Fall Camping

We enjoyed a fun fall camping weekend with good friends!

We broke the no-TV rule of camping and actually had one set up outside most of the weekend.  We watched a hilarious movie, the U of M vs. State game, and the Lions game.  In between games, we went for a long bike ride, played pinochle and enjoyed some gorgeous walks. Cyrus loves his walks...but he may have a slight problem with authority.

Matt and I were up and out the door by 7:00 a.m. each morning for a sunrise kayak trip.  It was cloudy on Saturday morning, so we didn't get the spectacular color show we were hoping for.  But, Sunday was better...colder, but definitely worth the chilly wait!  I started emptying the motor home yesterday so we can winterize it.  They're predicting snow here for Halloween.  Yikes...that's scary!

Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy birthday to our favorite son!

I Love Fall

Fall is my favorite season.  I love the crisp air.  I love the fall colors.  I love Halloween.  I love this Halloween costume Keaton wore when he was 3.  

                                   

Pretty Pumpkins

For my latest visit to the east side of the state, I made a few goodies to take (protein bars, chocolate-cashew clusters, buckeyes...and these cute little peanut butter pumpkins.)  This is why I'm the favorite aunt!

Keaton's "New" Car!

Keaton bought a "new" car last week!  It's a 2011 Lincoln MKZ and it's really cute.  (I don't think he'd like me calling it cute, but it really is!)  It's fully loaded with heated and cooling seats, a sunroof, and blue-tooth. Keaton is our practical planner.  He's been looking at used cars for months and months.  He wanted something with better gas mileage, but just couldn't seem to justify spending so much on anything brand-new. He ran the numbers hundreds of times and even made spreadsheets to track his spending.  He debated if he even wanted something now or if he should just wait a few more years.  He debated with us, without us, and with himself.  He finally decided to enjoy life and get something nice to drive now.  Now maybe I can talk Matt into having us enjoy life with a newer vehicle too!

New license plate.

Welcome Home!!

I was out of town for the past five days and Matt had this waiting on the counter for me when I came home. I think I'll keep him!

Happy Birthday to Cyrus!

We have a teenager in the house!  Happy birthday, Sir Cyrus Pembroke!!

Cy's birthday treat was a blueberry muffin.

After his birthday bash, he found a sunny spot to rest up from all the excitement.

New Sign

My new sign.  It's perfect!

Last Long Weekend

We enjoyed our last long weekend of the summer over in Allendale.  We did some kayaking in the Grand River and just spent time relaxing.  It's hard to believe fall is just around the corner.  But, I'm ready for it...and to change the decor in the house over to fall colors!

Another Project Completed!

Yesterday's reorganization and purging took place in my scrapbook room.  I was pretty organized before, but just needed to do some tweaking.  I was able to pack up a large bag of donations for Matt to take to work and give to any serious scrapbookers.  I'm thinking I just may be able to open my own store with my stash of scapbooking supplies!

After yesterday's project, Matt and I went to an outdoor concert in Grand Rapids to see Plain White T's, Daughtry, & Goo Goo Dolls.  It was awesome and an absolutely perfect night to enjoy some great music! 

Getting Ready to Get Ready to Move

I'm ready to get the house ready so we can put it up for sale. So, I've decided to go through each room and purge, reorganize, and redecorate if needed. My first completed project was our home movies/DVD collection. Having an only child means we videotape and photograph EVERYTHING. I. Mean. Everything. Our collection was pretty organized already and I always label each DVD with a cute label, complete with dates, highlights, and age. But, I changed a few existing labels, made marker cards to distinguish years and labeled each box for easier access. We now have over 300 DVDs of Keaton's first 22 years.  Holy cow! That's a lot of DVDs. Now, onto the next project:  reorganizing and purging the loft.

My New Pretty Bike

I finally got a new bike a couple of weeks ago.  Although I couldn't find a pink sparkly one, I did find one in silver and hot pink.  It's fabulous!  And it's so nice to actually ride something that doesn't make me sore...and has working brakes.  On Saturday morning, Matt and I rode a little over 8 miles on the Kal-Haven trail.  (I didn't want to do anything too crazy and be sore for a week.)  For those of you not familiar with the trail, it was previously an old train route and they removed the rails, put in gravel, and opened up the path to walkers, runners, and bikers.  It's gorgeous...and offers a lot of shade, which was nice since it's been so hot and humid here.  It's 33.5 miles from US 131 to South Haven on the trail.  I have a lot of conditioning before I can even think of riding that far...oh, and a tandem bar so Matt can pull me.  

