Vacation - Our Travel Day to Mackinaw City

We are home from vacation and it is time to share all of the fun we had!  We started talking about vacation with the boys about a week prior to leaving.  We count "sleeps" when we talk about time so we had about 6 sleeps before leaving on vacation.  Needless to say the boys were very excited about the thought of going away so I made a countdown chain (I totally forgot to take a photo) to help them have that visual.  Let me tell you, every morning the boys were very quick to remind me to take down a 'sleep' (remove a loop from the chain) and they would then count how many more sleeps we had left!

I spent Friday and Saturday working on my lists, laundry and packing.  Saturday dawned hot and steamy so I worked first thing on some packing.  Then, to get out of the heat, the boys and I ran errands, went out to lunch and turned in all of our change to use for vacation.  Once Darryl got home, we finished up a few things and officially started our vacation with dinner at "our" Chinese Resturant.  The boys love it because they can pick their own food AND get ice cream.  We ordered the boys some lemonaide - we usually only order them water - when Josh took a drink he said, "Thank you daddy for making money so we can have juice to drink" HA!

Sunday morning we actually slept in a little but the boys were still up at 7:30 - ready to go on vacation HA!  We had basically decided that we would get up, get ready, load up and go.  We ended up hitting the road at about 10:30 which was perfect.  The boys loved the travel bags and dug right into their activities.  Just like clock work, about an hour into our trip poor Nate got carsick.  I feel so bad for the little guy - he knows to grab his puke bucket like a true champ.  The only good thing is that it was right at an exit with a car pool lot to boot so we could clean it all up and hit the road again.  We made our first official stop about half way to Mackinaw City for lunch at McDonald's.  We were there for 90 minutes.  No lie.  The service was super slow, my kids are super slow eater's, and then came the bathroom trips.  The joys of potty training boys - one that is 100% trained and one that is when he wants to be means LONG trips to the potty.  Wow!

The boys were so excited when we were close enough to see the bridge and then to our hotel.  It was really cool because our hotel, The Clarian Beachfront Hotel, had a huge clock on the front of it so the boys had that constant landmark to look for each time we headed "home".

 Our room had a fabulous balcony - it was one of the things I prayed for on our drive North - I wanted a view of the water.  We had a view of the water that was just wonderful and my boys loved having that balcony where they could watch the birds and the boats.

Once we settled in, we drove down the main drag and headed to the Lighthouse park so the boys could see the water and the bridge.

To say that the boys loved the Mackinaw Bridge is an understatement.  They did not want to leave to go to dinner - they just wanted to stay and play.  Once we dragged the boys away . . .and changed them out of their wet clothes . .. we headed to dinner and then went back to the hotel where we then headed down to the beach.

The boys had so much fun in the sand and the water while Darryl and I enjoyed some lounging in the beach chairs in the sand.  It was a fabulous private sandy beach right behind our hotel; the perfect spot.  Needless to say, bedtimes were thrown out the window, it is vacation after all :-)

Day one of vacation to Mackinaw City was a huge success. 

Food Friday - Crunchy Asian Salad

Crunchy Asian Salad
adapted from a friend - Jacki Lewis

I love the Asian Coleslaw versions that are out there but I have never found one that I LOVE until now.  In May a friend and I made the food for a Ladies Tea at church and she made this salad.  It was the best I had ever tasted so I grabbed her recipe!  The secret?  Good Seasoning's Dressing mix.  The dressing for this salad is my new favorite go to dressing for everything. We had steak one night last week and had one steak left so I cute it up into thin strips, added it to lettuce with sunflower seeds and croutons and used this dressing - best salad ever :-)  

1 env.  (0.7 oz.) GOOD SEASONS Italian Dressing Mix

1/2 cup  sugar

2 Tbsp.  soy sauce

2 pkg.  (3 oz. each) ramen noodle soup mix

2 pkg.  (16 oz. each) coleslaw blend (cabbage slaw mix)

4 green onions, sliced

1/2 cup   Dry Roasted Sunflower Kernels

1/2 cup  Sliced Almonds, toasted

Make It

PREPARE dressing mix in small bowl as directed on envelope. Stir in sugar and soy sauce.
BREAK apart Noodles; place in large bowl. Discard Seasoning Packets or reserve for another use. Add coleslaw blend, onions, sunflower kernels and nuts to noodles; mix lightly.
ADD dressing; toss to coat.

 

Weekly Menu

I don't have any food prep photos this week since I didn't prep any food to eat this week HA!  I will say that as much work as food prep is - even just getting fruits and veggies ready to eat - we actually eat more of the stuff I buy because it is ready to eat.  Now, if only I could get my three year old to eat FRUIT Salad instead of his CRACKER salad.  Yes, that's right.  He comes up to me and asks for Salad.  Then says, "I want my cracker salad mom" which is just . .. a bowl of crackers.  HA!

Saturday - First day home which means grocery shopping!

Sunday - The last day of our vacation!  We will grill today - burgers sound good to me with some corn on the cob and fruit.

Monday - I have a roast to use up and have a recipe for a balsmic beef in the crock pot.  I'll add some potatoes and a veggie for an easy "first day back at work" dinner.

