Camping with Grandpa and Grandma

A couple of weeks ago, the kids and I got a chance to go camping with my parents to Mullet Lake, Aloha State Park.  We had a blast!!!  Ross was unable to come for the week, but he did come over the weekend to get us home.

Our campsite.  My parents just

bought a motor home.  The kids slept in there.

 My little pup ten oasis.  Just me and a lot of foam. It

was bliss.

 Only little trees on these lots.  Sometimes you have to  make due with what you have.

My mom founds some clothes pins and we dried the bathing

suits in this bitty tree.  No clothesline required.

The girls had their hair done the same way, so of course

I needed a picture.

my twinners

 Clay and I

 I do not have front loaders at home, so the boys

found the laundry mat quite amusing.

 So did Alli.

Fun rides at the laundry mat. 

 Sit here in this tree and smile and then you can go swimming.

 Clay and his craft he made.  

 Leanne, a good fisherwoman.  She fed the fish her worms,

but didn't catch any.

 The boys, all ready for a boat ride.

 Alli caught this tiny fish.

 Soon after, I caught and even smaller one.

 Beautiful sunset from the back of the boat.

Where all 3 boys slept. 

 Leanne and Allii

 Clay's turn fishing.

 At a lighthouse, right by the Mackinac Bridge.

We had a great time camping with grandpa and grandma.  We may have tired them out, but it was so fun.  No one wanted to go home.  It was well worth the drive.

Hats for Sale

As I have mentioned before, we live down a dirt lane on the blueberry farm, surrounded by trees, and we have 1 neighbor.  So of course, Allison and Clay think this is the perfect spot to make paper hats (they are tiny and won't stay on) and try to put them up for sale.  They have worked really hard at making paper hats and crowns, airplanes, and bookmarks.  They have a good price list, you can buy almost anything for a penny.  The first day they did it, Alli came inside and said defeated, "no one is coming to buy our hats, we haven't made any money."  At that time, I had no idea that they were even doing this.  I saw what they were trying to do, and I tried to explain to them that no one knows that they were trying to sell anything, because no one can see them.  Alli, still looking defeated, said, "well, maybe when your customers come, they will buy a hat from us."  I had no customers coming that day for cupcakes (it was a Monday), so I told her she would have to wait a long time.  Luke and Reed came in, and I gave them some small change, and they went and bought hats.  That made the salesman/lady very happy.  I called Ross, so he would be ready to buy something from them too.  Ever since then, they make hats, and set up on my porch, in hopes of making money.  

This is their little set up.

The sign says, Hats for sale, take your shoes off, take off 

your socks too, no food, no babies only if there ours, no mean
people.

And this is the hat you can get for 10 cents, but they'll also

let you have it for a Penny if that's all you have.

I love their imaginations and how well they play together and make hats.....If anyone needs a small paper colored hat, you know where to come!

Forgetful

It's the end of the school year, which means I'm barely keeping every thing on my kid's schedule straight.  I'm sorry teachers, we are scraping by.  Special field trips, and as I wrote that I quick hopped up to check the calender because I wasn't sure if Clay's class trip was today (it's not, it's next week, whew).  Anyways, the schedule is just jam packed.  

Last week, or was it the week before? It was the week before last.....  Clay got off the bus and started to talk about Fredrick Meijer Gardens, and I said to him, "you'll see all that stuff when you get to go there for your class trip."  Fast forward to the weekly Monday note the teacher sends home and it says, "we had so much fun at Fredrick Meijer Gardens on Thursday....."  and there I sat, searching my brain to see if I remembered about it.  I didn't.  I ask Clay about it and sure enough they went there.  At least I remembered to send in the permission slip and money a few weeks prior to the class trip.

Last week Friday, the teacher e-mailed a picture of the class.  All the kids, except mine and another boy, were wearing green and yellow.  There was Clay in the picture, standing out like a sore thumb, in navy and orange.  Apparently, they were supposed to wear John Deere colors for a small outing across the road to a farm. I totally forgot about it!  We're not John Deere people anyways, we are Allis Chalmers folk here.