Truth

I saw this little gem and it totally made me laugh because it's so true!

Petoskey & Interlochen

We just enjoyed another round of camping and kayaking adventures.  We visited Petoskey and Interlochen (near Traverse City), MI.  It was gorgeous! We went with our neighborhood camping buddies and met up with our other former neighborhood camping buddies in Petoskey. We enjoyed visiting, campfires, good food, games, lots of laughing, and kayaking down the Jordan River together.  Well, kind of.  I did not care for the Jordan River.  It was pretty, but...it was narrow, had a fast current and had WAY too many people in it.  I definitely did not like the rapids either.  I'm a lazy kayaker and would rather paddle slowly so I can look around and enjoy the scenery.  So, three hours of winding down the Jordan River and dodging so many trees, rocks, canoes and kayaks definitely was rewarded with some frozen cocktails when we got back to the campground.  Matt enjoyed some more eventful kayaking with the guys. I, on the other hand, about had a heart attack when the brakes on the Jeep were blown and my foot touched the floorboard when I tried to stop after dropping the guys off.  Not fun. But, again, I rewarded myself with a frozen cocktail when I finally (and thankfully) made it back to the campground.  We ended up having to tow the Jeep with the motor home and were lucky to be able to drop it off at a garage on the way to Interlochen...and lucky to be able to turn around and not get stuck!

So, we arrived in Interlochen State Park and set up camp with a beautiful overlook of Duck Lake.  We were able to pick up the Jeep the next day and enjoyed a visit to Traverse City for some shopping...and cherries, of course!  We ran our air conditioners in Petoskey and had to use the heater in Interlochen.  (Welcome to unpredictable Michigan weather!) I really liked kayaking the Platte River where we had a bald eagle fly over us.  The girls were smart and got out of river before the guys were spit out into Lake Michigan.  Needless to say, they got a little wet.  After that kayaking trip, we returned to the motor home to find out we had lost all the water in our tank. So, Matt had to break camp and go drive up and refill the tank and then set up everything again.  Since it was only in the 40s in the mornings, I definitely was not too excited about the prospect of being forced to go to the public showers.  We have a motor home so I don't have to do stuff like that.  The only way I'll "camp" is to have my own house on wheels complete with my private bathroom, a full kitchen, heat, and air conditioning.  That's the only way I'll ever rough it.  I'm a princess and I'll be the first to admit it. The first clue is my pretty pink kayak.

I roasted the PERFECT marshmallows!

It was pretty chilly outside, but Cyrus stayed nice and toasty on my lap by the fire wrapped in a blanket.

The Big Apple

Finally...FINALLY...I got our latest vacation pics uploaded (or is it downloaded?) from our cell phones. We celebrated Keaton's college graduation with a trip to New York City. 

We stayed at this new hotel near Times Square.  It was fabulous!  The view from our room was of the Empire State Building.  Gorgeous...and patriotic!!

We hopped on the subway to visit the American Museum of Natural History and saw Dum-Dum. (It's the museum from the movie, 'Night at the Museum'.)  We discovered that Matt & Keaton were definitely taller than ancient man.

We visited Central Park.

We watched Team USA play Portugal in the World Cup on a big screen TV at Madison Square Park. Maybe you saw us on ESPN...along with the thousands of other spectators. (We were the ones sitting on a pink blanket.)

 We shuffled along with all the other tourists in Times Square.

We did some shopping at all the big department stores.

I'd like to say we did some shopping at Tiffany's, but I couldn't talk Matt into buying me anything.  Darn. 

We walked about 15 miles while we were in midtown Manhattan.  We saw all the usual sights like Union Station, Rockefeller Plaza, Radio City Music Hall, Madison Square Garden, and the Empire State Building. We traveled to some lesser-known sights like the revolving door they used for a scene in the movie, Elf. (Yes, Matt did pretend he was Buddy the Elf and re-enacted the scene from the movie.)  

We visited the Soup Nazi kitchen from Seinfeld.

We took a bus tour and saw One World Trade Center, the Twin Towers Memorial, the Statue of Liberty, and all the sights in between.  We took a stroll through High Line Park and visited Chelsea Market.

We saw Wicked. 

Before we knew it, it was time to pack up and head back to the real world. We had a great time and look forward to visiting again.  Although, maybe we won't do as much shopping next time. (But it's highly unlikely.)