Division Champs

Bryce’s baseball team – the Pirates – ended their season with a 10 – 5 record, and managed to upset the 1st place Cardinals, taking over 1st place in the Division ‘A’.

Yeah, Pirates – Division A Champions!

This win made them 1st seed going into the playoffs, and they didn’t play in the 1st round.  The 2nd round of the playoffs was last night, and they were facing off against the Cardinals again!  Unfortunately, the Pirates were having a rough night, and they lost to the Cardinals, 14 – 3.  It was a sad end to the season, but overall they played well and still felt good about the Division win.

Bryce has another trophy to add to his collection!

So, it was a good season, even though they won’t be moving on to the League Championship, and now we don’t need to come home a day early from our vacation!

On the quilting front, hop on over to Quiltin’ Dreams and check out the post I did on my new Underground Railroad quilt for the RV.  If you are a quilter, you might also want to check out Kathy’s giveaway at Quilting Along the Gorge – she’s giving away a Baby Go! cutter by Accuquilt!  I hope I win!

Fun & Games and a new blog

My niece, Kelly, is getting married later this summer and yesterday she and her fiancé had a Couple’s Shower at my sister’s house.

Kelly and Josh getting ready to open their gifts

There was lots of family, and lots of food, and lots of nice gifts.  To work off some of that food, we played some highly competitive badminton . ..

Bryce was really into the game!

lots of exercise, running after the birdie

I don’t think you’re going to hit it, Donnie!

too bad we’re not that good!

I thought YOU  had it!!

After wearing ourselves out, and getting chased inside by the mosquitoes, I created a new blog for my sisters.  They decided they wanted to be like me, and have a blog to share their quilting projects, favorite quilt shops, and other exciting adventures.  So, we created the Good Sisters’ Quiltin’ Dreams blog.  So, if you like quilting, or quilt shops, or just want to follow along with these 5 crazy sisters, check it out and become one of our followers!

Tom’s new toy

He’s been shopping for awhile now . . . ever since we took the motorcycle safety class last summer, he’s been looking . . . he found a few, and lost them when he didn’t act quick enough!

So, this time when he spotted the bike he wanted on craigslist, and he spoke to the guy on the phone verifying that it was legit, he acted right away!

He and his brother took the day off and drove almost 300 miles to Akron, OH . . . to check out this 2007 Kawasaki 900 Vulcan with only 240 miles on it!

He wasn’t ready to ride it all that way, so they loaded it in the truck!

We had torrential rain all day while he was gone, but luckily they were far enough south that they missed it all . . . until the last 75 miles!  By the time they got home, it had stopped raining and they were able to get it unloaded, although it still wasn’t an easy task!

Everybody had a hand on it, but it was still a dicey operation!

Finally it was out of the truck, and Tom was SO happy!  He’s finally got his bike!

Tom’s new toy!

It’s been a couple of weeks now, and he’s getting used to riding, although he won’t be taking any passengers for a year or two, or more!  On the days that I don’t go into the office, he rides the bike as long as the weather is nice.  That’s OK with me, that leaves me the car so I can get out and about for anything I need to do, without taking the truck out.

His 1st day taking the bike to work

Now he’s just got to figure out how to fit it in the toyhauler garage with our bicycles and all the other stuff back there!

Birthday, Baseball, Driving

Nick turned 15 this weekend, and it was a pretty big deal! 

Happy Birthday, Nicolas!

In Michigan, kids can take Driver’s Ed when they are 14 years, 8 months old, and can get their Level 1 driver’s license (allowing them to drive with a parent or other adult) at 14 years, 9 months.  Well, we made Nick wait a little bit longer . . . he was 14 years, 11 months when Driver’s Ed started, and he just finished up last week which meant that we could go to the Secretary of State on his actual birthday to get his license.  Yeah!!

So, for the next year, he’s got to get in as much practice driving as possible, in all different conditions, at least 50 hours.  When we were getting the license, I asked the clerk if it was valid out of state, just to confirm.  She said yes, and asked, “Are you planning on driving across the country, getting all 50 hours in one trip?!?”  I hope to be heading out this year still, but probably not all the way across the country!  We will be in Indiana and Illinois some this summer, and just wanted to make sure he can drive while we’re there.

We were going to pick up my Mom on Friday, so I had Nicolas drive.  It’s almost an hour to her house, so that’s a pretty long trip!  He did really well.  On the way there, going south on US-23, we spotted an RV up ahead, and I commented that it looked like ours.  Sure enough, as we got closer, we could see that it was an X-Aire!  So, that makes 2 now that we’ve seen, besides ours.

