Greg came right up to the car, reached out, and smacked her arm while yelling COOTIES! And there was much laughter on his part and much confusion and damnation on our part!! We had been sooooo close to escaping! And obviously cooties were the last thing on our minds. Well played, Greg, well played. The fact that we’re still talking about it almost 40 years later really says something.
When you learn awesome party tricks from your elders: Tequila-infused watermelon with salted limes. Aunt Rose, you rock!
The annual cousin lineup, by age: 7, 10½, 11, 12 (almost 13), 14 (almost 15).
And Nick is pulling away, which is okay since he is almost five years older!!
Adding older cousin Alex (17) to the mix (Jess was working).
I introduced Lisa to a few new products.
Unfortunately, it was a stormy day so we had to dodge rain and lightning for most of the afternoon…but, on the plus side, it wasn’t 100° with 95% humidity! My hair kinda grew throughout the day.
There was a fishing contest… Aubrey is a Master Fisher so she helped my kids. I was surprised at how long they kept at it! (Of course Tom was out there, too.)
Darrell caught the biggest one:
And then this happened…
Someone started the cooties!! (I think that will be a blog post in itself!) So for the last two hours we all had to keep our fingers crossed! We reminisced about the old days and learned Greg still has what it takes!
The big bummer? Lisa and Alex left pretty early and with the rain throwing things off, we totally forgot to take our group photo!
I love coming home to visit. Hubby and I leave the kids with Gramma and Grampa and we hit all the local shops we love—shout out to Tip’n the Mitten which is always our first stop (I love me some 100% Michigan-made products) and then it was the AuSable Artisan Village (where my mom used to sell her Pysanky…and I have bought many things) and then some fireworks (since they’re not legal where we live)… and then, last but not least, Paddle Hard Brewing where I enjoyed two strawberry margaritas that made me SUPER happy and a little buzzed.
Do you have places you have to visit when you go home?
I ask Katie to try new food and I get whining and complaining. Grandma asks Katie to try a new food—raw rhubarb at that!—and she agrees eagerly. She didn’t even know that it would be dipped in sugar when she agreed to try it! And she liked it!
So let me preface this announcement by asking if you remember what one of my business goals was? Anyone? Bueller?
Yes, it was a family cruise. (I think I specifically said Disney, but realistically any cruise would suffice.) And we hoped the grandparents would tag along—I mean, what a great experience for the kids, right? And we’d all get an amazing vacation where no one has to cook or clean, we all get to relax and have fun with the kids, and hopefully escape some yucky Midwest weather.
So we forewarned the grandparents (they weren’t quite as excited as we were but they promised to think about it) and let our travel agent know we were looking for a good deal on a cruise. But then life takes over and you don’t think about it and time passes and you know that if you don’t actively engage, nothing will ever happen. And then something happens out of the blue and before you know it, you have put down a deposit on a cruise and it’s convenient to wait a few days to tell the kids after their party!
So what happened in an instant? New friends of ours (from baseball) that we’ve been hanging around with (and the kids love) were talking about a cruise they’re going on this fall. And not having any idea that a family cruise was actually in the back of our minds, she (possibly mostly in jest) said “You guys should come with us!” So I took a breath and said “You know, that might just work!”
It was the cruise line we just went on last year (almost the same ship, too) so that was a plus. A quick check of the calendar and with Tom (who pretty much gave an immediate and unequivocal YES!), and a few quick messages with our travel agent…and the cruise was booked! (Our TA even said he’s never booked a cruise that fast before!)
Long multiple-day story short, my dad and stepmom decided to go, too, so that’s awesome and we’re super excited. (We really tried to convince my mom and stepdad to go but weren’t successful.)
In the meantime, Tom started watching YouTube videos about the ship, pretending we were just showing the kids examples of cruises. We reaffirmed that we would be going on a cruise before we moved again, but that still left us two years.
We honestly didn’t think too much about how we were going to tell them, so after the party I rushed to the basement and cobbled together a card with the cruise info on it so they’d read it and hopefully we’d get a great video reaction.
Well, as usual, things didn’t go quite as we’d thought…
Filipeks and Coes left super early this morning because they had a long drive and had to be back for work Monday. So that meant it was just the Hudson and Schwalm clans.
Katie was trying to sneak the flower crown on Gramma.
Look at this gorgeous little flower girl. I can feel the hearts breaking already.
They had so much fun with the “breakout box” that they played with it again this morning.
Someone finally got a bath!! I only had my body wash with me but once you turned the jets on it was bubbles galore!!
When Schwlams were leaving it was a bit rainy so we decided to look in the landscaping rocks for Petoskeys…we didn’t think we’d really find any, even though I had already found one. Mom thought it was random luck—like someone tossed one out there. So I went out and proceeded to find one within about two minutes. And then found more! I can find them anywhere!!
And then I found this, which I had no idea what it was. I posted on a Petoskey forum and was told it was a great Rugose Horn Coral colony.
There was also more pool time, of course. But also lots of time playing Peggle with Gramma. 😄
We were sleeping in an awesomely dark and quiet basement room so combined with a late bedtime, we all slept in! I was up at 7:30 (technically 6:30 CST) and just waited for either kid to wake up. Owen finally got up about 8:30! I stayed in bed to enjoy the quiet and when I finally came upstairs, this is where I found Owen.
And I decided to have a fully relaxing no makeup day.
The kids spent most of their day in and out of the pool. Spending time with Uncle Jim was super fun and they even had a cannonball contest!
