Life and Leisure

Summer temperatures in Michigan come with an overwhelming number of things to do.  There are festivals before, during, and after festivals!  With that, you have to choose what to do each weekend, and last weekend we decided to head up to the town (village? hamlet?) of Laingsburg for their spring fest.  We were pleasantly surprised by the size of the event.

We parked close enough that we were able to run to the car for supplies as needed, so we spent several hours riding rides and eating carnival food.

The bumper cars were a big hit for Alice, Emily, and William, sadly the twins were too short to go.  Billy and I bought some tickets so that they could go once, but they sure felt the pain of being the little ones.

We stayed for several hours, but left before it got dark.  The kids were pretty tuckered out when we got home.

I had expiring sour cream, and half a lemon, so I made a lemon pound cake!  It was really good, but really didn't need the icing.

Juliet drew a picture of our family.  Can you tell that Alice is just a few months shy of being a teenager?

And Emily finally (she's been asking for years) got her ears pierced!!

We wanted to help Coyt celebrate turning 16, so we made him a cake for us to eat on his birthday. Grace and Juliet decorated it with our new "Fun Gun" cake decorating kit!

Emily took her ballet photos, and while I had made plans to be there the day through, they rearranged the schedule to make it much more convenient for everyone. = )

During the extra time, we were able to meet up with Avia and use Emily's extra leotards so that the girls could play at one of the lake beaches in a Lansing park.

We watched a funny baking show called "Is It Cake?" and in the final episode one of the contestants made a baklava flavored cake.  I love baklava, and pistachios, so I tried my hand at making it.  It came out really well.  Even the kids ate it!*

Grace wanted to buy "her own" fabric at a yard sale, so that she could make a dress.  The one she made came out cute, especially for a first attempt!  (I haven't seen her wear it a second time though, so I don't think it was quite as comfy as she wanted.  Seems like true fashion to me!)

I read some gardening books, and talked to lots of gardeners, so I tried following all the advice for our garden.

Sarah gave me some starters, which I used at the end of April when it was really, really cold.  The only plant that actually started was on cucumber plant, which the chippunk has now dug up. =- (

I made a path with some scrap boards (what good advice!) and used some milk jugs as "mini greenhouses for the seeds I started outside.

An attempt was made to clip the bag shut.  It was not successful, but someone did try.

The only flowers we could track down for our nature study, even the dandelion was hard to come by as cold as it was in May!

Grace bought a 2 pack of Chicken Coop shortbread houses (think gingerbread kit) one for her to make, and the other for Zoey.

Emily and Grace also spent some time sewing a Charmander and Pokeball as part of a gift for Andrew's birthday.

Playing party games!  My crew had fun, I hope the birthday boy had a great time!  The cake was amazing, I'm so sad I didn't snap a picture!

Grace made a bow and arrow set from recycling and found objects.

William drew for our Murder Mystery Party Roles this summer.  Should be a fun time!

Emily forgot, and since she forgot, I didn't think she cared about crazy hair day in ballet, so we did what we could with the hair ties and bows and random objects we had on hand.

This was the big girl's recitation poem at the end of the year, and I absolutely love it!!  Now, every time we go to a park or even on a walk, I can't help but thing how wonderful it is to have some leisure time.

 

We dropped Emily off at ballet, then collected Avia from the bank, and she treated us to ice cream at a plant nursery!  We swung back by to get Emily, who  told me in the morning that she wanted to go to a park to stick her feet in the water.  There is a trail that runs all through Lansing, and passes by the zoo.  Since we have free parking with our membership, we parked there and walked to the nearby boat entry port.  Well, Grace needed to go potty, and I was the only one in the party who brought water (my 20oz RTIC tumbler) but not near enough to share 5 ways.  So we ended up at the welcome center/gift shop for some water.

We did eventually make it to the river.  Our path crossed right next to a family of geese, who left us be, and we did the same for them.

On a totally different day, we went to Horrocks to get some loose leaf  Scottish Breakfast Tea, since they were out the last time we went.  They were still out, but we went up to a park we'd never been to.  It was sooooooo pretty!

The water called to my children here too, and was clear enough that even I stuck my feet in!

We took the .75 mile path turn around, but since we had walked there from another park, I think we walked closer to two miles.

As we were leaving, I saw was I thought could be a fairy throne, or maybe castle in an old story.

Even in our own yard, you can watch the weeds "unfurl."

"What is this life if, full of care, 

We have not time to stand and stare?"

later days

*this really surprised me.  I had already started planning in my head who I thought might like to be surprised with some baklava, but there was none left to gift!