Summer in the U.P. 2012...

After we got everything cleaned up from the grad party, Kevin and I packed the car and the dogs and headed north! We got to my parents house late Tuesday afternoon.

The next photos will be of Munising, Hancock, the Quincy Mine, Lake Superior, Copper Harbor and Ontanogan...stay tuned!!!

What a Day!

Yesterday when I left home to go to my parent's house in the Upper Peninsula, it was such a beautiful morning! I drove through Howell and this is what I saw in the skies...

You have to look closely, but you can see hot air balloons in the sky. I got to watch them for about the first 20 minutes of driving. There were 15 of them-all from the Michigan Challenge Balloonfest.

The rest of the drive was very peaceful, and very much needed! I spent a lot of time praying and singing praise songs along with the radio. Just seeing the beautiful surroundings as I drove, and lifting my friends and family up in prayer and praising God for His goodness made yesterday such an awesome day!

Here was my first glimpses of the Mighty Mac...

More beautiful things to look at...

 Maddie loving a boat ride last night.

 An eagle in the tree...see it?

Loving the slow life here in the U.P.. Hoping to hit some antique and junk shops later this week!

Heading North!

Eric got off this morning on his mission trip, I put a few new things in the booth, stopped at a flea market at a local church (not worth parking the car for), went to Costco, packed, cleaned the house, did 5 loads of laundry...and now I'm heading north! Woo hoo!

Bright and early tomorrow morning I'll be heading off to some R & R in Michigan's great Upper Peninsula-accommodations courtesy of Mom & Dad! I'm hoping for lots of sunshine, fishing, and kayaking-and no work! Kevin and Adam are holding down the fort at home since they both have to work.

Here are some pictures I took last year...I'm sure I'll have plenty more to post in a few days! Have a great week everyone!

More Fun in the U.P.

The days have just been flying by since we've been up here! It is sad to think that we have to go home tomorrow! Adam and his friends have kept us laughing-they are a great bunch of guys, and it's been fun to share our vacation with them.

My mom and I hit the road on Friday and made a day of visiting garage sales and antique shops. We went to Curtis, Germfask, Blaney Park, Naubinway and Manistique.

 Cute little shop in Curtis. They hold a flea market all summer on the weekends in their parking lot. This was the first day and only one vendor showed up-an Amish or Mennonite man with lots of baked goods. We bought some blueberry and cherry fry pies. They were like turn overs and they were really yummy!!

It was a fun day, but a LOT of driving!! We both enjoyed all the things we saw-some things brought back a lot of memories and some things were things we had never seen before. I am still kicking myself for passing up a cat faced string holder that was $2 at one of the sales. I picked it up and showed it to my mom and explained to her what it was, and set it back down because cats just aren't my thing-even though it was pretty cute. Later on, we saw the same string holder in an antique shop in Blaney Park for $50!! Sigh...live and learn-huh?

I got a few great bargains and so did my mom. This is what I got:

This little table has hide-able leaves on each side and a drawer in the middle. It was too heavy to lift out of the car by myself-I want to do some work on it too. I'm not crazy about the green paint-it looks like it was originally white under the green paint so I plan to return it to the original colors.

When we got back to the house, my mom took me downstairs to look through a bag of linens that had belonged to my dad's mom that they have kept since she passed away in 1985. She gave me a German tablecloth and a doily from the bag-to have just because they used to be Grandma's.