Going on 2013

We had a busy holiday week with company up for the Christmas break. Everyone had a good time and lots of great food and good times. The kids got to open gifts again and we also celebrated Ben's 8th birthday. We got a little bit of additional snow, but just a coating to keep the Christmas white.

Jenny and Murphy romping in the snow.

Opening gifts on Saturday morning

The rest of the room

The kids were sledding and snowboarding in the back yard.

Ready for another great meal

The gingerbread house factory

Winter Blast

Winter made a hearty return to the north country on Thursday and Friday. We wound up with near a foot of heavy, wet snow and the trees were all bent over and our power shut down. It reminded us of last March when we were blasted with twenty inches and lost power for two days.
This time our power went out at 8 pm on Thursday and we kept the house as warm as we could with the fireplace and an LP heater in the kitchen. We brewed coffee in the garage on our Coleman stove and heated water to wash our hair and sponge bathe.
We took a ride to Goodfallows in Leland on Friday to see how they were coping with the outage, and their house was warm, but they lost their power just before we got there. We helped them get the candles lit and flashlights ready and then went back to our house for the night. We met them on Saturday in Traverse City when we met for Jakob Olson's birthday lunch. They told us the power went on for them as soon as we left on Friday! (Makes me think this outage was following us around)!
We left Traverse City on Saturday and drove over to Empire. The power there had just been restored at about three in the afternoon. We drove to Glen Arbor and the power there had been restored at about four o'clock. Looks promising! We then drove home and our power was still out at about six thirty. We got settled in and I started getting the fireplace going and then the power came back on! Hallelujah! It really makes you appreciate what you normally take for granted.
Needless to say it was a happy evening. We called our holiday visitors to give them the all clear and let them know the Inn was back in service! Come on up!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!!

This was the view out the back window on Friday morning.

 

Ho, Ho, Ho...Snow!  It took several hours to blow the wet heavy snow off of the driveway.

 

Countdown to Christmas

Christmas is only a week away now. It hardly seems possible! We put up our first Christmas tree at the new house over the weekend. It is so nice to have a tree after two years without a place to put one!
The weatherman is predicting a major winter storm for Thursday and Friday. That's just in time for many people's holiday travel. If you are going away for the holiday be extra careful out there. The roads could be a mess. Well, maybe we will have a white Christmas after all!

We hiked along the south shore of Good Harbor Bay this afternoon. Looking across the bay you can see Whaleback and the Leland harbor.



This is Sugarloaf Mountain from the west. If you zoom in you can see the ski lift on top of the hill.

Looking west along the shoreline. North Manitou Island in the background.

Another view with Sugarloaf in the distance.

Winter Days and Avoiding Cabin Fever!

The days have been cold and snowy in the north country. We had about four to five inches of snow Sunday and Monday and it is sticking pretty good! We had a good weekend with Bev and Gary at Houghton Lake and had fun visiting and hiking at Marl Lake near South Higgins Lake State Park.
We continue to do holiday prep and get the Christmas shopping finished.
Today we took a hike at Port Oneida and enjoyed being outdoors and the spectacular views in the hills.

Hope everyone is well and having fun!

A spectacular sky at Port Oneida

 

 

Art's Tavern in Glen Arbor. Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas!

TGIF - Getting ready for the weekend!

All is well on the home front. We have been putting up Christmas decorations and little by little we are getting ready for the holiday. We spent a day in Traverse City this week and did some shopping and had dinner in town. The downtown area s still busy with foot traffic and people walking around and shopping.
We've been taking our daily walks and trying to stay active. Glen Arbor has slowed down dramatically since the fall color season. Very few cars in town and the stores are dead. It's amazing how quiet it gets in the off season.
We are heading to Houghton Lake for the weekend to visit with Bev and Gary. The weather has been holding steady in the high thirties and no snow, although they are predicting it for the weekend.

Here are a couple of pictures from the past week..

