Tomorrow is my last day of work! I've been training my replacement since last week Friday. I'm REALLY looking forward to spending time with the boys - and NOT driving 3 hours a day for a 4 hour work day!!!
Logan thinks that we're going to Michigan's Adventure on the first day of summer vacation for Joshua, lol. It's not easy telling a 3 year old that we'll go sometime this summer, but probably not the first day of vacation :)
I can't wait to spend days at the beach, 10 minutes away from home. I want to take my kids down to see my family in Toledo - take them to the zoo, let them get to know their cousins - all that fun stuff. Just to be able to hang out with the boys and not do ANYTHING special. I've never been able to do that before - always had to work all summer long.
I'm a little nervous about the single income, lol, but I know Rick will take care of us :)
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Living in Michigan
I've lived in West Michigan my entire life. I was lucky enough to have a dad who worked with my grandpa in the family business of selling travel trailers. I have done my fair share of camping. Everything from Jellystone Park, which is like a resort and not really camping at all, to "roughing it" as we used to call it, up north by the Mackinac Bridge where we were lucky to find an outhouse. My grandpa has a cabin north of Baldwin on Wolf Lake. Most of my summer weekends when I was a kid were spent either at the trailer on Big Star Lake (also in Baldwin) spending days at the cabin, or spending the whole weekend at the cabin. I've never been scared up there.
My brothers wanted to go hunting for morel mushrooms this weekend - this is a Michigan tradition. They grow at my house in Whitehall, under the neighbors Elm trees. We've done a lot of hunting for morels by the cabin, but we decided to try the Ludington area this time. My family has always loved hiking and we would often take day trips to Ludington State Park to hike the trails up there. After having a picnic up there at Lost Lake (at the request of Kevin), we took off for the trails.
2 hours of morel hunting / hiking later, we decided that we needed a different area. Maybe it was too sandy where we were looking, not enough Elm and Ash trees - who knows. But, we were not finding anything.
Out of the State Park we went and we jumped onto M-10. That highway takes you east all the way to Baldwin. It's about a half an hours drive from Ludington to the cabin. We got in, parked at the cabin and took off for the woods. Too dry and too many pines. We searched for a couple of hours, got eaten alive by mosquitoes (they were SO BAD there!!!), and gave up. Decided to head into Baldwin for a pit stop at Jones Ice Cream - yet another family tradition.
We leave the cabin and jump onto M-37, which is the "main drag" and will take us into town. We're heading south - my brother Kevin is driving - when we saw something we had NEVER seen before.
A Black Bear. Crossing the road. Right in front of the car. Oh, and it came out of the SAME woods we had JUST been in!!! In the back of my mind, I knew that there were bears up there. But, I've never been worried of them in the woods. And I've never really seen any sign of them either. Until today.
So, we struck out when it came to morels, but we saw a bear. That made up for a wasted day of morel hunting, LOL. For the rest of the night, the three of us just kept looking at each other saying "Wow. We saw a Black Bear. At the cabin!".
I've heard rumors of Mountain Lions in Baldwin too - I'm going to have to do a little looking around. That makes me more nervous than bears.
The joys of living in Michigan!!!
My brothers wanted to go hunting for morel mushrooms this weekend - this is a Michigan tradition. They grow at my house in Whitehall, under the neighbors Elm trees. We've done a lot of hunting for morels by the cabin, but we decided to try the Ludington area this time. My family has always loved hiking and we would often take day trips to Ludington State Park to hike the trails up there. After having a picnic up there at Lost Lake (at the request of Kevin), we took off for the trails.
2 hours of morel hunting / hiking later, we decided that we needed a different area. Maybe it was too sandy where we were looking, not enough Elm and Ash trees - who knows. But, we were not finding anything.
Out of the State Park we went and we jumped onto M-10. That highway takes you east all the way to Baldwin. It's about a half an hours drive from Ludington to the cabin. We got in, parked at the cabin and took off for the woods. Too dry and too many pines. We searched for a couple of hours, got eaten alive by mosquitoes (they were SO BAD there!!!), and gave up. Decided to head into Baldwin for a pit stop at Jones Ice Cream - yet another family tradition.
We leave the cabin and jump onto M-37, which is the "main drag" and will take us into town. We're heading south - my brother Kevin is driving - when we saw something we had NEVER seen before.
