Fall camping . . . or is it summer?

When we arrived here at Levi Jackson state Park last Friday, it still felt like fall, and there was plenty of evidence of fall . . .

between the leaves on the ground, and the Halloween decorations all around, and the cool, crisp temperatures!  We actually thought they might be having their “Halloween Weekend” last weekend, but it turned out that this was just the week leading up to the big celebration . . . when everybody starts coming in and getting sites decorated and haunted houses set up!

There sure are lots of decorations getting set up!

Tom wasted no time at all in meeting our neighbors,

Ben, Carmen, Sarah, and Sarah’s friend, Madison, and soon the kids were playing cornhole together,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and Ben was introducing us to dutch oven cooking on the fire.  We sampled “Mountainman Breakfast” – a sausage, egg, hashbrown, cheese casserole, and “Cherry Pineapple Dump Cake”.  Both were really good, but I’m not sure I’ll be trading my convection microwave in for a cast iron dutch oven just yet!

Bryce and the girls (who are both also homeschooled, by the way) got along really well,

and they spent all day Saturday hanging out with Nick and a bunch of other kids in the campground – playing basketball, miniature golf, and looking for Sasquatch in the woods!!  (So tell Grandma she doesn’t need to worry about Bryce not finding kids to hang out with!)

There were even more teenagers around later, when a bunch of Carmen’s family joined them for the evening campfire.  After dinner and s’mores, the kids all took off to explore the cemetery trail after dark, while the adults enjoyed the toasty fire! 

They never found the cemetery, or Sasquatch, but they did find the 2 who got lost (not mine – don’t worry, Grandma!!), and the resident “lion-dog”!!

It turned out that his name was “Duke” and he lives in a house not far from the campground and likes to make daily rounds.  He sure looked ominous, but he was really a gentle dog who liked everybody.

He really did look like a ion, and that’s apparently his normal haircut – not a Halloween costume!

The weekend went really quick, and on Sunday our new friends left for home.

We went to church in London, and then did a little shopping before coming back to the campground.  Tom finally found a store that had the little Craftsman compressor that he’s been looking for, and he picked up a small shop vac, too.

This one works a lot better on Nick’s carpet than our little Dirt Devil hand vac did, and since the central vac hose doesn’t reach the garage, he needed something!

While I worked on the boys’ schedules for this week, Tom and Nick cleaned out and reorganized the storage compartment (and sold Tom’s old big compressor on the side of the road!), and Bryce found a new friend to hang out with.  Luke is 13, home-schooled also, and likes basketball as much as Bryce does.  He’s got an older sister and brother, as well as several younger brothers, so Nick has had somebody to hang out with, as well.  In fact, after we had our dinner of pizza pies on the fire last night, they all went down to the basketball court quite a while.

Today we’re not doing too much . . . school and work took awhile, so we decided to wait until tomorrow to go visit Cumberland Falls.  Tom & Nick are taking care of some errands – post office, diesel for the truck, filling a propane tank, and getting me quarters for the laundry – and Bryce is down at the basketball court.  The weather has taken a turn for the wonderful . . . plenty of sunshine and temps in the upper 70s . . . and it’s supposed to stay like this for several more days!  We can definitely live like this!!

Going Green

Things are certainly looking green around here, and it’s not just Bryce’s favorite – MI State Spartans --

or even all the green treats I made for our St. Patrick’s Day feast!

All the earlier-than-normal, warmer-than-normal weather we are getting in Michigan lately is turning everything green --

the grass --

and the trees!  I think this has to be the earliest my magnolia tree has ever bloomed!  (I hope we don’t get a sudden frost to kill everything off!)

Tom even decided he could get the bike out and get it ready to ride!

We’ve had a really mild winter, and now we seem to be moving right into spring (or is it summer!?!) . . . and we’re ready for it!

Bryce is thrilled that the Spartans are moving on in the NCAA Tournament, but it’s too bad that my school – University of Detroit Titans – didn’t make it a little further! 

The boys’ basketball season ended this weekend, too.  Both championship games were very good, and although Bryce’s team was not successful, they had a great season and really enjoyed themselves!

Nicolas’ team played a great game, demonstrating competitiveness and good sportsmanship at all times, and it paid off – they maintained their 1st place position and won the Championship!

So, now it’s time to start gearing up for baseball and camping season . . . I haven’t made any reservations yet, and it’s time to start figuring out where we want to go, so I had better get busy!

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

Happy Spring!!

The joy of victory, and the agony of defeat!

It was another busy weekend of basketball.  Bryce and his buddy, Brendan, were on opposing teams yesterday, and there was quite a bit of friendly competition going on!

They somehow managed to always be guarding each other, and enjoyed getting in each other’s face.

They were really into the game, and played a little rough at times!

It was all in fun, though, and both of the friends got in some good plays!

At the end of the game, Bryce’s team was victorious, and the boys were still good friends!

