Yup, it's been awhile since we posted but we have an excuse. We've been going non-stop for a month with family and travels. We ended May with a visit from niece Tara and her friend Ashley. They had a great time and we were their designated drivers for their nightly bar-hopping while they were here.
The next weekend started a visit with the entire clan with us in Traverse City for a week. Counting infants we had 17 people hanging at the house. We did have to get an extra room at the GT Resort but thanks to Grandma Rose working there we at least got a bit of a deal.
Everyone left and we had one day to clean the house top to bottom to get it ready for realtors to show while we traveled south to the Lexington, SC home for three weeks. Good friend and neighbor, Ring, watched our house for us. A great guy! We even were able to rent the house for the week over Cherry Festival to a neighbor from Coldwater and a young lady who worked for me at the Branch ISD in the early childhood area. So glad they got to use the house.
Then, a day later, we were on the way south. We caravaned back with with Maeve and family and we took oldest grand daughter, Maria, down with us to help watch Maeve's children for a little while. We took two days and stopped at a great state park on New River in Virginia. We got out for a bit of a walk and let the girls play on a playground. Nearby we stopped at a 'shot tower' built in the Civil War era to make rifle shot. Very interesting. We made it to Lexington on time and Maeve headed to work the next morning.
Rose and Bob spent 2 weeks working on the house. We painted each bedroom and closet, installed laundry cupboards and a built-in ironing board. No luck with getting the kitchen counter replaced but we did get the garage joints mudded, sanded and painted and it looks great.
While here we went swimming several in the pool just a block from our house, went to the zoo with the girls and Rose, Maeve and Maria went to pick blueberries and got 30 pounds of wonderful, large, sweet blueberries. To top it all off we got a visit from Jennie Coakley Olshaske for a day and caught up on her life and some great gossip about the rest of the Coakley family. We did lots of other things and generally enjoyed the girls and the Masons. Too bad the weather was consistently in the 90's! We head back to Michigan and TC on Thursday and don't expect to return to SC until October where we plan to spend a couple months. Enough for now and we'll try to catch up earlier next time.
The next weekend started a visit with the entire clan with us in Traverse City for a week. Counting infants we had 17 people hanging at the house. We did have to get an extra room at the GT Resort but thanks to Grandma Rose working there we at least got a bit of a deal.
Everyone left and we had one day to clean the house top to bottom to get it ready for realtors to show while we traveled south to the Lexington, SC home for three weeks. Good friend and neighbor, Ring, watched our house for us. A great guy! We even were able to rent the house for the week over Cherry Festival to a neighbor from Coldwater and a young lady who worked for me at the Branch ISD in the early childhood area. So glad they got to use the house.
Then, a day later, we were on the way south. We caravaned back with with Maeve and family and we took oldest grand daughter, Maria, down with us to help watch Maeve's children for a little while. We took two days and stopped at a great state park on New River in Virginia. We got out for a bit of a walk and let the girls play on a playground. Nearby we stopped at a 'shot tower' built in the Civil War era to make rifle shot. Very interesting. We made it to Lexington on time and Maeve headed to work the next morning.
Rose and Bob spent 2 weeks working on the house. We painted each bedroom and closet, installed laundry cupboards and a built-in ironing board. No luck with getting the kitchen counter replaced but we did get the garage joints mudded, sanded and painted and it looks great.
While here we went swimming several in the pool just a block from our house, went to the zoo with the girls and Rose, Maeve and Maria went to pick blueberries and got 30 pounds of wonderful, large, sweet blueberries. To top it all off we got a visit from Jennie Coakley Olshaske for a day and caught up on her life and some great gossip about the rest of the Coakley family. We did lots of other things and generally enjoyed the girls and the Masons. Too bad the weather was consistently in the 90's! We head back to Michigan and TC on Thursday and don't expect to return to SC until October where we plan to spend a couple months. Enough for now and we'll try to catch up earlier next time.
Rose, Tara and Ashley at the Grand Traverse Resort for breakfast.
The Denjas arrived in TC on grandson Mikey's birthday. We made a Scooby Do cake to celebrate.
Grandma Alice came up a week before everyone else for a nice, long visit of a couple weeks. We played lots of games.
The last night that everyone was here we had a nice dinner at Pearl's Restaurant in Elk Rapids.
Down in South Carolina we took advantage of our community pool. We went down in the morning to get there before the crowds. Just like our own pool but no maintenance.
Maria had her first blueberry picking on this trip.
We had lots of fresh blueberries. We made blueberry pancakes, blueberry muffins and just plain ate blueberries.
We went to the pool again!
The picture is out of sequence but this is one of our stops on the way down to SC. Very interesting.
Maria went up the shot tower with Uncle Aaron. She just studied the Civil War this past year so it was really meaningful.
We're entering South Carolina!
Maria played the card game Golf with Aaron and Maeve while helping watch the little ones. Maria won their tournament and got this huge cookie as the prize.
Jennie was able to join us at the pool for one day, too.
Yup, we went to the pool again and again!
We went to the Riverbanks Zoo, too.
The master bedroom was our catch all for the first week. But at least we did not have to sleep on the air mattresses there.
The master bedroom gets a makeover.
Maria took a ride on the lion at the zoo entrance.
Our last Friday night in South Carolina was a girls' night out for Maeve, Rose and some of Maeve's friends. Left to right are Lawra, Rose, Cindy, Bethany and Maeve. Bob got to be driver and chaperon while Aaron stayed home with the kids.
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