While the kids were (still) in the pool I got some work done. Not a bad view.
The kids were finally out of the pool and playing hide and seek while we were getting dinner ready. Uncle Marcus and Uncle Jim we trying to confuse Katie as she counted.
The birthday kids!
And tonight was a campfire and sparkler night!
And it was a momentous night—Katie actually asked to go to bed!!!
The kids really wanted to get in the pool the minute we got to the house but I was a mean mom and made them look through the house first and then actually put their suitcases in a bedroom and not just leave them splayed open in the middle of the living room.
Watching intently as I opened the pool cover.
It’s like this pool house knew I was coming.
They might already be in the pool and I might have bought them an inflatable unicorn. 🦄💦
Ahhhhh.
We had a bit of time before everyone else got here. It was quite a steep journey to the water and fire pit.
Dinner tonight was shish kebabs from the Coes. They were delicious!
So this is what I’ll look like to meet the CEO. SeneBlue shirt and Purple Reign lips. It’ll work!
Breesy and me.
Just here to meet the CEO of my company and get a personal training with 35 other amazing women. 💙 Of course we had to stop at the sign and all take pics.
We had to drive under the highway to get there!! That was weird.
I guess this is us!
It’s harder than you’d think to get a pic like this without one or more of the 35 others behind you. You can see them reflected in my glasses, though.
After we signed in we were free to roam throughout the ranch. They don’t live there all the time but they do stay there. I loved the cement floors and the fact that it was all decluttered (life goals, right?).
The master bedroom…
And everyone was giddy over the closet. Including me.
Time for training! I may have gotten stuck in the back row.
Group pic before lunch! See, I wasn’t kidding about the blue and leopard!
The whole time we were watching the training, we were watching the workers set up for lunch. Of course it wasn’t just tables…so they literally spent three hours setting up!! And it was gorgeous!
I forgot—aren’t these earrings cute? They were a gift from our CP.
The next step in our journey—headquarters! I laughed at those taking pics in front of the sign but I’m kinda sad now that I didn’t.
Beauty bar!
On the tour, look who I saw on the wall?! My friend Morgan who you’ve seen before on my blog. I texted this to her and she didn’t even know it was up there!
Second round of training!
Back at the main house relaxing poolside. I could learn to love this. And yes, there’s a margarita just out of frame.
The Crown Princess I’ve been mentioning—the lovely Jenna. She’s so cute and tiny I just want to put her in my pocket.
Then we broke out into small training groups for an hour after dinner and then it was back to our house to get in the hot tub.
So about six months ago I was pulled into a Facebook messenger leaders group with a bunch of other women that are all part of a certain leader’s downline. I was curious about how I was included because I am technically not part of her OFFICIAL downline (so she can’t see any of my statistics) but I was too excited to ask too many questions. We are basically a sounding board for each other and we have the ears of an amazing crown princess (CP) leader. In order to stay in the group (get special trainings, stay in the chat group) we have to keep up our own leadership qualities and our sales. It’s been amazing.
Then we were offered the opportunity to travel to Oklahoma for a personal training by the CEO of our company at her ranch. I debated for a bit (since it was right around the time of my anniversary and that’s always when I have my deep thoughts about what I’m doing going forward)…but I signed up. So here we are. 😀
I’m getting ready to head out in my SeneBlue outfit and leopard bag (the unofficial company print). I can’t believe I have everything I need in this tiny bag—but I refuse to pay to check a damn bag!
This is the look of someone who popped a Xanax this morning because my travel anxiety was out of control. I could feel my heart beating faster and it felt like my insides were rising up into my chest. (Much like I feel when we drive into Chicago.) Not debilitating by any stretch, but not fun. So I decided to be an adult and try and fix it. I hope the pills are still good—they’re from 2014 (2015?) when Tom last deployed. And I’m not sure I even took one back then, so instead of being older and wiser, apparently my thing is older and more anxious.
A sushi lunch at O’Hare because you’re two hours early for your flight.
Feeling somewhat relaxed on the plane.
❌ Con? I forgot my big ass phone charger at my seat and I realized it within five minutes of getting off the plane and they went and checked and it’s gone so someone is now the proud owner of a stolen $50 phone charger. 😡
✅ Pro? My friend was close enough to the airport to stop and get me so I didn’t have to get an Uber.
A few quick pics of the awesome house half of us stayed at.
Stopping to get party supplies!
The last pic of my night. Because me. 😄 (Margarita sidenote: they weren’t the best but it was still a margarita.)
I will say it was a little overwhelming meeting 35 women throughout the night (contrary to what most people think, I am an introvert), but it was an amazing feeling knowing I was hand-picked to be in the Leader’s group and then kept up my sales in order to qualify for this trip! (I also did ask and found out that the Crown Princess asked about me and got my info and personally hand-picked me!!)
Tomorrow, though, is the big day when we have a personal training session with our CEO at her ranch!!! I can’t wait!
Yes, these masks might have freaked them out just a bit hiding in their big Santa bags. 😂
Tom and I were up before 7…but the kids weren’t—their phones were still outside their bedroom doors!! Well, if I was up they were going to be up [dammit!] so just as I was about to get Owen up he walked out, and then we had him wake Katie up!
Santa screwed up a little by using the same paper for our gifts, too, and not making sure ours all had name tags… The kids were too excited to see their paper on other gifts that weren’t in their Santa bags so ended up opening a few of ours. Oh well. Maybe next year Santa won’t start wrapping quite so late.
Look at this gorgeous little flower girl. I can feel the hearts breaking already.