A Black Bear. Crossing the road. Right in front of the car. Oh, and it came out of the SAME woods we had JUST been in!!! In the back of my mind, I knew that there were bears up there. But, I've never been worried of them in the woods. And I've never really seen any sign of them either. Until today.
So, we struck out when it came to morels, but we saw a bear. That made up for a wasted day of morel hunting, LOL. For the rest of the night, the three of us just kept looking at each other saying "Wow. We saw a Black Bear. At the cabin!".
I've heard rumors of Mountain Lions in Baldwin too - I'm going to have to do a little looking around. That makes me more nervous than bears.
The joys of living in Michigan!!!
Monday, May 11, 2009
Mom's Special Day!
For all the moms out there, I hope you had a beautiful day! No one said being a mom was easy, but if you are one, you know how huge the payoff is!!
I had a wonderful Mothers Day. For the first time since being a mom, my day was about me. In years past, we've always gone to see our moms, or invited them over for brunch or dinner. This year I just wanted to stay home. Do yardwork and spend the day with MY family. I figured that our moms have had many more Mothers Days than I have, so they wouldn't mind. Glad I was right and they were so understanding :)
Joshua was in my room as soon as he woke up (like 7am). He had made me some gifts at school and hid them in his room. He's been waiting so patiently for Mothers Day to roll around. I wish I could have recorded his face... he was so excited it literally melted my heart!! As soon as that boy woke up he was in my room asking me if I was ready for his gifts. They were so sweet! A hand-stamped card, bookmark, and sunflower picture that said "My love for you grows, and grows, and grows."
After that, the "boys" (Rick included), decided I needed to sleep in. They wouldn't let me get up until 9:40am!!! I snuggled with them all, and then laid in bed by myself (not sleeping, just "sleeping in"). Then the kids would come back in for a while, then leave again. It was so important to them that I "sleep in" that I didn't have the heart to get out of bed until they told me I could, LOL!!
Rick made me french toast (yum!!) and then while I was in the shower, he and Josh assembled my gift:
I told Rick when we first looked at this house that if we bought it, I wanted a hammock. So, Happy Mothers Day to me!!!
We spent the rest of the day doing yardwork, took a drive to Lake Michigan, went for ice cream, and did some geocaching (which Rick doesn't really enjoy, but Joshua and I do, so it was nice that the whole family came along). Then home to relax in the hot tub and do laundry before bed. I even got a Mothers Night backrub before I fell asleep, lol!!
It's so easy to get caught up in all the busyness of having young kids, so it was so nice to spend the day just enjoying them for a while! I often lose sight of the fact that they won't be little for long and expect them to act older than they are... One day I know I'll regret that, so I'm trying to stop thinking that way. It's not worth it! Soon enough they'll be big and they'll never be little again! I don't want to miss out on any more of that! I'm actually done working at the end of the month and I cannot tell how much I am looking forward to that!!!!!
Be on the lookout for millions of pics of the boys as we get closer and closer to summer :)
I had a wonderful Mothers Day. For the first time since being a mom, my day was about me. In years past, we've always gone to see our moms, or invited them over for brunch or dinner. This year I just wanted to stay home. Do yardwork and spend the day with MY family. I figured that our moms have had many more Mothers Days than I have, so they wouldn't mind. Glad I was right and they were so understanding :)
Joshua was in my room as soon as he woke up (like 7am). He had made me some gifts at school and hid them in his room. He's been waiting so patiently for Mothers Day to roll around. I wish I could have recorded his face... he was so excited it literally melted my heart!! As soon as that boy woke up he was in my room asking me if I was ready for his gifts. They were so sweet! A hand-stamped card, bookmark, and sunflower picture that said "My love for you grows, and grows, and grows."
After that, the "boys" (Rick included), decided I needed to sleep in. They wouldn't let me get up until 9:40am!!! I snuggled with them all, and then laid in bed by myself (not sleeping, just "sleeping in"). Then the kids would come back in for a while, then leave again. It was so important to them that I "sleep in" that I didn't have the heart to get out of bed until they told me I could, LOL!!
Rick made me french toast (yum!!) and then while I was in the shower, he and Josh assembled my gift:
I told Rick when we first looked at this house that if we bought it, I wanted a hammock. So, Happy Mothers Day to me!!!
We spent the rest of the day doing yardwork, took a drive to Lake Michigan, went for ice cream, and did some geocaching (which Rick doesn't really enjoy, but Joshua and I do, so it was nice that the whole family came along). Then home to relax in the hot tub and do laundry before bed. I even got a Mothers Night backrub before I fell asleep, lol!!
