Fall Colors

It seemed like the trees around here were never going to change color, but then we got a few warmer days . . . and overnight everything changed!

Tom and the boys have been working in the campground to pay our site rental and electric, but mostly just to keep themselves busy during the day. 

They started out raking leaves, then switched to clearing a trail last week, but after all the rain we got this week, there’s a ton of new leaves on the ground!

 

We’ve also been taking care of all of our annual checkups, and Nicolas has gotten a few little issues fixed on his car.

We had a birthday celebration for the 3 cousins with fall birthdays,

and took advantage of a nice day to go to our favorite orchard to pick apples!    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a beautiful day, and the apples were plentiful!

We picked our standard bushel . . . gala and golden delicious for eating, and northern spy for making pies!

We also bought some of our favorite treats – cider and donuts, and caramel apples for the boys!  YUM!

Last weekend it was time to make our first pie!

We had just gotten our pie put together, and while the oven was pre-heating, it suddenly shut down.  The display went completely blank and we couldn’t do anything to get it to power back up!

We put the pie in the fridge, and took it to my mom’s house the next day to bake it . . . it still turned out really good!

So, Tom had a new project for this week . . . fixing my convection oven!  We had a similar problem with this oven when it was new, and a GE Appliance Tech in Colorado made several service calls to get it fixed.  He was pretty helpful, so Tom gave him a call on Monday morning, and he recommended some things to check.  With his help, Tom had the problem to (hopefully) a few small components. 

 

His next call was to GE, who agreed to overnight the parts to us at no charge, even though we were out of our 1-year warranty.  If that didn’t work, they would get us a brand new oven for $220 --  delivered and installed . . . not a bad deal! 

I was kindof hoping that the parts wouldn’t fix the problem!

 

 

 

As promised, the parts arrived on Tuesday, and after dinner Tom and Nicolas got the oven put back together.

 

It worked!! 

OK, I’m glad I don’t have to be without an oven for a week or longer . . . but a new, clean oven would have been kindof nice . . .

One thing we did replace is our scanner.  We had a color printer/copier/scanner, but several months ago it stopped printing.  I tried replacing the ink, but I still couldn’t get it to print.  The scanner still worked, but it was kindof big to keep around just for scanning, so we bought one of the little portable scanners that just plugs into a USB port.

It’s handy and works pretty well.  My first task is scanning all the photos in albums that I didn’t get to before we went on the road.  With this new little scanner, the process goes really fast!

Although, starting with Nicolas’ baby pictures probably wasn’t the best idea . . . with just over a month until he leaves for boot camp!

We’ve got a little over a month left to stay in Michigan, but most of our fellow-RVers are making their way south by now.  Just a few days ago, we said good-bye to Roger and Joyce . . . and the kids . . .

 

as they make their way toward Texas for the winter.

 

 

 

 

We’re hoping that the weather holds out until we can leave for Florida . . .  we’ve had some cool nights, but nothing too bad so far, and not even an overnight freeze yet, either.

We’re pushing our luck by staying into November . . . but we’re pretty tough . . . we’ll handle any weather that comes our way!

Oh, Christmas Tree . . . what a challenge!

Once again, we find ourselves in a state where we cannot cut down a Christmas tree, so we ended up at Home Depot to pick out our tree. 

 

The selection process was pretty easy this year, though – they had a new shipment of Douglas Firs and we found a nice tall one (relatively speaking, that is).

 

 

We got it out to the car, and the Home Depot guy met us out there to secure it on top.  We asked for twine, but he assured us that shrink wrap would work much better.

 

Our first mistake was listening to him . . . but it LOOKED secure!

As we drove out of the parking lot, we could hear the plastic flapping in the wind, but thought it would be OK.  Before we got too far though, we suddenly saw shrink wrap flapping in the breeze on both sides of the car.  That wasn’t a good sign, and Tom pulled off the side of the road as the tree rolled down the back window!

OK, so now what . . . we didn’t have any twine on us!  We ended up using the plastic as rope, and tied the tree to the roof of the car . . . and hoped for the best!!

 

Luckily, we made it the rest of the way, and the tree stayed securely on the roof!  What a relief that was!

The guys got the stand put together while I got the lights and ornaments out, and then the tree was up and ready for decorating!

The boys took care of that job!

 

 

All finished . . .

too bad it didn’t stay like that!!

