Long Time No See!!

How have you been? It's been a while since I've been around. I know I say it a lot, but time really does slip through your fingers. I hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas season with your families and loved ones!! We have enjoyed spending time with our loved ones, and we're looking forward to 2014.

We put up our two aluminum trees again this year. It was a little tricky with our small house and over-abundance of furniture, but we made it work. We put our 6 foot tree on top of the pie safe-it worked out great with our cathedral ceilings. Too bad I forgot to take a picture once it was all decorated!!

 We had a big scare early in the month. The first snow storm of the season and our youngest son while on his way to a Christmas party, spun off the road on some ice. Thankfully, he went off the road and not into oncoming traffic. The bad part was he ended up in a ravine, about 20 feet down. The tow truck driver earned his pay that day! Eric was ok, just shaken up, and his car was ok, just a little paint loss on the bumper.

My parents came to town and stayed for 5 days. That's almost a record for them to be away from
their home that long! My Dad really loves being at home and with his friends and church family, so it is hard to get him to be away for more than a day or two. We did a lot of shopping, a lot of cooking, some baking and a LOT of eating!  They went home on Christmas Day, and Eric went up to their house after work on Thursday. They have a lot more snow than we do, and this morning the actual temperature up there was 13 below!

We went to a family get-together for my Dad's brothers and their families while my parents were here. That's always a fun time to reconnect with cousins, aunts and uncles. We always have a huge smorgasbord of appetizers while we visit.

On Friday, I went north to Davison, Fenton and Burton. I strolled through Collette's Vintage for a while. I was disappointed at how much new stuff, repurposed stuff and clothes there is now. It seems the vintage and antiques are getting less and less. I will still visit, but only a few times a year at the most.

I saw a great way to use an old window, and snapped a pic so I could remember to try it with some of my old windows.

I am thinking of trying this with an old trunk that I haven't been able to sell in the booth...what do you think??

I stopped at Menards on the way home and got some great deals! I got some paring knives in Fiesta colors, for only $2 each-and they are really sharp! I found out why blow molds aren't selling at the booth...brand new ones all over the place at Menards!!

A couple of days ago, we had Kevin's siblings and their families over for a Christmas get together. It was a lot of fun-we all laughed a lot! We just did appetizers and had a white elephant exchange. My nephews crack me up!  I hope everyone had a fun time. I was disappointed that neither of my boys were around to be with us--maybe next time!

Yesterday, I met a couple of very dear girls for lunch, They were in town to visit their Dad for the holidays. They moved to Alabama almost 8 years ago. Their mom and I used to be best friends. I've watched them grow up from about kindergarten to now, 19 and 21. They are beautiful, smart and funny girls. I am so glad we were able to get together!

I went to the booth and straightened things up a bit, not too much since Dealer Day is this coming Sunday-the day I overhaul the whole thing.

Today, I woke up and really wanted to do something besides clean the house, (we've been deep cleaning, trying to get rid of all the remaining remnants of dog hair. Maddie's been gone about a month now, and we're still finding her hair!), or just sitting around.

We ended up going to The Henry Ford Museum. It has been years and years since we've been there. It was pretty crowded, but it was a lot of fun! I took a ton of pictures!! I'm looking forward to going to Greenfield Village this summer. We tried to grab some lunch and Lamy's Diner (inside H.F.), but we couldn't get anyone to wait on us. We sat for quite a while, and it looked like everyone there waited and waited too. They just were more patient I guess.

I LOVED looking at everything there. Kevin actually said he enjoyed looking at the kitchen displays the most!!! How funny is that!?! He enjoyed it because he got to see  people's lifestyles changed over the years.

We ended up at Rally's for lunch-the exercise bike I got for Christmas is really going to get a work out after all the eating we've done over the holidays!! Yes, I did ask for it, and I've been the one to use it the least! I think everyone in the house will benefit from it.

We stopped at Knightsbridge Antiques in Northville on the way home for a quick stroll. I didn't find anything that I couldn't live without, but it's always enjoyable to just wander through all of the antiques and vintage goodness!

We drove home down 7 mile so Kevin could see the house he grew up in. We stopped at the home of an elderly family friend (she is actually the mother of Kevin's best friend) and visited with her for a while. I'm so glad we stopped, she was so happy to see us!

We're trying to decide what we are going to do tomorrow. It might end up being a board game marathon day like the other night was. We aren't going out for New Year's Eve, we always stay home, or stay in at my parent's house when we are up north. Are you going out? What are your plans?

On Friday I am taking a very long awaited adventure with my good friend Auntie. We're going to Allen to go antiquing! I think it has been around 5 or 6 years since we've been to Allen. We went with a couple of ladies from work and we spent the whole day and didn't get to all of the shops! I'll be sure to take lots of pics and post about our adventure so you can see what Allen is all about!

Have a Safe and Happy New Year! Thanks for being my blog friend!