Taking Advantage of Awesome Weather

September has just been a gorgeous month where we could not ask for more beautiful weather, something we like to take advantage of when we can! Last week found us parking our truck and taking a leisurely stroll around town. I love when we do this, as everyone is free to explore anything that catches their eyes that may seem interesting, no hurries, no worries, go where your interests and feet take you kind of days.

Over this past year we had watched several small local stores close down, yet now many new ones are opening up that we could explore. Such as the Coffee Cops and Doughnut shop where we ended our walk and yes of course ate a nice doughnut! The Neato Shop where we got a brand new condition bike for our daughter for $35! Yet sad the old Hobby shop was one of the ones that had closed down after being a local store for around 50 years! But at any rate it was wonderful exercise and a wonderful way to spend the day.

In other Areas we have watched Documentaries - Warrior Graveyard, The Science of Dogs ( National Geographic one) and then Mythbusters.

Baking has involved Peanut Butter Cookies and Brownies.

Watching YouTube videos on Dog Grooming, Music, Wildlife, Cake Decorating and many other things.

Writing letters to Sissy from a Monster High character perspective.

Math apps on the kindle, Math Games on computer Software and real life math applications.

Still Reading library books.

Life Skills are usual activities as well like doing dishes and vacuuming.

Of course since I have a hard time keeping up with blogging right now as I am catching up on many areas in my real world, there has been many other things I am forgetting too at this moment! I will have to work harder at regular blog posts here! Wink!

So that was last week and we are on a new week now.............with new things happening! Not to mention we are on a new MONTH already! Alright October lets Rock it out!

How did your September Go?

 

Summers End

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So summer is wrapping up and coming to an end, did you enjoy it and have a good time? While it flew by, we certainly had some good times although it was a tad chilly for a typical summer! I am excited about another new year starting with lots of ideas for activities and fun.......... always did love beginnings! At the same time I am enjoying reflecting on some memorable moments we were able to have over this summer.

 

The Middle photo is one of my daughters latest anime works, she loves to draw anime and it is awesome to see her develop her talents. She drew quite a few over the summer and they never cease to surprise me and I never tire of seeing them!

 

The other 2 photos were of a visit to Potters Park Zoo which is in Lansing, Michigan....... while fairly small it was a lovely little zoo and time spent exploring exhibits and enjoying a beautiful day with friends and family.

 

A dear friend was able to come to visit twice bringing our adult daughter with her. Each time staying a few days!

 

My mom and sister visited a few times and even brought my brother from Florida once with them!

 

My mother in law visited a couple times, brought hubby's brother with her once and this weekend even came and took our daughter to spend 3 days with her, she returns tomorrow! While there she will be able to visit her great grandfather too!

 

We were able to take kids to the Movie Theatre 3 times, which is a big deal for us, we have not been to one in like 7 years! We went to see Croods, World War Z and Despicable 2 3D...... awesome!

 

We took the kids to the beach ( finally found a local nice one easy driving distance YEA!) last week, although our son chose not to go, me and our daughter had a blast, I even went in and played with her a little bit! Sadly I forgot my camera though! She met a girl there, and when we left exchanged information and now they are connected on facebook an awesome way to extend and deepen local connections!

 

I have been getting better and energy is once again returning! :) Ta Da!

 

We have gone to thrift stores and turned in video games to Game Stop for the credit to get new games, both activities my kids really enjoy.

 

We have taken the kids out for ice cream twice to Tim Horton's which JUST opened in our town at the beginning of Summer.

 

Our son turned 15

 

Our Daughter turned 12

 

Our dear friends from North Carolina came and stayed a few days with us.

 

We drove into Lansing with them once where they got to see the Capitol building , the first time in a big city for them.

 

It really was a beautiful summer, I hope yours was as well!