We get the school note on Wednesdays and it has all the school reminders and important info on them.  Ross was reading it Friday morning, and says to me ,"Erin, there are only 20 year books left, did we get one?"  My response, "I've been meaning to send in the money with Leanne, but keep forgetting."  Ross replies, "Do you even read the note?"  I said to him, "I skim read it."  Maybe that's part of my problem this year, all that skim reading that I keep missing stuff.  But I don't really think so, I think I would forget anyways, even if I read it closely.  I sent Leanne to school that morning with money for a year book. 

Thursday, last week, I could sense that I pushed something wrong on my alarm clock and my mind told me to get up and check it out, but my body did NOT listen.  I woke up when the bus was supposed to pick up the kids for school.  I got the kiddos up, full well knowing that I would have to bring them, got them dressed and fed and dropped them off.  Alli and Clay were on time but Leanne was a few minutes late (we outgrew our school, so this year we leased the Beaverdam school and grades K-2 go there).  The whole day was totally off.  I HATE that when that type of morning happens.


There, of course, are the normal forgetful moments too.  Like forgetting to initial minutes Clay has read for reading, doing their catch up homework from sick days (we have yet another virus going through the family!!), and just generally keeping everything straight.  BUT we are in the HOME STRETCH!!!!!!!  I'm doing a little happy dance.  Only 2 weeks and a day left......I got this (I think....) Three more class trips and a field day.  I'd better get those brown paper bags out so I don't forget about sack lunches for class trips.

Vacation

Wow, it's been awhile since I last updated my blog.  I've been busy with starting my own cupcake business among other things that just keep life, well, busy.  I was also busy with Ross' family on spring break at Orange Beach, AL!!!!!  That's right, we went away for spring break!  We have never (Ross and I and our kids) gone away for spring break and I have never gone to the ocean for a vacation.  My family always camped and went fishing and things of that nature.  When I met Ross, I found out he HATES sand and anything to do with water, so that nixed a honeymoon by the ocean.  But that was fine because I love outdoorsy nature stuff and I have a hard time sitting still.  So anyways, ORANGE BEACH!!!!!!!!  We decided to leave a few days earlier and go to the land of the Ozarks, in Missouri, since we don't know if we'll ever do anything like this again.  We are huge fans of Laura Ingalls books, and decided we wanted to visit where she lived and since this one was only a couple hours out of the way, we decided to go here.  We rented a small (more like tiny) cabin for a night (that turned into 2 nights).  Did I forget to mention that Clay caught a nasty stomach bug a few days before vacation?  And that Luke and I had it before we left and Leanne started puking the night we were supposed to leave on vacation?  Oh, and Reed puked that night too?  Whoops, well that's what happened.  We were debating on whether to stay home or not, but decided we were going to go.  As Leanne said, "I'm not sick, I only puked twice."  That poor girl was sick the entire drive and into the next day at the cabin.  We decided to stay there an extra night because of the the sickies.  Oh, and Alli finally caught it right when Leanne started to feel better.  Leanne is the one in our family who loves the Little House Books, so thankfully, she was well enough to go see where Laura lived out her final years of her life and where Laura wrote her books.

Luke and I at Laura

Ingalls Wilder's house.  

Photography credit goes

to Clay.  Ross stayed back 

with the sickies.

Laura Ingalls Wilders home

Rose, Laura's daughter, bought this house

for her parents.  It had top of the line

stove and fridge, it was all very modern for

that day in age.  Laura and Almanzo lived here

for awhile, and then moved back to the white

 house because they liked it better there.

We left the land of the Ozarks and headed to Alabama.  Poor Alli still wasn't feeling well.  She got pretty dehydrated, to the point if we were at home, I would have taken her in for IV fluids. After hours of driving (12-13 hours), we made it to Alabama.  We were all pretty tired, and as for Alli, she got some Gatorade in her and we woke her up through the night to force her to drink.  After that she started to perk up and finally made a turn for the better.  

