MANY pictures of the houseboat trip

OK, OK, I couldn't make the choices for a small number of pictures so I went with trying to choose a representation. We arrived on Thursday night and went out to dinner at a wonderful local Mexican restaurant. Leo hadn't arrived yet but Bud, Eva and I arrived within in an hour of Sara and Leo's arrival.

Leo joined us at the hotel pool later that evening.

Bud and I went shopping in the morning and filled 2 carts at Wal-Mart.

We arrived at the "picnic place" for lunch. This is the first year that all of us have made it to this little picnic spot in Lake Cumberland State Park for our 'preboat' picnic and wait for the boarding time.

Gram is happy to see her grandchildren.

So is Aunt Della glad to see those nieces.

This is a picture of another boat just like the one we rented.

Relaxing and first beer on the boat.

Our first tie-up.

Our first swim.

Doug and Matt had a great time playing.

Well, this isn't the picture that I meant to put in this group but I don't want to go back and possibly mess up this post by trying to delete it. Sorry.

Our first dinner. Eva fixed flank steak and Bud did the grilling and carving.

Birthdays that evening. We celebrated the birthdays of all three girls even though they have been over the last few months and upcoming month.

I received a new 'light up' margarita glass from Doug and Jessica and I did a good job of using it this weekend.

The early morning view was terrific.

Jessica and Doug went for a ride to check out the early morning light.

Gram had a lot of play time with the grandchildren.

Matt and Diana took the girls out for a ride.

Jessica and Doug cooked wonderful chicken.

It was hot but Mom and the sisters had a good time together.

Father and son relaxed together.

We played games in the evening.

Watched soccer some afternoons.

Smiled and laughed often.

Captain Bud did a great job guiding us to the right coves.

This is our last morning when everyone is having their 9:00 beer.

We went back to the same Mexican restaurant before heading or separate ways.

Farming the easy way

You probably won't believe it but we have joined a CSA (Community Sustainable Agriculture) or I think that is what it is called. Every Wednesday I receive fresh in season fruits and vegetables. We have been eating a lot of lettuce. Last week we received some bok choi ( I don't know how to spell it) I had to go on the Internet and find a way to fix it. This is part of the farm near Elk Rapids that I go to when it is my turn to pick up the food. We are sharing this abundance with a friend that lives near the farm.

The food is in these little green bags with our name on them. We just go there and pick up the bag with our name on it and divide it in half. Today was my day to pickup the food. I delivered it to MaryAnne's house. I will bring along a few items when we go on our boat trip.

This is my selection for this week: beets, onions, two kinds of lettuce and fresh peas. Not a lot but just enough.

We are leaving this afternoon for our annual houseboat trip in Kentucky. Josh is coming up from Texas, Sara and Leo are coming from Mass. Matt and Diana and girls are coming from Tennessee and of course the Michigan group of Eva, Jess, Doug, Bud and me. We are really looking forward to spending the time together. Joy and sadness will be with us on this trip too. Joy, for the time together and sadness for the loss of David a year ago on Sunday. It is a good way to honor David's life, spending time with family. We will miss you Erik but will be thinking of you.

Treats for the boat trip

I am spending today making cookies and doing laundry for the boat trip. Diana asked for these cookies recently so I decided that they will be the 'boat cookies' this time. I am getting very excited about the upcoming trip. It will be great so see so many of the family.

neighborhood invasion

We had a new experience last night and not exactly the kind of experience that you would like. It seems that someone got into our cars in the driveway and took our little 'stash' of money that we keep in the car for things like emergencies or toll roads. I never lock my car in the driveway because it is parked right next to the house in the carport. Bud often locks his car but didn't last night. In both cases they just took money so that is good. I guess that CDs aren't really that valuable any more. I did decide to call it in to the sheriffs department and they cam and interviewed me but I really didn't expect that they would ever catch anyone. I just thought they should have a report. I haven't found anyone else in the neighborhood who lost any money but haven't asked around too much. So much for little quiet Traverse City.