It was Brendan’s Mom’s birthday, too, so we all went to Baskin-Robbins for an ice cream treat after the game! YUM!

Today was Nicolas game and his team played hard to maintain their undefeated record.

They couldn’t quite pull it off, though, and suffered a disappointing loss!  Oh well, they can’t win them all, I guess!

Back at home, we have a sign in the yard again, and we’re looking forward to a win for us!!

Just another winter day

 

An early morning winter sunrise . . . 7:30am

Life around here has been pretty normal lately, without too much excitement.

The boys have basketball games every weekend,

and both of their teams are on winning streaks.  The games have been pretty exciting lately!

We’ve been having a fairly mild winter, where we seem to alternate between cold, snowy days followed by warmer-than-normal days when all the snow melts.  Currently, we have snow on the ground, but we’re supposed to have 40+ degree temperatures over the next couple of days.

About 10 minutes later . . . the sun is a little higher in the eastern sky.

Tom and I have been interviewing realtors for the last month or so, and we finally settled on somebody to sign a contract with.  We’re going with just a 3 month contract, though, and we’ll make a change if we don’t see progress in that time.  With just 2 years with Nicolas still at home, and four with Bryce, we need to get serious about selling our house this year.

Now that we’ve made the decision, we need to get busy this week and get the house cleaned up, because we’ll have a photographer and videographer scheduled for late this week or early next week!  So, that’s what I’ll be doing for the next few days . . . today I tackled my desk and the library.  It didn’t take long, and I can actually see the top of my desk now!

But life isn’t all work . . . three of my sisters and I are participating in a “mystery quilt” for 2012.  “Just Takes 2” is being hosted by 2 quilting blogs, and it promises to be quite an adventure!  The whole quilt takes just 2 fabrics – a color and a background.  I went with turquoise and brown, and I love the combination!  If you’re interested, you can follow our progress at Quiltin’ Dreams.

Just before the sun fully rises, the sky was a magnificent display of color!

Wish us luck as we put our house back on the market, and hopefully we’ll be able to hit the road this summer!

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!

Ahhhh . . . Indian summer

 

What a beautiful sunrise I was greeted with as I came down the stairs this morning!  We've had great weather the last few days!  High 60s and sunny . . . can't beat that for early November!  It's supposed to cool down a bit this week though, in the low 50s, but then we might get a repeat next weekend!!  If only it didn't get dark at 5:30 . . .

It was another busy week of things that didn't seem important enough to blog about each day.  The boys started the week off with basketball games on Monday and Tuesday.  Both teams lost their games on Monday, but rallied nicely on Tuesday.  Bryce's team was playing last year's league winners, and they gave them a run for their money.  Bryce even scored a few points -- here he is on the free throw line!

He made the shot!  They had been behind by quite a bit, and in that period, regained quite a few points.  It was really exciting -- every boy from Bryce's team who was in for that period scored at least once!  They didn't win the game, but it was very close -- they played really well.  His coach's biggest challenge is getting everybody in the game -- they have 22 players on their team! 

Nicolas' team did really well, also -- they won their game on Tuesday.  I don't have any pictures this week, because I was running the scoreboard . . . and I'm not good enough to do that AND take pictures!  Nicolas is playing really well this year.  His biggest challenge has always been to be aggressive enough . . . to really get into the action.  Not a problem this year . . . he's been quite the rebound king!  We've seen a huge boost in his confidence!

They both have games tomorrow, and then Nicolas has another game on Thursday.  He has more games than Bryce because not every school in the league has a JV (5th/6th grade) team.

I did a little bit of sewing last week, and finished my fall wall hanging.

I just love how it turned out!!  I dropped it off to the quilting lady on Friday -- along with the last 2 quilts I had finished.  I should have them all back in about a month.

This weekend, we took advantage of the nice weather and did some outside cleaning.  We spent most of Saturday cleaning the RV, and on Sunday Nicolas gave Casey a bath and we cleaned our gas grill.  While cooking some sausage for breakfast, it wasn't working quite right, so Tom took a look underneath.  Turns out that the venturi tubes had rusted through, and were no longer directing propane to the burner -- that's a problem!  We took it all apart, cleaned it up, and found some replacement venturi tubes online.  Hopefully we'll get it back together and be back in grilling business in a week or so.  We do grill all winter -- as long as there's not a foot of snow on top of the grill, we use it!

On Saturday night, my sister and brother-in-law had their annual fall bonfire.  It's always in early November, and it's usually freezing, so this weekend was a pleasant change!  It was perfect sweatshirt weather, and if you were close enough to the fire, you didn't even need that!  We had a really nice time -- most of my family was there, including one of our cousins, and several friends of the familiy . . . LOTS of good food! 

That brings me back to today . . . the weather is still nice, and I'm enjoying having the doors while I work.  Speaking of work, I'd better get back to it -- lunchtime is over!