What? No Monster Mash?!?

Halloween festivities started early this year. We celebrated with our annual pumpkin carving party at Nona’s (Phil’s mom). She went all out and had a scary hand punch, Frankenstein cake, pumpkin pizza and even hotdog mummies. We picked out our pumpkins at Gene the Pumpkin Man (who only owns things that are bright orange, including his car). Then we spent the afternoon eating and carving to our hearts content. They all turned out great. Phil even carved Natalie her own pumpkin, which she was really into.

At work, my team dressed as hillbillies (although I think my costume looked more like a cross between a trucker and a train conductor!). No matter what we were, we looked great and were about the only ones with any Halloween spirit.

Halloween day, we convinced Jon and Erin to go to the Zoo Boo at Binder Park Zoo with us. All the workers dress up in their costumes and the entire place is decorated in scary décor (not too scary as it is geared towards children). We had a great time. We trick or treated at different booths throughout the park, saw some cool animals and even went on a hay ride.

After the zoo fun, we went back to our house where we were joined by our friends Randy and Liza and some other stragglers throughout the night. We ate a lot, played some games, watched a movie and of course football. Before the night was over, we all had too much sugar and too much food.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Sisters/Cousin Weekend to "the island"

This past weekend, my sisters, our favorite cousin, Natalie and I all made a road trip up north to visit Mackinac Island (pronounces Mackinaw for those of you not from around here). It is about a 5 hour drive, but it's beautiful and has many fun things like: fudge, no cars, lots of horses, fudge, the Grand Hotel (which someone told me is in a movie with Keanu Reeves), tandum bikes, oh yeah and FUDGE!



Of course the road trip is part of the fun, so we got up early Saturday morning and made our way up the state. It's always amazing to me that you can drive for 5 hours and still be in Michigan. The colors were very pretty and the traffic was light so we made good time. We took the ferry (which was basically a giant speed boat run by a rather cute young man that we attempted to hook up with my single cousin) over to the island where we headed straight for the bikes. We rented 2 tandum bikes and a Burley (which is a little cart that pulls behind the bikes) for Natalie. The men at the bike rental place were just a little worried about our sanity because as we were getting onto our bikes, the heavens opened up and a hurricane (or at least it felt like a hurricane) struck us. The winds were whipping the rain in our face and making it very difficult to bike. Somehow we survived the 8.3 mile trip around the island without crashing. Natalie had a nice nap in her Burley where she was snug & warm and completely oblivious to the weather outside.

After assuring the bike men that we were still alive and their bikes were in tact, we headed to our hotel to get some dry clothes and warm up a little. We ventured out later that night to have dinner downtown at a little restaurant. Annie & Staci were in awe of the "islanders" so it was just our luck that our waitress was a native to the island and still lived there year round. They had many questions for her about the island. So much so in fact that she even gave us a little book that a group of the "islanders" had written answering these types of questions. We of course purchased several copies and got many autographs to go with them!

Sunday morning the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. So we decided to take a little adventure around the island to see the Grand Hotel and the village where our new friend Melissa (the waitress) lives. We stopped at St. Ann's cemetary for a photo op and just enjoyed the beautiful views. Next was breakfast at the Chuckwagon (a very narrow restaurant) and then wandering around the town to do some shopping and stock up on fudge.

We caught the afternoon ferry back to the mainland (that is what us islanders call Mackinac City), where we attempted once again to make a love connection for my cousin with the same ferry coordinator. Then we made our way back down the state, stopping in Lansing for some Linner and making it home rather late Sunday night. Although it was a quick trip, it was full of great memories and I can't wait until the next sisters/cousin weekend!

Annie, Natalie & Staci waiting for the ferry

Our tandum biking... this was just before the rain & gale force winds.

Baby in her Burley, doesn't she look comfy?

St. Ann's Cemetary

The Grand Hotel

LaKnoll

This weekend, my long lost friend Jess came into town to visit. We sent Phil packing to Angola to help work on Jon's house (it had some recent fire damage). So Friday night was just the girls hanging out in Richland. Saturday we got up and around and headed out to Battle Creek to pick up some Papa Murphy's pizza for lunch at LaKnoll (this is the name of Traci's parents farm that was our old stomping ground). We found Papa Murphy's too easy so we knew it would be much harder to find LaKnoll from there. After 10 phone calls, 3 U turns, lots of laughing & also some confusion and half a bag of Reese's peanut butter cups later we made it! What should have taken us 20 minutes took us over an hour, but what fun would it be if everything went smoothly all the time!

We spent the day hangning out at LaKnoll with Mare & Traci. Played cards, ate pizza (and the remaining peanut butter cups), went for a Gator Ride back to see the beaver dam, watched the boys paint a barn and played with the barn kittens.

Here's Mare & Traci on the Gator.

Jess, Natalie & I in the yard.

Mare & Natalie (notice the majorly drooled on shirt? maybe some more teeth?)

Natalie meeting the kittens.

It does sort of look like she's trying to strangle this one.

**No kittens were harmed in the making of this blog.

Notre Dame Weekend

Two weekends ago, we hauled ourselves and all of our stuff (which seems like it is exponentially increasing now that there are three of us) down to South Bend to our friend's Jon & Erin's house. We had a sleep over Friday night and then we "tailgated" (that is only in quotes because we never left their house, we enjoyed our tailgate in the comfort of their home with their indoor plumbing). We still had a fabulous time, with lots to eat and good company.

The boys watched the game on the big screen while the girls entertained ourselves on the new deck. It truly was a beautiful day for football.

Randy and Natalie (they have a special bond since she puked all over him the other day).

The ladies.

The boys (plus Kala & Natalie)... oh and Liza peeking from the background.

I spy baby's first teeth! Yup, it's plural!

Friday night we discovered two little white specs showing through Natalies gums on the bottom. After some careful investigation, we discovered two (count 'em TWO) teeth had decided to grace us with their presence. She is such a good baby that we didn't even no she was teething! She was drooling a lot (but that is par for the course with her) and chewing on everything, but no crankiness or extra sleep. Let's hope that is the pattern for the rest of her teeth.