On Monday, the wind picked up and started whipping through our carport like a tornado!  We kept checking on the tree, but it was hanging in there . . . for a while!  After dinner, I was standing at the kitchen sink and saw the tree fly past the window and heard it land on the steps! 

We all ran outside and tried standing it back up, but ultimately decided to leave it laying down until the wind stopped . . . it was safer that way! 

Late this afternoon we were finally able to stand it back up . . . we straightened out the bent legs of the tree stand, added extra rocks for weight, and tied the middle of the trunk to the picnic table.  Hopefully that will hold it!!

Amazingly, none of the lights went out, and we only had one broken ornament!

The rest of the decorating went much easier, and Nicolas even had time to make some chocolate-covered pretzels, too!

Now I just need to get some shopping done!

Happy Easter!

It been a busy couple of days around here – between getting ready for Easter and still working on purging, we’ve gotten a lot done.

Luckily, we were able to avert one little issue that could have become a problem at closing.  Our county requires a well and septic inspection for transfer of property, so Tom started calling around to a few inspectors to get an idea of how much it would cost.  After talking to a couple of guys, we found out that the county did not have a record of our well and septic (even though we know it was approved!).

I dug out my records from when we built the house and found the well and septic permits and approvals, and on Friday Tom & I took them over to the County Environmental Department.  We talked to the woman in charge of the inspections, and she already had heard about the problem from one of the inspectors.  She told us that she had looked all over and could not find our records.  As it turns out, about 6 years ago they scanned all the old paper records and shredded the originals . . . well, somehow ours got missed!  She was very happy to see that we still had our copies, so she scanned them so they could be added to the online system.

We should be all set for our inspection now . . . whew!

Back at home, Nicolas and I made our Easter bread, and it turned out really good!

This morning I barely had it frosted before Nick and Tom dug into it for breakfast!  YUM!!

Today I made cookies and fruit salad to take to Tom’s brother’s house for Easter dinner, while Tom and the boys worked outside in the yard.  It was a beautiful day, and Bryce wanted hot dogs on the fire for dinner.  So after all the outside work was done, and I cleaned up the kitchen, Bryce got a fire going in the firepit out back.

We had hot dogs and brats on the fire, and enjoyed the warm spring evening.  Tomorrow after mass, we’ll take a day off from purging and cleaning, and spend the day with Tom’s family.  Then on Monday, we’ll be back at it . . . we just had a phone call from a guy who’s coming Monday evening to get our dining room set.  We’re making progress!!

A Quiet Weekend–Baking Bread

Most of the schools in the area have their mid-Winter break this weekend, so there were no basketball games scheduled.  We had nothing else planned either, so Tom and I bought tickets to see the Jersey Boys on Friday in Toledo.

My Mom and my sisters all saw it last weekend and said it was very good, and I’ve been wanting to see it for the last year, so we decided it could be our Valentine’s Day present to ourselves.  We had dinner at home with the boys, and then Tom and I headed down to Toledo.  As expected, the show was great, and we both enjoyed it!

On Saturday, we did some cleaning and laundry, and then went to church and dinner with Tom’s parents and his brother and sister-in-law and nephew at Applebee’s.  Back at home, we watched Ghost Rider on DVD (Nicolas can’t wait to go see the new Ghost Rider movie; it just opened in theatres this weekend!), and I worked on putting the binding on my latest quilt.

Sunday we were just staying home, so Nicolas decided that he wanted to make bread.  He went through my cookbooks and found a basic white bread that sounded good, and we started mixing it up.

Then came the kneading . . .

and after it rose in the oven (my convection oven has a “bread raising” setting – how convenient!), it was ready to be made into loaves.

Back into the oven to rise again, and soon it was ready to start baking!

Looks good, doesn’t it??!!  45 minutes later it was a nice crusty brown, and I could barely keep Nicolas from cutting into it before it cooled a little bit!

 

Nicolas was proud of his first batch of bread, and it tasted really good, too!!  He said, “There sure are a lot of steps involved in making bread, but if it tastes good, it’s worth it!”  I guess it was worth it!  (NOTE:  I do have a breadmaker, but it was more fun to make this batch all by hand!)

On the home front, we haven’t gotten any calls yet (been back on the market almost 2 weeks), but we’re hopeful.  The video and the pictures turned out really good.  You can check it out at the link below:

Video of our house for sale

Well, that’s about it from here . . . we’re hoping that the spring-like temperatures continue, but I’m sure we’re probably not quite done with winter yet!