A northern drive

It's kind of hard to drive north when you live in the NORTH. But, believe it or not we spent almost 5 hours on Sunday afternoon driving NORTH, and we didn't even cross the bridge! 

We took the scenic drive along M-119 through the tunnel of trees. It was a beautifully warm day. 

We stopped at an over look- one of Marvin's favorite views. 

We checked out Pond Hill Farms. Another beautiful location. A family owned farm, with 1 month old baby pigs.

An overlook above the vineyards. 

 At the pumpkin patch. Who's pumpkin is bigger? :)

We enjoyed a gift certificate from friends, and had a great meal at Legs Inn. A historical location and a MUST stop if you are headed north along a color tour. 

Then we made a final stop at Lake Michigan in Wilderness State Park. This is probably the most beautiful piece of Lake Michigan shore line. 

Marvin said this had to be skipping stone heaven. 

 What a great way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon in Northern Michigan.

A good surprise

Before I became pregnant I couldn't imagine those parents who waited to find out the gender of their child at birth. Since being pregnant I've been talked into waiting. I'm actually quite OK with it now! I think it might be the hormones :)

I had an 18 week ultrasound recently and the technician printed us a 3-D photo free.

I think the baby boy or girl has beautiful cheek bones. Some look at the photo and say girl for sure, and then others are just as sure it is a boy.

So what do you think?

Living room- Re-Done

If you can recall my very old post: http://mlverwysfamily.blogspot.com/2012/01/living-room-re-do.html
you will remember my red living room.

Well I'm bad at blogging and apparently bad at updating a room in a timely manner too; finally here is the almost finished product.

We painted the walls with a soft khaki an the trim white. 

It really brightens up the room. 

We've also added a 'local' artist to our mantle. See if any of you can guess who the photographer is and where the photo was taken...

CAN IT!

If it grows in a garden- my goal this year is to CAN IT!

So far so good...

I got the cucumbers from a friends garden yesterday and Marvin and I set to work "pickling" them with a secret recipe that is OHHH-SO-DELICIOUS! Our yield was 10 quarts of dill pickles!

The beautiful tomato is from our garden :)

Taste Aversions

I've heard that when you're pregnant you sometimes develop a taste aversion to certain types of food. However, I never would have thought that Stride gum would do it for me!

See exhibit A:


Well, I think any of you would have an aversion to this gum if you saw what happened to it.

See exhibit B:

When gum meets dryer bad things happen! Marvin, lovely Marvin, does most of the laundry at the house. So the other day he washed and DRIED an entire pack of Stride gum. Luckily none of the gum ended up on our clothes- it all ended up on the inside drum and lint trap of our new dryer.

After 2 rounds of clean (I had to google: how to get gum out of the dryer) it is about 95% clean.

The plus side: Our dryer does give off a nice minty aroma!

Senior trip 2012

There are a few reasons I became a teacher, free trips around the country is one of them! This year I chaperoned 8 seniors to sunny San Diego! We were there for a full week and did a lot of spectacular stuff. 


Day 1 
Arrive on Thursday night- well really Friday morning at 1am. Crashed at the house 


Day 2 
Grocery shopped at Ralph's it's a grocery change of Kroger. Shopped at Old Town And had a home cooked meal 


 Day 3 
 Went to the San Diego zoo! Great fun. Had dinner a home and played four on a couch. 


Little Seals

4D Movie


 Day 4 
 We spent the day at our other chaperones (Tracy Thomson) families house. We BBQed and swam and had a good old time. We returned home for some good ole dominos pizza. 


 Day 5 
The group split this day. Those who were under 18 accompanied Tracy to Legoland. They did a mystery shop here to save some money! It was a fun day but they said the average age was 8 years old, they felt a little out of place. The other half of the group went shopping at an open air mall and then crashed at the pool when the other group returned. 

ALL MADE OF LEGOS!


Day 6 
Again we split groups. Both headed to LA for the day. The 18 year olds headed to a taping of Price is Right. We had great seats right behind contestants row. Tune into the show on June 13th to see us!!! The other group went to LA and did some thrift shopping and then we all joined up to have dinner at California pizza kitchen. Then we went to Chinese theater and the Hollywood boulevard stars. All and all this was probably my favorite day. 


Ready For PRICE IS RIGHT? Well ......COME ON DOWN! 


Did you watch us on PIR? Well if you missed it you can check it out here:
 http://www.cbs.com/shows/the_price_is_right/video/2245104648/the-price-is-right-6-13-2012

The Price is Right Video - The Price is Right - 6/13/2012 - CBS.com

www.cbs.com

Today's games include It's In The Bag, Bargain Game, and Double Prices. Drew Carey hosts.

Chinese Theater- Ran into Spider Man... I need to work on my web throwing- I look like I'm at a rock concert instead....

Day 7 
Beach day We hit the beach with Tracy's family again and tried our hand at surfing. Most of the students tried it. I passed because the water was too cold! But I did put my feet in. We then went to Roberto's a famous Mexican restaurant where all the locals go after the beach. They had great food. We went home napped and hung out until dinner. We had to hit up the local In and Out Burger for dinner and then did some shopping Again! Then our last treat was Fiji Yogurt. It's kind of like Fro Yo. 


For My love- Forever on the beaches of the West Coast or at least til a wave came along



 Day 8 
 Departure day. Got up and headed to the airport around 930 to catch our noon flight, but then it got delayed until 150! We were then delayed in Chicago. We finally landed in Flint around midnight. Then we had a 3 hour drive to Boyne! I got pulled over in Gaylord, I was going a little fast for the area- not intentional. The cop was friendly and chatted our ear off for 10 minutes about our trip to San Diego. I was thankful we didn't get a ticket but I really wanted to tell him, "be quite, I want to get home, it's 3am!"


Bonus Material:


Me and the other chaperone playing the last round of Spoons- the spoon was at the top of the stairs. 

Missing... Found

Wednesday night I lost my phone. Couldn't find it Thursday thought it would show up. Nothing friday. Saturday I had considered it a lost cause( haha)!

Saturday afternoon went to Verizon store to get a new phone, due to account manager issues they would not allow. Went home sad and pulled into the garage.

Found my phone!!!!
Sitting on the top of the car since wednesday afternoon. Thought no way it could work. But it did after a little charge. It weathered a lot! Including snow and rain and many trips to Petoskey and Gaylord!

Easter bunny comes early to Boyne

I guess it's not the bunny's fault that mail doesn't get delivered on Sundays!

We were very happy he or she remembered us this year!


Thanks Verwys parents!

Living room re-do

I am very bad at taking before photos but I thought about it today so you're in luck.

We are repainting the downstairs living room and in the process changing the trim to white.

Before photos are below... After photos... Hope to post for you later this week!

Happy New Year to all!