Red Sky made it out on the water

We did it!!!!! Thanks to Brittany's encouragement, we made it out on the water today. It was a beautiful day for a sail. We went almost to the island and back. The wind was strong both ways. We took a little spray on the way back but we reefed the main and brought in the jib so it was a comfortable ride. This is Brittany and her boyfriend John.

Charlotte, Sue and Bud

The favorite spot up on the bow was taken by Brittany and John for a while. This was John's first trip on a sailboat.

Charlotte, styling for the sunshine and camera.

Our faithful captain.

Just a good view of another boat going by. Bud used to race on this boat one summer. I even think that Jessica went on this boat one year as crew. This is the weekend of the "Hound Dog" race so there were a lot of boats on the bay .

Sue with her great sunhat.

Bud and Sue together.

The Nobles and John on the bow of the boat.

Helping a local charity event for women

Yesterday I went up to Charlovoix to help set up a 'table' for a charity event. My friend MaryAnne and I made the red plate covers (they area called chargers which I had never heard) for this event. Many area groups decorated the tables for this luncheon that was today. Women around the area paid $150 a seat for this event to raise money for the Women's Resource Center. I thought it was a worthwhile charity. This is a little bit better view of the table. We made our 'chargers' out of the fabric wrapped clothesline that I have been experimenting with. This group of women that helped decorate the table work in the 'fiber arts' so all of our decorations were related to fabric arts. It was fun. This is the same group that I helped with the 'felting' work in the schools. SO, you can see that I am keeping fairly busy and my friends are doing a good job of finding things for me to do too.

swirl quilt almost finished

WELL, I finished putting together the swirls today. The designer suggested putting them on a black background so I had the fabric all ready to do that step. I placed the fabric on a bed downstairs just to get a look at how it will be when done. I haven't stitched the swirls to the black background yet. That is the last step. I took these two pictures from different views just to show how it may look. I will hang it so it won't look exactly like this.

Bud and I had an interesting conversation then about hanging it in the house. I had thought maybe of hanging it in the entrance way to our house on those walls. We decided that maybe it wouldn't look best there and came up with a plan of what to put there. However, I still wanted to hang it somewhere. We have decided that it might look good hanging in the kitchen on the back of the fireplace wall. I think that would be a good place for it. I will work on finishing it now with very little of the black space around the swirls. I think that will look good there. Anyway, I learned a lot by making this piece. We both like it and it is a distinctive piece of work.
I will post a picture when it is completely finished and hanging because it will look different hanging on the wall.

Thunder, lightning and RAIN

A storm came through last night.
We have a great view
Storms slowly rolling in from the west
The sky darkens, distant rumblings
Finally the sky begins to light up
I love the sight of lightning
The long rumblings of thunder
The sky opens up to the rain that came pouring down

The storm builds and builds
Bright flashes of lightning
Quickly followed by a crack of thunder
The storm is upon us
It ebbs and flows as it builds and then dies
Only to build again
We fell asleep to the sound of a Michigan storm
We woke to a clean fresh world

More motercycles

Well, It seems like I am posting pictures of motorcycles a lot lately. Here is a bit better picture of the motorcycle that Bub bought. I will try to get a good picture of him on it soon. He wasn't able to ride it last night because it rained. Maybe tonight??? Josh sent me this picture of Garrick. Josh has a new motorcycle and I guess Garrick likes to sit on it. I hope he is too young for a ride just yet. He is growing though. It is hard to believe he is less than a year old.

Bud's new toy

Well he did it. Bud bought a Harley tonight. The big debate was whether ride it home because the weather forcast was for rain. Some of you encouraged him to 'go for it' and he did. Besides I didn't want to drive all the way over there again tomorrow night to take him to get it. We just made it home. Yes it did rain but he didn't get too wet. He is a happy man.