It's so easy to get caught up in all the busyness of having young kids, so it was so nice to spend the day just enjoying them for a while! I often lose sight of the fact that they won't be little for long and expect them to act older than they are... One day I know I'll regret that, so I'm trying to stop thinking that way. It's not worth it! Soon enough they'll be big and they'll never be little again! I don't want to miss out on any more of that! I'm actually done working at the end of the month and I cannot tell how much I am looking forward to that!!!!!
Be on the lookout for millions of pics of the boys as we get closer and closer to summer :)
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Whirlwind!
It's been pretty crazy here lately... Started last week Friday when my brother Mike's girlfriend's sister starting having major complications after having a baby on Wednesday. Spent the evening snuggling the baby at her house while the family was all at the hospital - amazingly enough I didn't get 'lil girl fever!! I thought for sure I'd go home with the idea of having another one in the back of my head. Didn't happen though, which is good, because I really DON'T want to have another baby right now!
Spent Saturday doing a little geocaching in the morning and then helping my step-mom, Sue get ready for a birthday party. My dad celebrates the big 5-0 tomorrow, so we were celebrating early. My feet were KILLING me by the time 9pm rolled around and Rick and I headed home shortly after that. Got home, watched a movie and went to bed! We were up at 5am on Sunday to head down to Indianapolis. Spent the day there and then came home Sunday night after dinner. Got home between 11pm and 11:30pm, hit the sack, and woke up for work yesterday! It was a pretty jam packed weekend!
I've decided to leave my job at the end of May. Since we moved to Whitehall, I'm now70 miles from work! I have to leave at 8:30am to be to work at 10:00am!! And then I drive another hour and a half to get home! It's not worth being on the road for 3 hours for a 4 hour workday... So, I'm for sure taking the summer off. Not sure what I'll do in the fall - depends on what we can afford. I'm really looking forward to being able to do so many fun things with Josh and Logan this summer!! It'll be nice not to have to push everything back to the weekend. There aren't enough weekends in the summer!!
Oh, funny development... Rick and my brother are driving mopeds to California to raise awareness for the American Cancer Society and Relay for Life!! I think we're going to call it "Cruising for a Cure". They plan to leave the second week in June. They will be gone for probably 2 weeks for the round trip. I'm sure glad I don't have to ride a moped that far!!
Mother's Day is this weekend and then my birthday is next Friday, so that should all be fun! I'm not planning anything for my birthday... Rick is always really busy this time of year, so I'm not holding my breath for anything, lol. Same thing for our anniversary in July, lol... We always plan stuff but it falls through because of work.
Ciao for now!
Spent Saturday doing a little geocaching in the morning and then helping my step-mom, Sue get ready for a birthday party. My dad celebrates the big 5-0 tomorrow, so we were celebrating early. My feet were KILLING me by the time 9pm rolled around and Rick and I headed home shortly after that. Got home, watched a movie and went to bed! We were up at 5am on Sunday to head down to Indianapolis. Spent the day there and then came home Sunday night after dinner. Got home between 11pm and 11:30pm, hit the sack, and woke up for work yesterday! It was a pretty jam packed weekend!
I've decided to leave my job at the end of May. Since we moved to Whitehall, I'm now70 miles from work! I have to leave at 8:30am to be to work at 10:00am!! And then I drive another hour and a half to get home! It's not worth being on the road for 3 hours for a 4 hour workday... So, I'm for sure taking the summer off. Not sure what I'll do in the fall - depends on what we can afford. I'm really looking forward to being able to do so many fun things with Josh and Logan this summer!! It'll be nice not to have to push everything back to the weekend. There aren't enough weekends in the summer!!
Oh, funny development... Rick and my brother are driving mopeds to California to raise awareness for the American Cancer Society and Relay for Life!! I think we're going to call it "Cruising for a Cure". They plan to leave the second week in June. They will be gone for probably 2 weeks for the round trip. I'm sure glad I don't have to ride a moped that far!!
Mother's Day is this weekend and then my birthday is next Friday, so that should all be fun! I'm not planning anything for my birthday... Rick is always really busy this time of year, so I'm not holding my breath for anything, lol. Same thing for our anniversary in July, lol... We always plan stuff but it falls through because of work.
Ciao for now!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)