Lessons from Camping

We use to do a lot of camping, almost every weekend, until our last child was born. When she was born camping got put aside for what seemed like forever as she did not sleep EVER until she was around 8. I was always exhausted for it always seemed she would sleep for an hour or two and then, as soon as I slid into bed, she sensed me, smelled me or just to take revenge on me she would wake up and then be up the rest of the night and all the next day. Not kidding or exaggerating there, she truly lived off of only around 2 hours of sleep every 24 hour period. The less she slept, the more energy she seemed to have and she loved to sneak out and well just get into mischief  which raised serious concerns on how safe camping in a tent would truly be for her.

From 8 to now, well it just seemed like we never had time, or money or a million other reasons.

Well the first week of June , hubby announced a surprise 3 day off in a row, what are ya gonna do, lets go camping! OH YEAH it has been too long! I am use to being the one who packs for this sort of thing but the fam really wanted to all pitch in, do their part and help...........perhaps this was a mistake.

You see I do everything in chronological order, very precise methods in my head........I do everything this way. Building a project, I see it all in my head with measurements and all, and get it done. I do my banking and finances this way and always know down the the penny what we have from what source all in my head. Packing is no different.

Yet their help was a distraction so my ordered thoughts started getting fragmented.........leading to 3 adults all of which ended up forgetting some MAJOR items. One of those hilarious yet so annoying mistakes that what are ya gonna do?

I left hubby in charge of bedrolls ( never leave a city boy who is always running hot in charge of bedrolls!) My adult daughter was in charge of the food, I was in charge of clothes and the miscellaneous things.

We get to a wonderful campsite on a 90 degree day late in the evening and set up the Tent. Then we go to set up the bedrolls and realize hubby ONLY brought a thin blanket to sleep on and a SHEET to cover up with ( knowing we were in for a cold spell!) He also totally did not bring ANY bedroll for our youngest daughter! He left the bedroll for our son in charge of our son who also only brought a thin sheet! WHAT? are you NUTS?

Well then we got the fire started and looked in the cooler to realize my daughter only brought the milk and drinks but left the whole bag of meats at home in the refrigerator!

Me? I forgot my poor kids jackets that I meant to grab on the way out of the house and all I had was a sweatshirt.

My son forgot to bring anything to do such as books to read or laptop or anything, no board games or cards.

Things cooled off considerably that night. The day did not really warm up yet my daughter was still determined to go swimming......we were after all CAMPING.

My son sat around wearing my sweatshirt and after his quick dip in the water spending hours trying to warm up. Hubby fished having fun LOL.

Hubby did see a baby owl and he tried to show us but as we were walking a ton of crows were dive bombing it and had killed it in the seconds it took us to walk there. Sad but nature, it was a tiny fluffy baby, too cute for words.

Well the second night was the most miserable night EVER getting down to 40 and the next night was suppose to be even colder. That morning we had no sun to help warm things up and my son was still wearing my sweatshirt as I felt bad I forgot his jacket so I was willing to freeze for him.

Well what can ya do, when the weather does not cooperate and hubby left the warm blankets all at home? We made the decision to come home a day early! BOY was I glad too cause the next night DID get even colder and rained much of the day! GOOD CALL on that one!

Yet we still had a wonderful time and it did not even feel like we came home early. We got to do so much that first day there including talking and meeting some fascinating people with wonderful stories, a wonderful DNR guy I could of talked to forever originally from Texas, collected snail shells along the beach while daughter swam, lots of walking, great food around a fire ( we ran to the store down the road for hot dogs and stuff LOL) and just had a wonderful time.

A family of 5 and their loyal dog ...............what fun!

Opportunities Everywhere

It really has been a wonderful week, with perfect cool but sunny weather and the time to seize opportunities as they come up!

We spent the week writing pen-pals, continuing to learn Japanese words ( which by the way is really really hard but fun!) video-gaming, watching movies and watching all the new season shows like Raising Hope, Glee, Fringe, X factor and of course tonight Terra Nova!

