Family Celebrations

We’re still in Michigan . . . and it’s getting a little wintery!!

Bryce doesn’t mind!

 

Last week, Katy & Shane and the kids came to town and we all got together to celebrate the little guy’s first birthday.

We all gathered at Deby’s house for dinner and enjoyed the antics of all the little kids running around.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Soon, it was time for presents . . .

with some help!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next came cake . . . while we all enjoyed the delicious cake, Graysen dug in like a true 1-year-old!

 

 

 

Love those big blue eyes!!

Then a bath in the kitchen sink, and he’s all cleaned up!

 

Jaxon enjoyed the party, too . . . and liked playing with the big cousins!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The old folks enjoyed the party, too . . . and I guess it was a little too much excitement for Donnie!

We’re down to the final countdown of days we have left with Nicolas . . . he almost got our schedule all messed up by getting into some poison ivy a couple weeks ago, but we quickly got him some medication and got it cleared up in time!

Last week was his 7-day check-in, and he got the “all clear” . . . whew!!

Since then, he’s gotten all of his stuff packed up in his car and at my Mom’s house, we’ve enjoyed a few of his favorite meals, and spent some time relaxing at home.

Tom and the boys are done working around the campground, and we’ve been packing up and preparing for our trip south.

The garage is packed up, the tires are aired up, and the oil is changed in the car.  There isn’t much trip-routing to do . . . get on I-75 in Monroe and get off I-75 in Ft. Myers!  Not the most exciting or scenic trip, but if it’s uneventful, we’ll be happy . . . and we’re ready to get back into the warm weather!!

With the frigid temperatures we’ve had the last few days, and will have all this week, we’ve been burning through propane at a pretty brisk pace.  We keep the furnace at 60 degrees at night and 65 degrees during the day, and with the outside temp in the 20s and 30s, one of our 30-lb. bottles lasts about 3 days.  We don’t have any previous experience to compare this to, but it seems to be pretty consistent with what others have experienced around here.

This past weekend we had a couple of “Going-Away” dinners for Nicolas . . . and the rest of us.  Friday night with Tom’s family, and Saturday with mine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had some more Jaxon and Graysen time . . .

 

the boys got to play some more cards,

and everybody said good-bye and good luck to Nicolas.

We had a really nice send-off for him, but I can hardly believe that he’s going to leave us in a couple days!  We’re all going to miss him so much!

It’s time, though . . . we need to get out of Michigan!

Halloween Parties

As is often the case in Michigan, winter arrived along with Halloween . . . we had windy, COLD, weather . . . and even a few snow flurries . . . although not as much snow as they got in the Smokey Mountains!

We went to my sister’s house for Halloween to pass out candy to all the little kiddies in their neighborhood . . . but there weren’t too many kids out trick-or-treating!  The rain and cold kept most of them inside, I guess . . . can’t say that I blame their parents . . . I sure wouldn’t have wanted to be out in that!

On Saturday, the campground had a big Halloween Party for everyone in the park and surrounding area.  With the cold weather, the guys spent much of the day enclosing the pavillion to keep the wind out.

Tom and the boys had cut down several dead trees earlier in the week to stockpile enough wood for a good bonfire.

Unfortunately, they all ended up with a nasty case of poison ivy from those trees, and as usual, Nicolas got the worst of it!  With his ship date coming up very soon, we need to get this cleared up quickly, so I called the doctor to get him a prescription for steroids to battle the rash.  He’s not quite out of the woods yet, but he’s getting there!

We joined the crowd at the party,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and soon it was time to line up for dinner.  There was tons of food,

and they even had a DJ playing music.

We stayed long enough for dinner . . . which was excellent . . . but then we left.  There were lots of activities planned for the evening, and they partied until almost midnight, but we had another party to go to.

Saturday was also the date of my brother-in-law, Charlie’s, annual bonfire.  They are just a few short miles down the road from the campground, so we headed down there after dinner.  We got there just in time to see the fire go up!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Debbie got Tom to stand in front of it for size reference . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

. . . nobody else was getting that close!!

As cold as it was that night, it was a beautiful night around the fire!

Fall cleanup and football

By this time last year, we had left Michigan for the warmer weather in the southwest . . . but this year, we’ll be around a little bit longer.  Nicolas has a few more weeks until he “ships out”, so we’ll stick around until he’s gone.  Then we’ll make a beeline for Florida!

We had frost a few mornings this past week, but for the most part, the weather hasn’t been too bad.  The guys have been keeping busy with fall cleanup in the campground, and thankfully this week we had a few dry days and they were able to make a pretty good dent in the leaves.

 

They’ve worked enough hours to pay for our site for October and November, and electric for September, October and November . . . now they’re working toward next year (or a refund of September’s site rent, if I get my way).

 

There are still some trees with leaves on them, and some of the areas they clear end up covered again a day later . . . including our site!  For the most part, though, it’s looking pretty good around here!

 

Bryce has quickly mastered the art of driving a stick shift, as he loads up the Ranger with leaves and drives to to the back of the campground to dump them.

When I got home from work on Thursday, they had been hard at work since noon . . . and they kept at it until almost 7pm!  Bryce was feeling pretty tired . . .

and Friday they were back at it again, although I made them stop at 5:00, so we could have dinner at a more reasonable hour.

The boys did find time this week to carve their pumpkins . . .

(Can you guess which one is Bryce’s?) . . . and last night we picked up lights to go in them.

Bryce wants to wrap his light in green tissue paper so his pumpkin glows green!    

 

Casey got a new light for her collar, too, and when I took her picture, it was at the perfect angle to make her look like Rudolph!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a Millenicom customer for the last two years, we were shocked like everybody else to abruptly receive an email stating that our account has been acquired by Verizon, and we’re still waiting to see what that means for us.  We have our phones on Straight Talk (2 using Verizon and 1 using AT&T), and we aren’t really anxious to jump back onto the Verizon bandwagon for internet.

We’ve got very good wifi at this campground (better than we were getting with Millenicom), and the RV Park we’re going to be at in Florida for the winter provides hard-wired internet to the site, so I think we’re just going to let our internet service lapse until Spring.  Then we can assess what’s available and decide which way to go.

Last night I finished scanning my albums of Nick & Bryce’s baby pictures.  It was a pretty simple process with my new Brother DS-620 portable scanner.  It works really well with pictures . . . I just group photos by month, and continuously feed them into the scanner.  The program automatically saves each one to the designated folder with the file name I select, with a three-digit number added to the end of the filename (image 001, image002 . . . ).  It takes about 8 seconds per photo.

This was my Throwback Thursday photo this week . . . it seemed appropriate with today’s football game!

Bryce didn’t look too happy with that T-shirt we had on him!

Today is the big rivalry game between Michigan State and the University of Michigan.

We made Spartan jello to taunt the U of M fans in the family!

The game is almost over, and MSU has a huge lead, so I guess Bryce is going to be the happy one in the family!