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Category Archives: Vacation

A damn fine day.

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We started the day at the craft show…where Katie decided to spend some of her money on a henna tattoo!

Then the kids took grandma and grandpa’s bikes out for a spin. Can you see them?

Right in the center of the picture!

It’s not the pool and it’s not my egg chair but it’s still a damn fine day.

#backyardreading #northernmichigan #goodreadschallenge2022 #book34

My view!

I made the kids stay outside because it was just perfect weather. They’re making up their own rules to Candyland—which involved running around the house and naming fruits and vegetables. It’s crazy what creativity happens when they don’t have their devices!

Then Tom worked at getting the swing up!

And Owen enjoyed riding around the yard on grandma’s bike!

Once the swing was up, that was Katie’s favorite place to be! Sometimes she even let Owen push her!

Tom kept me from being parched with my new tumbler.

Got this photo update from Anna:

And then it was campfire and s’mores time!

Visiting our wedding brick!

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We were in Traverse City for lunch and a movie with the grandparents and kids—and I was charged with picking a lunch place. I chose The Filling Station which is what the dinner train (where we had our reception) has been turned into!

So of course we had to cross the tracks to the Traverse Area District Library to go find our wedding brick (egads, it was 20 years ago!). This was the first time we had to dig for it!

Just for reference, here’s where it is.

First selfie of the New Year and no makeup…

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This actually makes me soooo happy because I love that I love my skin and no longer feel the need to wear makeup before taking any pics! (If you want this freeing feeling, too, I’ll hook you up!)

Today has been a day of catching up and finishing the Emerald Extravaganza prizes, lazing around my mom’s house (I didn’t shower until 3p), working on a puzzle, enjoying the silence when my step brother and wife took all the kids to Hartwick Pines, and then enjoying homemade pizza in our Ooni pizza oven that we brought with us!

Katie’s down another tooth!

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Katie has had a loose tooth for quite some time. Of course, it became critical an hour after bedtime at gramma’s.

It was hanging by the tiniest string and of course she refused to pull it or to let us pull it. She wanted us to try and cut it (like David did with another of her loose teeth recently) so Tom was prepared…

But he ended up just pulling it out!

Heading home…

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Our first (of hopefully many!) vacations together really couldn’t have gone much better! Lots of laughs, relaxation, drinks, excellent food, shopping, outdoor stuff, and tons of memories…with only a few kid squabbles. It was over way too soon for sure. Thanks to my dad and stepmom for hosting our motley crew! Can’t wait to do it again!

Look what vacation can do!

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These two really don’t get along at home —Honey is just too young and wants to play hard all the time and Maggie is just too old and wants none of it. So we generally try to keep them separated so Honey doesn’t accidentally hurt Maggie… but today they were both tired so I put Maggie on top of/next to Honey and Honey stayed calm and they were totally nap buddies!

I was excited for a hot second.

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Anna and I went shopping in Copper Harbor and while she ran back into a store I looked down and saw my odometer said 9999.9 and I was suuuuuper excited that I caught it! So I was taking pics of it so I’d remember where we were… And then realized that that was the TRIP odometer and the actual odometer was already past 10,000. Lordy.

Kayaking, Day 2

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The boys were having a blast!

So Katie decided she wanted to go, too. And it started with super big happy smiles…and very quickly devolved into extreme pouting as she realized it was too windy and wasn’t as easy as she wanted. Ahhh vacation.

And this might be my fave photo from the whole trip… Happy boy.

Mini golf and a minor freak out

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We took the kids to mini golf in Copper Harbor and due to Covid (short staffing) there was no one working so you paid your money and grabbed the balls and clubs and you could play as long as you wanted! A total dream, right?

Wellllll, we thought they would have a blast and they were okay with us leaving them alone while we ran to check out the campground and general store… except as we were headed back, we saw three of them walking on the side of the road.

UMMMM WHAAAAAT?!

Turns out Owen freaked the hell out (he says because we were taking forever and he couldn’t get ahold of us—phones but no phone service). We thought we were beyond that behavior and paranoia (he’s been staying alone for awhile now) but apparently the not-having-contact thing was the breaking point. So he took off down the road to…try and find us? Find other adults? We’re not quite sure. But Katie and Aiden were with him so they kind of all stayed together.

Of course we felt horrible…but we had zero idea that would be an issue.

Up North Date Night

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Dad and Lin offered to watch the kids so we could have a date night—so we took them to The Fitz! It was sooooo delicious… And then after dinner we sat on the deck and enjoyed the weather and the view.

And on the way home, I might have stopped by a HUUUGE lilac bush and made David jump out and grab us some. (They were ALLLL over the place and I hadn’t gotten any fresh lilacs this year so I was kind of going crazy.)

And then…as Anna and I were enjoying the small bouquet…we realized that David was still cutting…and then he thrust a huge branch at us through the window!

Which we thought was absolutely hilarious.

Then we stopped at the Eagle Harbor Inn to see their bar (per Linda’s directive, so we could see their bar rails for ideas) and of course had to have a drink. My pretty one was Mermaid Water.

Then they wanted to go up Brockway Mountain Drive—and since I was the only sober one, I got to drive Dave’s truck!

And when we finally got home and went to get the ice… Ooops! With the crazy drive up and down the mountain and the bags Nott being tied tightly…

The date night continued when we got home—the weather was so nice that we went out and watched the sunset then had a fire!

And this is what happens when you tell drunk Tom we need more wood and there’s brush handy from when he cut branches earlier in the day.