Downtown Traverse City and Michael Moore's State Theatre

The Christmas tree downtown.

Wheeler Road on a sunny afternoon

Lake Michigan at Glen Haven

This building is now used by the park service as a museum for the rescue station at Glen Haven 

The old inn at at Glen Haven circa 1857

How much was gas per gallon from this fuel pump?

All is well Going into December

We spent a quiet week in the north country. I finished the deer season with no venison in the freezer, but did manage to see a few does while sitting in the blind. We had snow on the ground until Sunday when the warm spell melted everything. Today we are supposed to be in the fifties and then cooling off  again into the thirties for the rest of the week.
The days fly by as we make plans for the holidays and for our winter camping. Here it is December and it seems that Thanksgiving was only yesterday!

Hope everyone is well.

We had a picture after all!

Here is the group we had for the holiday weekend. Kids, Jenny's boyfriend Kyle, grand kids, niece and nephew, Wayne and Jeanne, Doug and the Goodfallows.

Another Week Has Gone By!

I can't believe the weekend is come and gone so fast. We have been busy since Wednesday with work and the kids coming up. This was the first time David and Elizabeth have been with us since the house was finished. It was wonderful to have the whole family together!! Then a big crowd with nieces, nephews, and the Goodfallow family were here for Turkey Day. What a house full, but everyone had a big meal and we had fun visiting with everyone.
On Friday the kids took me to Traverse City for a birthday dinner and when we got to the Blue Tractor Cook Shop there was a crowd waiting to greet me for a birthday celebration. What a surprise, but they had me confused with some old guy that looked like me that was turning 60! A good time was had by all with a lot of laughs and hugs.
Yesterday everyone packed up and left for home and by late afternoon we were back to the quiet and the woods. Now we will be settling into the winter mode and planning for a few visitors for the Christmas holiday and then our winter escape to the southwest states for the winter.
I hope everyone had a good holiday and that all is well.

 Somehow the camera did not come out during all the chaos over the weekend. I can't believe we forgot to get our family pictures when we had everyone together!

Monday, Monday

Back home in the hills today. Mike had a successful hunt over the weekend with a young buck for the freezer! He got his deer on Saturday afternoon in Mio at the Lee's cabin. (Camp Leesure). We both saw deer, but Mike saw more than anybody after seeing five on opening morning.
I am still hunting and have been exploring the National Lakeshore property with my trusty Remington at my side. The local Leelanau paper has posted some pictures of the big bucks taken locally and they are inspiring me to keep on trying.

The weather has been very moderate and unusually calm for almost a week now. According to the forecast the fifty degree days are not going to last much longer. Right after Thanksgiving we are supposed to lose twenty degrees and could get some snow for a couple of days.

David flew into Detroit today and we are anxious to see everyone on Wednesday and Thursday. Safe travels to all over the holiday weekend!

One more week til Thanksgivng!

We are getting close to turkey day, but first there's a hunt to complete. Mike and I are ready to head for Mio tomorrow to stalk the elusive big buck!
We have had a crazy couple of days of weather the past two days. On Sunday it was bright and a balmy 60 degrees. On Monday we had 30 degrees and a snow shower that left us with almost an inch of snow for Tuesday morning. Winter is on the way.

We had a family get-to-gether a couple of weeks ago. My, my, how the family is growing!!

Here are a few pictures from one year ago.

It hardly seems possible that one year ago we were doing all this work. We've come a long way since then. Notice the fireplace before Tom came and helped us finish it off.

 

Our facilities have definitely improved!

 

We remember all the molding we had to stain. Mike was coming up when he could to trim out the doors and windows.

 

 

 

November 8th already!

The days fly by as we head into the cold season. Nancy and I got our firewood split and stacked for the winter since we had a string of three days with no rain! Now I am getting ready for deer hunting and Thanksgiving.
Hope everyone is doing well.

Canada geese heading south over Lake Michigan. We heard snow geese flyng by the house this morning. A totally different sound than the Canada geese.

