Good Week

We are enjoying being in Michigan. We have a lot of the yard work done, the dock in, the boat out and getting ready for its new motor (a fast one for better tubing with the grandkids). The camper is out of the pole barn and everything seems to be in working order. The spring flowers are running through their cycle. My favorite wildflower, cowslips, are out now and I have even spotted a snake. We planted three new trees and have two bags of grass seed to put out. All of these things are ready for summer and winter is coming back next week with sleet and snow and freezing temps.
We started obedience classes with Rascal on Wed. We are working on "heel", "sit" and "stay". I have been working with him religiously on these commands and he seems good on "heel" and very slow on "sit". I think he has something wrong with his left hip and it makes sitting a bit hard for him. I persist though. (I will have the vet look it over when we go in for the bordatella booster.) He fits into our life like a lost piece of a puzzle. We are so lucky to have him. He is very, very into Mac and that is great.
I have some of the summer plans sorted out. In May we are spending two weekends in Kingsley(Brady's birthday and Grandparent Day in Brady's class) and then we are doing something with Eddie's family for memorial day. I am going to Ann Arbor for four days in May for lots of bridge and hopefully some mini-reunions with my friends.
June is way busy. Mac and I have some doc apts. in GR. I have squamous cell carcinoma on my left arm and it has to be dealt with, Mac is getting his annual screening and I am getting my eyes tested. After that, it is going to be very family oriented. Shannon and her family are coming back to Ann Arbor. They will be going to the family reunion in Boyne along with Beth, Mary, and maybe Sean. Beth and Mary will spend some time with us in Gowen and then I will put them both on return flights.
We have no idea of how many people will be at the cottage for the 4th of July. Mike is talking already about his trip to Indiana to get the fireworks. Sean has invited me to his big 40th birthday party in New York and I am flying out for it on the 19th and meeting Shannon and her family there.
August will start out with a bridge tournament in GR. I am hoping that some of my friends come to it. I already reserved three rooms at the hotel for our group. (Gargi, Allan said yes, Alice said maybe, Harry and Emily are also thinking about it.) The rest of August should be spent with Shannon's family here in Gowen. I have missed them a lot while they have been in Europe. I am hoping for a lot of swimming and yoga and crafting when they settle here for a while before moving on to California. They have had quite a lot of travelling. Right now they seem to be having a good time in Prague.
I borrowed the DVD "Howl's Moving Castle" from the library and viewed it last night. It is a cartoon movie based on a children's fantasy book by Diana Wynne Jones. Anja has read nearly all of this author while in Europe and I wanted to share some of her enthusiasm. This cartoon is very well done. It is an Hayao Miyazake film and way above Disney's creations. I will try to check it out again when she is here in August so we can watch it together.
We had the HD TV equiped with a DVR this week, but that DVR isn't functioning correctly yet. A repair man is coming tomorrow. Our Charter Bill is over $200. per month. It includes high speed internet, three boxes on three TV's, all of the premium channels and our phone.
I just love our DVR on the other TV. We tape Bill Maher who is aired very late Friday nights and watch it on Sat afternoon. Mac and I are both enjoying the HBO John Adams series which I taped in its entirety. ABC has been running the Harry Potter movies on Saturday nights and I have 4 of them taped and saved for both Evan and Anja.
Well, I should get back to either of my two tasks for today. One is to continue sorting and cleaning in the craft room. I am making into a baby room for Owen and a storage room for me. The other one is to wrap and put cards on all of the gifts that I have ready for the Sept/Oct birthdays for Jerry's 6 grandkids. I may even clean the other toilet. (My least favorite housecleaning job.)

Wonderful Saturday April 19th

Saturday April 19th was Karen's birthday and yet I had a such a party of a day you would have thought it was mine. It started with a beautiful sunrise, when I woke up at 5 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep.
My day included a session at the gym (Yoga and swimming), picking up some discounted photos from Walgreens and coming home to a very nice Skype call from Shannon and the girls.
I did a bunch of scrapbooking with the photos while Mac and Rascal had their naps and then we visited some Amish friends (one had an adorable two week old infant and we brought some gifts) and we sat down and talked to the other couple over coffeee and cookies.
The lady that we got Rascal from, asked us to bring him back for a little visit with her four kids as they were really missing him. He was so into them that I am now positive that he will get on with all of my grandkids. What a great dog! I was also able to show him to Shannon's girls by way of the Skype call. I think her kids needed to know that we were taking good care of Rascal and they were pretty impressed.
When we got home we had a great meal of venison steaks, (Mike Gurr had given us a lot of his deer) with mushrooms sauteed in garlic and butter and fresh steamed broccoli. We followed that with blackberries and whipped cream. What a feast!
The evening weather was gorgeous and Mac and Barry built a huge fire to sit around and watch the nearly full moon. The sky was clear and there was just enough wind to make a nice moon reflection across the water. It is so great to sit and appreciate it with Nancy and Barry as they are as enthralled as we are with moon scapes.
p.s. I am writing this on Sun and I just had to throw in a picture of the tulips that opened today. We sometimes regret coming back so early as we miss the pool and easy walking in Florida, but now that the weather is getting better, we are really enjoying the Spring. I also got a return phone call from Karen which was really nice.