Friday when hubby came home he mentioned a moving sale down the road and said town was full of garage sales so of course we grabbed the puppy and the fam piled into Bronco Bob and we headed out on our treasure hunt!  We managed to pick up an almost brand new bike for Corin for 10 bucks, an ice cream maker, a toaster and a few things hubby needed as well along with a new lamp table to go next to our couch!
Our family LOVES Garage Saling and everyone gets excited when we get to go.

Saturday had Corin asking me to take her on an extended bike ride so we went on a few mile bike ride down a country road. On our ride we came across a baby snake so of course had to bring it home for everyone to marvel just how tiny this little guy was! It was NOT easy holding him in one hand while he wiggled and squiggled while riding bike with my one free hand and NO brakes on my bike. Of course my daughter kept stopping directly in front of me but somehow I managed to always avoid the impending disaster! At home we all got a good look at him, making comments of how little he was and his need to go into hibernation soon as the weather heads into a cold season, then we took and released him back into the wild so he could go about his business.

Without time frames and rigid schedules, we are able to take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves to us, one of my favorite things about this life style! It always for a spontaneous change of plan when things come up everyone would enjoy taking advantage of. We do not have to wait for anyone, or worry about being back at any given time, we are free to explore and take advantage going where the day leads us at any given moment. We take pleasure in being able to be sponaneous and free flowing going here or there and watching the contagious excitement of family members as opportunities present themselves. It's AMAZING to not be tied down to calendars or clocks and be free to do whatever, whenever and catch the wave.......

River Walk Picnic!

Nothing beats a nature walk on a beautiful sunny autumn day! With our beautiful days numbered we headed to our local River Walk parks for an active and fun nature walk roaming , running and laughing through the wooded paths with puppy in tow. Our puppy Sophie is a border collie with extremely strong herding instincts already in place so she became frantic when the  whole family split into running every direction they could playing a form of woodland tag through the wooded paths. Sophie would whine like crazy and pull on her leash trying to round up her "flock" that was going every which way! We had a blast though and knowing our puppy would be tired out followed up the nature walk by having a picnic lunch back at the park part of the walk that had a few playground equipment and picnic tables. So while we ate and then watched the kids play, Sophie got a much needed rest and nap!

Later that night we went shopping and all shopped for food and some much needed new clothes which always makes the girls happy! They love getting new clothes and as I said, they really did need some new ones! We also were able to purchase a few affordable movies for our home collection as we sold our whole movie collection when we moved back to Michigan so really have had nothing on hand to watch at will other than our Netflix movies that come in the mail. We bought Zombieland, Barbies the princess and the Pauper, Knightstale, Fried Green Tomato's, The Blind Side and Date Night!

It was one of those days that just really could not of been any better! Pure AWESOMENESS of a family spending time together and enjoying every minute of it!

Belle Isle: Detroit Michigan

Last week when visiting family we were able to take the kids to Belle Isle in Detroit Michigan having a picnic lunch there and visiting the Atrium and Nature Center. My mother had a Doctor's appointment in Detroit that day so we left early to explore Belle Isle, a wonderful free Park before the appointment. While the aquarium and zoo had shut down due to the city lacking funding ( although they are working to reopen these) we still had a wonderful time enjoying what the park still had to offer and not costing anything to enjoy!  After the Doctors appointment is when we went and explored the Japanese Grocery store and Japanese entertainment store which I do believe ended up being everyones favorite!

The last picture is of us visiting my Dad and Step mom our last day with family. My Dad had just underwent surgery for a blocked artery and they are in the process of moving into a beautiful house. So we went and helped them out a little bit, I would of loved to help more but alas, we had to go home! My son mowed the back yard and all of us girls weeded a front flower bed. My step mom fed us a wonderful dinner and her and my Dad sat in chairs to visit with us after dinner while we weeded the neglected front flower bed. It really was a wonderful week in all and we had a great time with family!