Bryce had a baseball game on Friday night, and we we’re concerned that he might get rained out or, worse yet, have to play in the rain!  We got lucky, though, and they got their game in without any rain.

No rain, but it was a little chilly on Friday!

Bryce got a couple of good hits, and they won the game in 5 innings.  They normally play 6 innings, but they have a 2 hour time limit, and this was the 1st game they’ve had this year where they’ve actually hit that time limit.  By the time the 2 hours was up, we were freezing!  The Coach was taking the team out for ice cream, but Bryce decided to pass, opting for hot chocolate at home instead!

He’s got his eye on the ball, and he’s going to hit it good!

His team is doing really well, and they are in 1st place in their division, with 5 games left in the regular season.

Go Pirates!

On Saturday, Nick had a few of his friends over for a BBQ and campfire, and a couple of the younger brothers came along to hang out with Bryce.  Several of our family friends have 2 boys – one Nick’s age, and one Bryce’s age . . . it’s very convenient!  It was a great night to be outside, and we had a nice time catching up with what’s going on in everybody’s lives.

Sunday was the family gathering, and we had a really nice afternoon with a good dinner, and Nicolas was sufficiently spoiled, as usual!

Grandma watches as Nicolas opens all his presents

Grandma went home Sunday afternoon with my brother, even though we told her that she could stay all week – Bryce would have been thrilled to have an opponent for cards all week long!  We’ll have to find a reason to have her come back and stay with us again!

A beautiful Memorial Day to end our weekend

We sure were happy that we had planned to stay an extra day this weekend (don’t like travelling with the crowds!), since Monday turned out to be beautiful!!

Enjoying the pool as the crowd begins to thin out!

Check-out is noon, so lots of people were packing up on this beautiful Monday morning, unfortunately, our friends included.  We had made plans to go to the Memorial Day Parade in nearby Hart at 11 am, so as soon as Paul & Tari were hitched up we headed over there, with just a few minutes to spare.  We found a side street to park on close in to town, and walked the couple of blocks to where it looked like the parade was going to be starting.

We saw the high school marching band,

We think that’s the Mayor with them, or maybe the Principal . . .

or I guess he could be BOTH!

some Army veterans, kids on bikes, a Cub Scout troop,

and firetrucks  . . .

Two firetrucks actually – this antique one, and a new one!

and then it was over!!  This had to be the SHORTEST parade I have ever seen in my life!  Had we been a couple minutes later, we would have missed the whole thing!! LOL

OK, then . . . we said our good-byes to Paul & Tari & the kids – we’ll meet up with them again in August when we go to Cedar Point, and we headed back to the campground.  It had emptied out quite a bit by then, but there were still lots of seasonal campers around, Bryce’s friend Brendan included, so we joined his family at the pool.  Ahhh . . . this is the life – reading my book by the pool while Tom & the kids play in the water.  I did go in a few times, since it was pretty hot out.

After a couple of hours at the pool, we decided to take a break and go get an ice cream cone at the Country Dairy which we had heard so much about, and top off the truck for the trip home the next day.  We stopped to say good-bye to Brendan’s family – we hope to come back to silver Creek Resort again later this summer and spend some more time with them! 

Arriving at Country Dairy, we were greeted by the cows!

These guys look pretty content, just munching on the grass!

They give tours of the dairy farm, which would be pretty cool to see, but today it was hot, and we just wanted ice cream!  It was delicious, as promised!

After eating our cones and topping of the truck, we took the scenic route back to Silver Lake, and drove through the state park to check out their beach and campsites.  The campsites are definitely too small for our rig (so are the roads!!), and we were surprised that, with the amount of sand around, there wasn’t much at the beach!

Bryce said the water was COLD!

Back at the RV Park, we decided to go back for another swim in the pool – and we had it pretty much to ourselves this time!

After cooling off in the pool, we enjoyed a steak dinner on our grill (Oh yeah, Monday was mine and Tom’s 19th Anniversary!), we packed up the outside stuff so that we could get an early start in the morning.  Nicolas had to be home for Driver’s Ed at 3pm, and we needed to stop in Grand Rapids to look at a Jeep that is going to be auctioned off next week.

We had a really great time this weekend – even with the marginal weather – and we’re looking forward to returning later in the summer!  We’ll be home for a few weeks now, until our next camping trip . . .