Suttons Bay on a sunny Wednesday afternoon

This is the harbor at Suttons Bay. The water is as low as I've ever seen it!

 

 

 You know you're a redneck if.....

 



Nancy was helping to haul and stack firewood on Thursday.

We wound up with quite a stack and some more on the porch. Hopefully this will get us through the winter.

Election Day Tuesday

Well, I hope your favorite candidates make the grade today. (And I hope they make the grade for the next four years to get this country moving again and back on the road to balanced budgets, a stable and growing economy, and no deficits).We got out and voted at Cleveland Township Hall today for the first time. There were a few people there voting, and many more by the time we were leaving. We saw just how many old folks there are living here in our township. (Nancy read some statistics and found that forty four percent of the residences in Cleveland Township are summer residences, not year round homes)!
We had visitors over the weekend from Houghton Lake. Bev and Gary spent a night with us and we had fun visiting. On Sunday we went for a hike near Port Oneida.
I spent the day today getting firewood ready to be split and getting some fall chores done around the house. I finally got a day off when it wasn't raining, although it was drizzling after supper.
The FED EX man came by this evening with a package and when I opened it I found a new leaf blower inside! It looks like a beauty with a backpack and hand controls for easy handling. Thank you so much to all who were responsible for making that happen.

I will close with a few pictures from the past couple of days....

This was the back yard on Saturday morning. We woke up to a nasty surprise with the ground covered with this white stuff. Luckily it all melted by noon.

This picture was taken on October 21 at Port Oneida. Notice the fall colors here.

This is the same view on Sunday, November 4th. No more leaves on the trees.

A view on the hike with Bev and Gary on Sunday.

 

Here I am playing with my new toy. Thanks Kids! I'll let you take it for a spin on Thanksgiving weekend!!

The day after Halloween

I know it's been a while since my last post. We've spent a lot of time with our family and friends and all of our thoughts and prayers are with Cindy. May God keep her and may her spirit be with us and all of our loved ones who have gone before her.

Our latest adventure took us to Brighton and Romeo to be with the grand kids as they celebrated Halloween. We had fun with Laura, Sean, Kara and Nolan and then saw Becky, Dave, Ben, Kate and Trevor and Mike and Amy with Natalie and Hannah in Romeo. We saw some old friends we haven't seen since we moved from Romeo and had a great time with the Wrights who were good enough to put us up for a couple of days. We also got to visit with the Lozens who we missed when they were here last week.

We are back at home now and all the leaves are gone (and the sky is gray). We are looking forward to Thanksgiving and having David and Elizabeth home along with the rest of the family to be together for the holiday.
Hope all is well with everyone.

A fall hike near Port Oneida. Sunday, October 21 

We had a wonderful fall day for a stroll

The hills behind Basch Road

Aspens in bloom along M-22

One last beach stroll on an eighty degree afternoon in October

Back yard visitors

Spooks in Romeo at Mike and Amy's house

We had a cool and drizzly night for trick-or-treating, but still plenty of people

Don't forget to vote next Tuesday!

The Tigers are IN!!!!

The Tigers go to the world series after beating the Yankees four out of four! How cool is that?
Hope they can keep up the momentum.

We had another rainy day today after a fabulous Wednesday in the seventies and sunny! It was a beautiful day, but only one in a row. Now it is supposed to be hit and miss for the weekend. We had company last weekend with Joe and Lynda Bozin and Bill and Margaret on Monday night. Had a good time with everyone. The leaves are still hanging in there and peak color is still on in many places. I thought the leaves would have dropped much faster, but they are holding up well to give us a long color season.
We are set up with a new cell phone this week after changing from Sprint to Tracfone. Our new cell phone number s 231 835-0994. We will be using the cell phone when we are on the road and when we go on our trip this winter.
I am posting some pictures from the trail camera today to show the deer that have been roaming around out back.
Hope everyone is doing well...