We’re finally camping!

With vacation all this week, we finally decided to take some time off from renovating and staging and get in some camping – and believe me, all 4 of us were ready for it!!

On Friday night we got the RV out of the barn and loaded it up for a week of camping . . . and only forgot a few things!! LOL

Once we arrived at Silvercreek RV Resort in Silver Lake, we settled into our site and made a beeline for the pool!  Our main agenda for the week is getting some sun and lots of relaxation – and we’re off to a pretty good start!  Temperatures are pretty hot during the day (high 80s, low 90s), but it’s cooled off nicely the last couple of nights.  We’ve been turning off the A/C at night and opening the windows.  Tonight we may actually get a little rain, so we’ll probably leave the A/C on.

In addition to some pool time, we made a trip to the little town of Pentwater today for some shopping,

lunch at the Brown Bear (good burgers, crab bisque that Tom said was excellent, and tall beers),

and the kids’ favorite – the Cosmic Candy Company.

Tom brought the motorcycle along on this trip, so he’s taken a couple of rides along the back roads and through the small towns.

(Contrary to the new Michigan law, he still wears a helmet – but he wanted a new FB profile pic, so I took this one before he left for his ride.)

Back at home, we left our house in the capable hands of our realtor – last weekend we had a showing on Saturday, and an Open House on Sunday, and we just found out tonight that he has another showing scheduled for tomorrow.  I don’t know if it’s the new marketing plan, or just a better market this year, but whatever it is, it’s working in our favor – we’ve had more action in the 10 days we’ve been on the market than we’ve had in 10 months with previous realtors! 

He’s determined that he’s going to sell our house, and I believe him!  He’s also worked harder than any other realtor I’ve met . . . along with Tom & I and the kids, and the designer he brought on board, we’ve made a complete transformation of our house in about 6 weeks!

Here’s a link to a video that shows off much of the work we’ve done:

Slideshow presentation of our "transformed" house

We’re not sure what’s on the agenda for us the rest of the week, but I’m sure there will be lots more relaxation . . . and maybe a little sand!

Birthday Weekend & House Update

Our “On again, Off again” potential buyer is currently off again, so we sent one more email off to his realtor, and now we’re moving on to “Plan B”.  We’ve selected a new Realtor to list our home, and he has lots of plans for effectively staging the house for a quick sale at a higher price.

Step 1 was to remove the carpet from our stairs. 

When we built the house, we went with solid oak treads, although we covered them with a runner made from our living room carpet.  So, while Nick and I were out on Saturday, Tom & Bryce got started with ripping off the carpet.  We weren’t sure what they we going to look like – they had been under carpet for almost 15 years – but we were surprised to see that they didn’t look too bad!

Tom and Bryce got all of the staples pulled out, smoothed them out with steel wool, and wiped the down with lemon oil.

The finished product looked pretty good!  We just need to be careful when going up or down in socks! LOL!

Meanwhile, Nicolas and I got home from his Driver’s Ed class, and I got started making the birthday cake for today’s dinner.

Today we celebrated Mother’s Day and Tom’s and my birthdays.  We met for an early dinner at Paesano’s in Ann Arbor, and then back to our house for coffee, cake & ice cream.

Mom opened her Mother’s Day presents, and was really excited about her new Tiger’s jersey!  Who’s your Tiger, Mom??!!

Tom and I enjoyed our birthday celebration, and are looking forward to another great year!

A little snow, Dave’s barn & basketball

It’s finally starting to look and feel like winter around here!  Not everyone is excited about that, but I’d rather have the snow than the chilly rain . . . and it’s definitely prettier!

Tom’s got a little project keeping him busy this winter – building a barn for his brother, Dave.  After several delays, they finally got started this past week, so we stopped over there this morning to check on the progress.

They’re moving right along, and it’s looking pretty good.

The roof goes on this week, and then it will really look like something!  Denise and the dogs came outside to say “Hi”, and we chatted for awhile until everybody was shivering! 

From there, we made a Sam’s Club run for shopping & snacking, before Nicolas & Bryce’s basketball games.  Today were their first games, and after only 2 practices, they did pretty well.

Bryce’s team played first – he’s #55.  They didn’t win, but they played really well, and didn’t lose by much considering that the other team had a lot taller guys!

 

Bryce has a pretty strong competitive streak, and he really gets aggressive when he plays.

 

 

 

 

Nicolas’ team played right after Bryce’s (convenient for us!), and they played really well, too.  Nick had a particularly good game, scoring about 12 points himself (I think that’s more than he scored for the whole season last year!)

 

His team won their game, and it was exciting to watch, as usual!  These high school boys get pretty intense!

We got out of there just after 5pm, and thought we’d be early enough to grab dinner at Outback Steakhouse before the crowds hit, but we were wrong . . . they must have had a deal going on, because there was hardly a spot left in the parking lot, and already a 1 hour wait (at 5:15!)!  Next door, the Cracker Barrel wasn’t too busy at all, so went there and enjoyed a delicious dinner.

Now we’re back home, watching a movie and playing some ping pong.  I’m getting much better . . . I can give Bryce a run for his money now, and I’ve even beat him a couple of times!

Tomorrow the boys are going to Detroit for the Auto Show, and I’m still thinking about whether or not I’m going to go with them . . . I guess I’ll decide tomorrow morning!

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!