Family portraits

For Mother's Day, I bought myself a Groupon for an outdoor photo session, and demanded that everyone dress up and look beautiful for me.  They did!  Best Mother's Day present ever!  Look how awesome these pics turned out!

I procrastinated on ordering the prints, so I just got the CD of prints a few weeks ago, even though the pictures were taken in May.  Sorry it took me so long to post them, but I just had to share!  I bet you'll see some of these on our Christmas cards this year!

I also got a Groupon for a canvas, so I ordered a 20x16 of the birch tree one.  Can't wait to see it in person!

Alpena trip

Last week, I took the girls up to Alpena for a few days on a spur of the moment trip. Chris had to work late every night, we were totally free, the weather was good, and Dad and I wanted to get started on bug work. So we took off one morning!

I've always wanted to stop at the tons of places we see along the drive. So we picked a few to check out. First stop was H&H bakery. Yum! Second stop was the Singing Bridge public access, where a river empties into Lake Huron. We did lots of rock hunting!








Third stop was the park in Tawas. We love these cheesy animals!























The last stop was the roadside park in Oscoda. Beautiful! We played in a little creek that emptied into Lake Huron:


And we walked along the shore for a long time:


Then it was time to work the next day! Dad cut down two of Mary and Justin's dead ash trees. We also drove around a lot, scouting out ash wood supplies.


We went with GG to his ice skating class:





We went to the concert in the park. It was Polish night! So Grandma taught the kids to polka!


It was brush pickup weekend, so we did lots of trimming at both houses.


We walked/scootered/rollerbladed to the Blair St pier:


Jess looking like Auntie Mary:


Fri night we watched Sharknado. It was awesome!

Sat, We went to the Alpena farmers mkt, then walked along the pier in the harbor:





We saw a shark (carp), a muskrat, and a cool caterpillar on the pier:


Katie practiced basketball at the courts by the water. Megan found a tree. So of course, she climbed it. And she found a cooler way high up in the tree! She climbed up and got it! Only Megan...


Mom took the girls to the library, and they loved their new books!


We canned some pickles! Some from us, some from dad, some from the farmers mkt.


Sat night we enjoyed an amazing dinner from the farmers mkt - all veggies! On our walk to the CC's house, meg had a lady ask her to climb in her bathroom window and open the door, bc she had accidentally locked herself out! So Megan did it! She got a hug and $2 for her heroism. :)

On our drive home on Sunday, we decided to hit a few more sights. Stop one was Sturgeon Point lighthouse!


























Then we had lunch in Oscoda, and planned to pick blueberries in Tawas. But the blueberry place wasn't open yet, due to the cold year. We were all so sad! But we drove to the Tawas beach and played instead. The girls swam forever, and Katie and I took turns wandering thru the art fair in the park.


Dad got me these beautiful glass mini vases, and I filled them up right away!



Thanks for a fun time in Alpena!

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July happenings

In between all of our trips up north, we crammed in lots of fun near home!

I have few garden pics this year, but we've had great luck at both of our veggie gardens. Here's a haul from our community garden:


I had a groupon for a trampoline place, so we invited jessis friend and the girl went crazy ! In addition to all these trampolines, there was a dodgeball court (fun!), many basketball hoops, and a foam pit.



We went out to a new DQ on our way home:



We went to the zoo one cold day:





This one is my favorite! Jess couldn't fit on, so she cried and carried on. Here she is, melting:





One of many DQ trips:


Water slide fun at a friends house:


Another groupon purchase - glo golf!


Katie and Megan went to "Chopped" cooking camp at a local church. It was just like the show, each group of 4 kids got some weird ingredients and had to make an appetizer, entree, and dessert every day. They loved it! Here are the judges sampling dessert:


K and M in the kitchen:


Jess was too young for cooking camp, so she went to "MI critters camp". Here are some of the treasures she made:


One night we went to Meadowbrook to watch the DSO perform (wsg Joshua Bell!). He was incredible, and it was a lovely night. I had warned the girls that there would be no crazy dancing, or special effects, etc. They brought rainbow looms and friendship bracelets to keep themselves busy. But Megan had the quote of the day, about ten min into the performance. "I didn't know it would be THIS boring!"


At a local park, Megan found this super cute tree frog:


She named it Lily:


We spent one Saturday at Stony Creek Metropark, and biked 6 miles around the big lake:


We had a nice picnic lunch, then explored the park:


At home, we found a robins nest in our magnolia bush. It's been fun to watch the babies grow:


We went putt putting one afternoon :






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