Tuesday - Ham and Cheese Quiche, Banana Bread, and fruit

Wednesday - Hot Dogs, Mac and Cheese and chips

Thursday - Today is 4th of July (WOW!)  I'm not sure yet.  (Since I'm writing this the week before we go on vacation).  If the weather cooperates, we like to go to the beach which means we'll have a picnic.  If not, we will probably grill some steaks and have potatoes and garlic bread.

You might notice this is a pretty easy menu this week.  That's the plan.  I wanted to plan ahead, keep it simple, and start out strong after vacation.  :-)

Music Heals

I posted recently about attending the funeral of a friend who passed away after a year long battle with cancer.  Her funeral was heartbreaking for those left behind even though we know with true abandon that she is now walking in heaven.  She picked two very powerful songs to be played at her funeral so I thought I would share those with you today.

Even If-- By Kutless - you might want a box of Kleenex handy if you know someone going through some struggles right now, just saying!


Blessed Assurance by Jadon Lavik.  This song IS Betsy; everything it says is who she was and what she believed.

Too Cute Not To Toot

This week, as I've searched for ideas, I've run into the same problem over and over.  I find a great idea on Pinterest, I then click on the photo to go to the link and it either doesn't link to anything or it links to the main blog not the individual post.  I wish folks would post right to the post so that we can learn how to do some of those great things!

I did find this idea from All Free Sewing for a "Taggie".  It's a great baby gift but I think even young kids would like them in the car because of having the various textures on the piece.

Ok, I found a couple cute ideas over at Decore Allure.  I actually saw the idea for the Bandana blanket first and fell in love with it but there are a lot of ideas included in this one post!

Also from Decor Allure is this very cute playmat idea.

Enjoy your week and happy crafting!

Summer Preschool - Prepping for our year

Last week I shared what our curriculum would be this coming year.  This week I worked on some prep work - my goal was to get the first 6 weeks worth of lessons printed and ready to go for Josh.  I did get lessons 1-5 printed and part of lesson 1 laminated but I ran out of lamination and decided to hold off buying more until after vacation.  In same cases I wouldn't "waste" lamination but, since I plan on reusing this material for Nate next year, it is important for the stuff to last.  (I don't plan to laminate the stuff for Nate's lessons since this will be the only year we use that stuff).  I am going to buy two Caryola wipe off boards that allow you to put a piece of paper under the surface so that worksheets can be used several times without needing to make multiple copies.  I feel good about how far I got this week.  The other big thing I did was actually count out our weeks and lay out our schedule for the year.  After doing it both ways - "year round" and with the full summer off, I decided that I like the 6 weeks on/1 week off idea.  That allows us to take all of December off and end the second of May.  We will then have the rest of May, all of June and two weeks in July off.  I need the breaks probably more than the kids do!

 My stack of school papers - I love those plastic snapping folders.  I get them at target and they are perfect for storing each lesson.  Makes it easy to grab what I need each week.

Here's our calendar!  The red dates are holidays; blue are vacation dates and yellow are school days. 


The other thing I worked on was our vacation binders.  If kids have something to do in the truck the parents don't go insane HA!  My boys love maps so one of the things I did was print of maps for all of our destinations both coming and going. I then laminated them and made sure they had some markers to follow our trip :-)  (I just searched online until I found a map I liked and printed it . . .)

  I also printed some coloring pages of some of the things we would do and see and included a big photo of the bridge so that they would know what to look for as we traveled.

 I included these ABC pages which actually are for a different activity but I told the boys that they could draw a picture on each page of something they see while on vacation that matches the letter. Then, I laminated the ABC cards to practice writing their letters.

 Confessions of Homeschooler

(can't find the source for this as the moment - I saved it a LONG time ago!!)

One thing I did not get a photo of is a set of Alphabet coloring pages from Mr. Printables.  These will probably show up during our year of school too ;-)

My other main focus this week, of course, was getting ready for vacation.  That included, packing, cleaning, and making sure that all details were taken care of before we left.  I like to leave my house nice and clean so that when we come home, the only thing we do is unpack . . Trust me, Saturday evening, there was a lot of vacuuming and last minute pick-up happening!!!

Dining Room Update

I thought I would share a few minor updates I made in the dining room.  My dining room is really my "photo room".  It is where most of the family photos hang but I was really getting tired of my old displays and wanted to do a little updating.

 This is my new favorite display.  I was at a friends house recently and she had hung up large canvas prints of her daughters and it made a huge statement.  I knew I wanted to do something similar but I did not want to spend much money since I plan on changing out the large individual photos at least once a year.  After doing some searching, I found that I could print 16x20 posters from Snapfish  from $14.99 each.  Even better, they often have specials where you can buy one/get one so I was able to get both for $14.99! 

 I hung family photos and baby photos together.  I'm not 100% happy with this arrangement yet.  I would like to maybe pull out some other older photos - like Wedding Photos of my parents and all of my brothers just to add to it.  Maybe a family photo of both Darryl and my families at about the same time frame.  I think that older photos really show family history.  I also need an updated photo of my In-laws to put on that wall too :-) I recently saw an idea on Pinterest that I love so I may follow that inspiration.

Finally, on another wall, I hung our wedding photo and then the two memory boards that house current family photos.  I will say that I need to update the frame for our wedding photo.  That will be on the list for one of these days when I end up at Kohl's - my favorite place to buy large frames since they are almost always on sale.

I love the changes. I rarely move furniture so when I "rearrange" I move artwork.  It really does freshen up the look of a room.  Now . . .to do touch up paint :-)