Weekend Fun

We had a pretty fun weekend! It was mostly random things, and of course it went by way too quickly. It's crazy how that always happens. The week seems to drag and then the weekend flies by! Oh well, so here's what our weekend looked like:

      We have decided to start fostering dogs again, so we went and picked up a little 10 week old puppy on Friday. She is soooo cute! Her name is Cassie, and she of course is getting adopted super fast (tonight actually) because who wouldn't want to take home a really sweet puppy?? It's been fun having her for a few days, but man, I forgot how much work puppies are!

      On Saturday, I went to a baby shower for a girl in our sunday school class. She is due in 5ish weeks, and doesn't know what she is having. She says they want to be surprised, which would stress me out, but she is very laid back and seems to be ok with that. I made her a changing mat, a travel case to hold diapers and wipes, and 2 pacifier holders. She and her husband both went to A&M, and I sneakily found cute fabrics that had the great UT colors of orange and white in them :). 

        Michael had a friend in town all day Saturday which was fun for him. He has a little pug/beagle mix (named Nucks) so they took the dogs to the dog park, and then watched football. That was great since it gave me time to do some sewing and take a good nap :)

Nucks is light brown one

       Yesterday, my parents and sister came into town. Kristen moves into college tomorrow! OMG that is soooo crazy that she is going to college! Man I feel old.

      Last night at church we had a special evening service for our music minister's 10 anniversary at the church. The choir and orchestra played and sang and it was a really sweet and special service. He is a huge blessing to have at our church and I have really enjoyed getting to know him better through choir.


Well I'm sad the weekend is over, but the next few days will be fun ones with the family in town. I hope the week goes by quickly!

   

Michigan Vacation Part 2: Cottage Tour!

Per my dad's request, and also to have it documented so I won't forget 10 years from now, here's a little tour of the cottage.

The cottage!

When you walk in the front door, there is a little mini-hallway (below) that leads into the kitchen.

 View of both sides of the kitchen from the front entry, its a pretty good size. The table is only used for serving all the food off of at meals since there is great outdoor seating and beautiful weather every day :).

View from the center of the kitchen looking back towards the front door. The brown door is the bathroom (which I will show next) to the left of the blue door that is open is the breezeway and to the right of the picture leads to the living room!

 Bathroom! Pretty much just a shower, water heater, sink and toilet....the dresser holds towels.

 When you walk out of the bathroom and turn right, you are in the breezeway. Usually it looks like this:

Its just an open area for hanging out inside, and pretty nice since its very open with just the screen windows on both sides. But this year, we turned it into another bedroom with screens and an air mattress since there were so many people. 

behind the blue door is the back bedroom

On the other side of the breezeway is a little bedroom with 2 bunk beds and another bathroom. This bathroom is just big enough for a little sink and a toilet, but its nice when a lot of us are staying together.

So walking back out of the other side of the breezeway, you go through the kitchen into the living room. 

sometimes you find a michael grysen in the living room:)

Off the living room there are 2 bedrooms with a dresser and 2 twin beds in each one. 

 Out back is a porch and a deck with picnic tables. That's pretty much where we eat all meals, spend time playing games, and watch the sunsets.

view of the back porch from the deck

looking to the right off the porch facing away from the house; this is where the stairs down to the beach start. 

 Then, we have one of the best parts, the view off the back deck. We are pretty spoiled to have our own private beach to use all week long.

this picture is actually from last year, but lets you see the staircase a little better

 So there you have it! I am so glad that Uncle Elliott has it for the family to come visit every year. I hope he keeps it for a very long time!

Michigan Vacation Part 1

Last week we had a glorious vacation in Michigan. It was a great break from work and just life in general. I feel pretty refreshed after relaxing on the beach, paying no attention to a clock, having hardly any cell phone reception (and no other electronic access), and spending tons of time playing with my nieces. Oh, and I may or may not have had Miss Lisa's ice cream 4 of the nights we were there :).

We spent time at the beach every afternoon, and dinner every night included whatever extended family was free that evening. Braeden (my nephew) made sure that we all played ping pong every day, and most evenings after dinner we all sat outside visiting and watching the sunset. Man, just doesn't get much better than that.

Here's what our week looked like in pictures plus a rundown of the major happenings of each day:

Saturday-Sunday, we drove a lot. Got to Michigan about 3pm on Sunday, and we unpacked and hung out at the cottage and beach.

the pups were ready to get there!

 Monday morning, we went to North Shore park, then had lots of beach time the rest of the day. Also "Abby-daddy"aka Josh came in on Monday afternoon. 

view from the back deck

Tuesday morning was blueberry picking (always a favorite), and of course more time at the beach after naps.  Then on Tuesday night after dinner, we all went to play putt-putt. Those little girls were very serious about it and we all had a blast. 

Abby was not too excited about showing me her blueberries lol

Wednesday, the boys played golf while the girls went on a walk downtown with Grandmother and Uncle Elliott. Then, more beach :).

building sand castles

cool boat anchored for coast guard festival that week

another anchored boat

gorgeous sunset-this pretty much happened every night

On Thursday, Ryan and Braeden left, so we went to Grandmother's house for homemade waffles. Soooo yummy. I also got to kneeboard that afternoon which was pretty fun.

On Friday, me, Michael, Katie and Lisa went to art in the park which is an outdoor craft fair. We got an ornament, a dried soup mix, dog treats, and some books. That night was dinner at the Nieboer's house (michael's cousins). Aunt Marilyn made an amazing lasagna dinner for everyone. Saturday, we went to see the parade for Coast Guard Festival (a big deal in Grand Haven), and then went to a picnic at the house of some friends of my in-laws.

So that was our vacation! I should have taken more pictures, but I kept forgetting my camera.  Maybe later I will do a post of favorite pictures from the trip once my sister-in-laws get all of their pictures downloaded. They brought really nice cameras and took some great pictures. Ah well, back to the daily grind! Somehow, it doesn't seem too bad now that I am refreshed from a week off :).

next up: cottage tour!