The place where we stayed.  Our family

had the lower level.  The second

level is the main level with the big

kitchen and large area to relax as 

an entire family.  

Lynelle (her hubby was unable to get

 off work to come), Ross' sister

and her to girls stayed on that level.  The

Top level was mainly sleeping

area.  Brandon, Ross' brother, and his

wife, Leah, and their kids stayed up there,

along with Ross' parents, and Chad, Ross'

brother, and his wife, Anna, and their

baby, Thomas.  

Our daily view!!!! Nothing like waking up and looking

out the window and seeing this.  It was AMAZING!!

Sunday was Easter and we listened to an online sermon and had a nice big brunch.  We pretty much stayed low key to remember the Lord's day (and it felt good after so much driving and sickness).

Monday the kids could not wait to get into the pool, so we let them swim and play in the sand and gather shells.  Anna's (Chad's wife, so sister in law) family was staying next door to us and her dad went charter boat fishing that morning.  When they came in, we went down there to see them gut the fish and visit the docks.  After watching them clean the fish, we went for a walk down the docks to see pelicans.  One guy had his fish (5-6 nice sized fish) laying out on the docks and he was taking pics of them.  He turned his back and started to talk to some people by the cleaning table.  Those pesky pelicans walked right up to the fish and grabbed one.  He almost had it in his neck area (or whatever you call that thing).  We were yelling several times,  "hey, they've got your fish!!" before he finally noticed what was going on. Good thing it slipped out of the pelican's mouth.  They did have it quit a bit a ways from the group of the other fish.  I almost felt bad for the pelican, almost.  We also went on a bit of a nature walk.

Watching a fish getting gutted.

Family picture on the docks (this

is right before the pelicans tried to get the

fish.  Leanne was in stitches laughing

so hard!)

Pelicans waiting and watching

The recovered fish from the pelican

The kids had fun digging this big hole.

Looking for gators on our nature

walk, no gators seen.

Tuesday we went to the National Naval Aviation Museum.  That was really neat.  They had a lot of different airplanes from different wars in the museum.  We also got to see the Blue Angels practice.  That was the highlight of the day.

Majority of the kids.  Look

at Clay being a goof at the

top of the chain

Inside the museum

We didn't get a good picture of the Blue Angels practicing because they were so fast, but it was AMAZING!!!!!

Wednesday we planned on playing it low key, but last minute we decided to go to Alligator Alley.  It's a place that takes alligators who are considered pests.  Like alligators that come too close to houses, or eats people pets......   

 

 Kids at the alley.  It was hot and they were tired.

Clay and Alli

Luke and Reed (not sure who is who here).  

Lee and one of the twins

Ross and I

Thursday we went to the U.S.S. Drum and the U.S.S. Alabama.  My kids love going through ships, so we couldn't pass this opportunity up.

Alli, Brooklyn (cousin), Reed,

Clay, Luke, and Leanne

Time for a nap!

Maybe if we all try together it will budge.

And Grandpa came too!!

Thursday night sleepover.  Haley (asleep), Alli, Leanne,

and Brooklyn.  Lots of giggles coming from that room!

Friday we just laid low key.  We spent time down by the ocean, swimming in the pool, relaxing and packing.  We were all enjoying our last day of vacation.

Enjoying the last time stepping in the

ocean.

My little guys

We woke up at 1:30 AM and got on the road 2ish.  We drove it straight through to home with minor backups (which is why we left so early).  My kids are really good riders, the twins cried for maybe 5 minutes during the trip and the older ones fought very little.  I am proud of their riding skills.

So sad to leave.  Goodbye Orange

Beach!

We had a wonderful vacation with Ross' family.  So thankful for the time spent together with nieces and nephews, brothers and sisters, and mom and dad.