It's a toss up..

Not sure who loved having DeeDee here more, me or Luke, but either way it was just awesome having her here.  Michael was on call both Friday and Sunday so it was a treat having my mom here to play on a weekend that otherwise would have been pretty long and lonely.  We always manage to pack a lot of fun into our time together, so this visit was no exception.  

Here's a quick recap of some of the fun we had:  we went apple and pumpkin picking, went out to dinner a couple of times, she taught me to sew (err...she sewed while Luke and I distracted her) a window treatment and closet drape to go in Luke's big boy room.  Today she helped me make homemade applesauce and my first ever homemade apple pie with the plethora of apples we have from our trips to the orchards lately.  I channeled my inner "suzie-home-maker" and felt quite proud of how all of that turned out.   (Of course we taste tested.)  

I have to say we have been spoiled with visitors this month.  It makes it seem like we aren't so far away from family when they can and do just hop on a plane to come see us.  Thanks for coming Mom.  It was such a treat. 

The trees keep getting better.

Luke wasn't sure about the hay ride.  It was COLD. 

Cider donuts are so yumm.  

Dork...I know. 

Getting ready for Saturday

Our friends up here in Michigan won't quite get the excitement brewing for the game on Saturday but we are getting ready at our house.  We'll be wearing our orange proud!   

Not sure if you'll be able to tell, but at the end Luke is so excited he has to see for himself how cool he looks with his Horns up.  :)  Sorry it's so dark, I just couldn't get him to do it again when we turned the lights on.  

Oh and if you don't know, the Longhorns play the Sooners this weekend in the Red River Shootout.  Hook 'Em Horns!!

The rest of our fun weekend

Please excuse the picture overload, we took a TON on Saturday and Sunday.   We were busy going to apple orchards and playing outside in the cold weather.  The animal pictures are from this really neat apple orchard a little ways out of town called Klackles.  We could have spent hours there because of all they had to do and Luke was beyond excited to see all the farm animals.  Unfortunately we left all of our jackets sitting on the kitchen counter and it started dipping into the low 40's as soon as we got there so we turned around after a quick adventure.  :)  We'll definitely be going back.

Thanks for coming to see us Kellie and Robert.  It was just a blast!!

Special Visitors

Nana and Papa (aka. Michael's Mom and Dad) are visiting Grand Rapids for the first time and they are getting a taste of the cold and rainy Fall weather we've had lately.   I'm pretty sure there's a little snow in the forecast for Sunday.   CRAZY!      

Kellie helped us get a little work done yesterday, painting Luke's big boy room (the pink needed to go), but mostly we've been relaxing, making fires and just enjoying being spoiled by Nana and Papa.  Michael and Robert headed off to fish in the rain this afternoon.  I'll let you know if they bring us some steelhead salmon home for dinner.  

change

As I've mentioned on here before, the leaves are changing like crazy up here and it is beautiful.  I made sure to get some pictures of the trees while we were up camping, and I thought this one was really cool.  I had just driven past some Amish women riding a horse drawn carriage and came up on what I'm pretty sure is their schoolhouse.   I almost turned around to take a picture of the ladies in the carriage, but I felt a little funny.  :)

As I was driving around looking for pretty trees to take pictures of I started thinking about change.  Probably because we just went through a pretty major one moving up here, and I couldn't help but think if the Lord can make the changing leaves so beautiful, then I trust and know that He can and will use this time of change in our lives and turn it into something awesome too.   Just a random little thought from yours truly.  

"There is a time for everything,  

  and a season for every activity under the sun....

  A time to be born, and a time to die,

  A time to plant and a time to uproot...."

                                          Ecclesiates 3:1-2

campout

With Michael on vacation for the week we decided to be adventurous and try our hand at camping in the Michigan wilderness yesterday.  (By wilderness I mean a completely modernized camp site.)  I  hesitantly agreed to a "compromise" of only one night of camping since he wanted to go for a couple.  

We packed up the baby, the dog, a cooler and a tent to head up North and ended up finding a neat campsite on a river about an hour from our house.   We spent the rest of the day setting up camp, playing by the river, finding sticks and roasting hot dogs and marshmallows.   Fun for everyone.  Michael even got a little fishing in while Luke took a nap - oh happy day!   

Everything was going great until around 3:30 am when Luke decided he was done camping.  He woke up screaming and didn't act like he was going to quit anytime soon.  We tried warming him up in the car for a while but it just wasn't happening.  By this point Kirby was wide awake, as were a lot of our camping neighbors so we decided our trip was over.  That's right!  We packed up our campsite and headed home at 3:30 in the morning!  We decided next summer might be a better time to try again.  :)  We'll see.    

backyard treats

Last week we spent a nice evening outside enjoying the cool weather and decided to eat some watermelon from the garden before dinner.   We live on the edge, I know!  Even though Fall is here already and watermelon is such a summer fruit, it tasted so good and was fun watching Luke try to figure it out.  

Here's a picture of the first watermelon we harvested.  We were shocked at how well these turned out and now have watermelon coming out of our ears!  :)