Just pictures

Sissy and Me when she stopped on her way back to Minnesota
The Hayride
Anna's afternoon position

Ju at the beach at Burt Lake State Park
Me and Chang
More Ju, on the river this time
Cam, the paddler
Me and Wayne

Anna
Our group
A bigger shot of the rafters
Lori and Tracy
Shelly

Uncle Bruce in the kayak
Julia and Benjamin
Our clan
Anna Elizabeth
Anna and Ju after the beach

Cameron
Max, Mackenzie, and Cam
Kathy, Gabby and Greg getting a little wild with the pinata pieces
Kristen and Julia
The men by the jet-ski

Sophia...

I loved watching the Golden Girls with my grandma when I was younger and today I read that Estelle Getty who played the beloved Sophia passed away. She was 84. Here's the intro to the Golden Girls that I love so much!

Indian River 2008: Camp Out

Well, as I predicted in the Vacation Message post, here I am blogging from my campsite in Indian River, Michigan. :-) Yes, there is a heaven when you have a great wireless connection in a little slice of woodland peace. Anyways...so far, we attended a super cool craft show, watched my nephew Eric compete in a biathlon (kayak and bike), survived a horrible thunderstorm while trying to do a fish dry and hit the beach to catch a few summer rays. Here are some of the pictures that most of you would rather see. :-) Oh yeah...our kids love the Michigan Chiller books by Jonathan Rand (aka Christopher Knight). He has a store right here in Indian River and we love checking out his work. On Saturday we stopped on the way into town and he HAPPENED TO BE THERE AT HIS STORE!! EEEYYYEEAAHHHH!! He's super nice and very cool. I got to take a picture with 10 of our camp kids with him. YAY! Anyways...enjoy the pictures!

This is the outside of Chillermania in Indian River where we get our Michigan Chiller books at. Pretty neat place inside and out.

Here are most of our kiddos, minus a few with the author Jonathan Rand!

Wayne, Me and Julia after the HUGE RAIN STORM that drenched everything....

Weird picture that Julia took of the lights under the tarp

This is my lovely niece Shelly...she's got a fish ball in her mouth and didn't want me to post this. GOTCHA!

Here is brother Greg, friend Dave and brother Jeff enjoying their adult beverages

brother John and nephew Adam making home made potato chips

Jess, Lori and Cindy waiting for dinner to be ready

Part of our fish fry party

Fish balls....take a little piece of good fish, wrap it in bacon...cook on a grill, once done, move to pan with BBQ sauce.

Just a quick prayer request

As many of you know North Carolina is one of my favorite places to visit and I keep tabs on the goings on via different websites. This past week, I've been following a story very closely. A SAHM named Nancy Cooper was murdered near her home in the city Cary (just outside of my beloved Raleigh). She apparently went out for a jog and didn't return. For some reason this story has just really touched me and I'm asking all my friends to just say a small prayer for her 2 young daughters and for her family in Canada. There are no suspects at this time and no one is sure as to what happened. Well, I assume the Cary police have a good idea, but they can't confirm or deny a lot if things. So we are now left wonder what happened. WRAL is reporting that Nancy's husband had some "emotional issues" and that has caused her parents to seek custody of her kids. Here are links to WRAL and to the News & Observer articles. Thanks!

As of July 18th...I'm...

But if you know me at all, you know I'm still going to post pictures of our trip while we're gone.

Sally says it best!

I'm having one of THOSE days where the kids want to fight and argue everything with me and with each other. I left a load of clothes in the washer (AGAIN!) and they smell like, well, like towels that have been left in the washer overnight. I'm working on getting everything we need packed for the trip to Indian River. I haven't had a decent night's sleep in months. Yep, I'm taking a 10 minute blog break to let you all know that I've lost my mind and I'm fairly certain I'm not going to look for it. Ever! lol!

4 generations

My mom plays in the Pentwater Civic Band and they have weekly concerts on the Village Green. Well, tonight I finally made it to a concert. Was pretty cool, ended up running into a few people from school. Anyways, we had pizza at the Coast Guard Station on the pier before the concert and here's the picture my dad took of my mom, the girls, my grandma (my mom's mother) and me. It turned out pretty cool. :-)

The Walk, which lead to panic

The little road next to Uncle Ron's house...

Tart cherries...they're never sweet!

A field that we passed by

Yellow sweets...I think...
Same field as above...

Spooky woods
Ever wonder why I have perfect cell reception at my house? This is it. It's in my backyard practically and I love it. LOL! My cell works awesome all the time.

A row of peach trees
The hill we have to climb to get home....

A blurry Riley...she wouldn't stop moving!

Oliver
A picture that was snapped as I was shutting the camera off and dropping it on the ground. Nice, eh?

After eating a Blizzard from DQ in 2 nights in a row, I decided that I needed to take a walk. So, I rounded up the dogs and headed out. I changed from my normal couse seeing how there's a huge St. Bernard that lives down the road and is NEVER chained up. Anyways...we head through the orchard by Uncle Ron's house, head up over a hill. I spot a yellow sweet cherry tree and want to see if the cherries are ripe. Some are, some aren't...the walk continues til I want to take another picture. The camera? It's not in my pocket any longer. WHAT? Damn! I backtrack to where the yellow cherries where...nope not there. This is where I start to panic. Everyone knows that I love my camera and take pictures of everything! I've got to find it! After about 15 minutes of pure panic hell, I find it. PHEW!