Landon and Owen for the Weekend

We had Landon and Owen with us for the weekend while the rest of their family went house shopping in Wisconsin. We had a great time with the boys. In the pictures you can see the boys playing with bubble stuff in their "bath tub", Landon cutting play doh with a butter knife, and Owen working intently in the sand box.
We had other fun times too as the weather was nice we were outside a lot and when inside we did some painting, games and puzzles. Of course the Teletubbies, Franklin and Little Bear got some attention, as well as Willy Wonka which was on ABC Sat and Sun nights.

Gabby and HDTV

Here are two big additions to our pleasured life. We got home on the 31st of March. We had the new TV by the end of the week and the new dog on the following Monday. The TV and the dog are in competition for our attention. When Gabby wins we get healthier and when the TV wins we get fatter and dumber.

Gabby looks like a pure bred small black lab. We don't really know anything else about her. She is about 1 and weighs 30 or so pounds. She seems to be trained and we are learning how to interpret her signals to go outside. She is very loving and gentle. She is very full of energy.

Ready to go home now??

We are almost all packed and just waiting until Sunday (and maybe an easy trip through Atlanta).
We are leaving a month earlier than we had planned. Eddie got a promotion and has to move to Wisconsin (Milwaukee). Instead of coming down to Florida, they are spending his entire vacation getting their house ready for the market. We are also going up there to help them with the kids while they continue to de-clutter and get the house saleable.
I am sad to be leaving my exercises and bridge but I know that we can have a longer time next season when they won't need us as badly. They are going to go house hunting over Memorial day weekend.
It is also sad that they will be so far away from us now. We have been spoiled by having them less than two hours away since they started having kids. Now they will be a "fast ferry" away from us across Lake Michigan.

Really Busy and Really Loving It All

This was quite a week. Some days I was just moving quickly from one activity to another. First it was DST week and that meant our Water Exercise Classes couldn't be in the water (too cold out) at the usual time. We had to move them from 10 a.m. to 11a.m. and I had to run from the pool to my place and change fast and eat lunch and get to the Bridge Game by 1 p.m. After Bridge I had just enough time to swim and shower and get to dinner and/or the next event. Friday there were no regular classes to teach or Bridge, but I had invited the Scrapbookers over for videos from 2-4. My DVR, which I adore, has been storing Scrapbooking shows for two months and I wanted to share some with my class. Also Mac and I had lunch with one of my bridge partners at Lake Ashton. Then, at night there was a fun St. Patrick's potluck.
We found out that Evan's Mite C hockey team made it into the finals of the Cherry Cup Tournament. Evan's team is coached by Eddie of course. They play the final game this weekend for the championship. Go Aggies!
Sherry has a bunch of Educational toys called Leapsters. Even though he can't read, Landon loves to play with them and does know all of his alphabet and the letter sounds at 3. On Monday Landon wanted to know when the "leapster" bunny was coming. Once you hear it, you want to say it that way forever.
I found out the Harry won't be coming to see us in Fla this season. He promises to come to Michigan though if there is an interesting Bridge event. He is reallyl getting into Bridge more and more.
If I have it right, Shannon is now in Paris with Lynne and Kristen and she will be joined there by Caleb and the girls the end of the week and they are all going to England for "Leapster" in Devon.
Sean and Jo are in Mexico for a week so our family is really very international right now.
I have to do our taxes now. I woke up at 5 a.m. and that was really enough sleep as I went down at 9:30 p.m. so I am all by myself and wide awake. We have to pay a little money this year so we won't file them until next month, but this is a good time to get them filled out and ready to go.

Update

We are back from a hectic and fun two weeks in Michigan. Mac and I really are appreciating Florida more now that we have had some big-time experience with snow and freezing rain and sub zero temps. We got to see Eddie, Brady and Evan play some hockey. We were sick the entire time we were up there, but we had loads of fun anyway.
I got some great news today. I found out that I may never need knee surgery. There will be a lot of tweaking involved to keep me out of pain, but the cartilage is not degenerating. I will have to keep up a vigorous exercise schedule and I should lose some weight to give those knees a break, but basically no surgery is good surgery.