Summer Plans week 6

Wow.  Week 6 of summer fun is done.  Which means we are hitting the half way point and that's just crazy.   One of the things I love about Facebook is the events.  So many ideas pop up on my Facebook feed that I can add to our "maybe" list and it gives me lots and lots of ideas to pull from in our plans.  Even as we come into July, I will still list what is on the original plan and then share what we actually did.

Sunday - There is a Christian organization called Worship on the Waterfront that brings in some pretty big artists for a Worship Concert on Lake Michigan.  Today it is an artist named Jordan Feliz who happens to be one of Nate's favorite singers. It was so crazy hot that we skipped going to the concert and we went swimming instead.  

Monday - Heading to Grand Rapids for a movie at the Christian Bookstore followed by a picnic at the park. Nope :-)  Instead we went to a friends house for the morning (because I had a meeting!) and for lunch.  Then, we went and got ice cream (one of the kids rewards from the library for reading!) followed by a stop at another friends house to visit their lemonade stand.  It was a great day!  Oh, and of course we went swimming too! 

Tuesday - Craft day (well, maybe HA!)  Making a cool Paper Plate Flower.  I'm sure we will also swim if the weather cooperates!  Our local Fireworks explode at Dusk tonight so I'm sure we will set off some of our own too.  Nope, no craft HA!  Instead, we took advantage of the hot, sunny afternoon and went swimming.  I had choir practice so the boys and Darryl set off smoke bombs while I was gone.  The boys and I then set off fireworks and watched our local fireworks after I got home.  (Darryl went to bed early since he has to get up at 3:00 for work!) 

Wednesday - Happy Fourth of July!  Today will just be relaxing.  Plus we are heading to my Choir Concert which is followed by Fireworks! We did just that - we relaxed.  Darryl had to work (which was our plan) so the boys and I treated ourselves to lunch out, followed by some swimming.  Then, my mom joined us and we all (Darryl included) headed to my choir concert.  Yes, it was super hot but it was an awesome night.  We ended the night with fireworks at home at 11:30 :-) 

Thursday - The Library Activity is a Movie (not my favorite - Sherlock Gnomes - I'll be taking a book!).  The plan is to swim in the afternoon. This went pretty close to plan except we swam in the evening instead. 

Friday - I actually have several things written down - another library we enjoy is showing a movie that we haven't seen - Coco - that we might go see; We haven't done any free bowling yet so maybe today; There is also a free day at Blanford Nature Center which is somewhere we have never been.  And, of course, there is swimming.  I'm leaving this open to pick based on the weather. Well, sometimes a busy week catches up with you and that is what happened today.  One, we had to make a Laundromat run so we did that in the morning.  It was a beautiful day, but breezy so we didn't swim.  Instead, I read a book all afternoon.  The kids played and watched TV.  After dinner, the boys spent the evening outside playing in the yard with friends. 

Saturday - Visiting Boulder Ridge Zoo.  No Zoo today.  I actually had zero desire to wander around the zoo.  Instead, it was the perfect day for the pool - 80 and not humid.  We swam for about an two hours and then enjoyed dinner with my mom at our house.  The boys decided to stay the night at Nana's - something they really enjoy doing with her so close by. 

Weekly Menu

Almost a year ago, my husband started his journey of dental problems/surgery/having teeth pulled.  Throughout that process my meal planing/recipe trying/cooking really changed and was put on hold.  To be honest, I've never gotten it back!  I also always feel like our grocery budget is one way that I can "earn" money - by saving money.  Grocery prices seem to go up constantly, though, and my kids eat more and more food so it's a constant battle.  Plus, now with summer time, I don't love to heat up my kitchen so cooking gets more creative :-)

So, with all of that wisdom (HA!) here's the plan for the coming week.  That's the other thing, with summer, my meal plan is very loose - it changes constantly based on heat and time!

Friday - Homemade Sausage Mc(Master)muffins, eggs, and hashbrowns.

Saturday - Pulled pork BBQ, Baked Beans, Mac and Cheese. and Salad

Sunday - Slow Cooker, Hawiian Pineapple Chicken thighs, Crash Potatoes (I love these crispy pieces of goodness), and green beans.

Monday - Stromboli!  I love pizza in almost any form and my stromboli is resturant quaility according to my husband!  Chips and Salad

Tuesday - We are having a family day out!

Wednesday - Darryl has practice today so I'm sure the boys and I will do something easy ;-)

Thursday - I found a cool site with 100 days of Summer Slow Cooking.  I'm going to try and pull some recipes from there to try - my slow cooker is getting a lot use lately! So, I'm going to try Crock Pot Lemon Chicken over saurekraut, Asparagus, and Mac and Cheese.  Now, truth be told, we are not saurekraut fans but, I'm going to use it in the recipe because I think it will flavor the chicken - we might just not eat the kraut!

Philly CHeese Steak - Two Ways

A month or so ago, I tried a new twist on Sloppy Joes called Philly Cheese Steak Sloppy Joes. 

photo credit: Dinner then Dessert

These sloppy joes were really, really good.  They had the flavor of a Philly Cheese Steak but so much easier and faster to cook.  I did leave the mushrooms out because I made them when my mom was coming over and she does NOT like mushrooms (they aren't my favorite either!).  Now, truth be told, this did not go over well with my kids.  Josh loves sloppy joes -the "normal way", so he was not happy with this thing with peppers and onions HA!  You can find the recipe HERE. 

Now, I took the leftovers from this dinner, put them in a ziplock bag and froze them for later.  We ate them recently and I had planned to just re-heat it in a sauce pan and serve it on a plate.  BUT, that morning I came across this Recipe for Ground Philly Cheese steak Grilled Cheese.  As I read the recipe, I realized that I could use the leftovers and make the Grilled Cheese!  I made the sandwich on my panini press which made it really tasty - but would have held up better with a nice sturdy bread and not regular sandwich bread :-) 

photo credit: Dinner then Dessert

*As a side note, I didn't realize that both recipes came from the same blog until I wrote this post!  

Summer Plans Week 5

I am really thankful that I laid out a plan at the beginning of summer.  It has given me a vision on days when we might have done nothing.  Instead, I at least know of what is going on and can plan accordingly.

Sunday - One thing I am trying to do while my mom is in town is to plan one date day a month with Darryl.  So, Sunday the 24 is date day!  (unless he works, then I'll switch it!)  So, plans changed due to the radiator!  I couldn't justify setting aside money for dinner and a movie or whatever after spending so much on a car repair so I guess our "date" was getting the van fixed!  Instead we headed to an evening church fellowship at a friends house. 

Monday - Taking the kids to free summer bowling. I didn't realize when I made summer plans that the bowling alley is closed on Monday and Tuesday.  It is supposed to be rainy later this week so maybe we will go on Wednesday.  I considered going swimming but it was actually cool with the breeze so we took advantage of the near perfect weather and went to one of our favorite parks for the afternoon.  You know it's a perfect park day when the kids play for 2 hours and still don't want to leave!  The added bonus? There was a bike tour that was stopping at the park for lunch.  At they end, their cook came over and told us that he had a 1/2 a watermelon cut and ready for eating but they were done - he gave the whole thing to us and the kids gobbled it up! 

Tuesday - Swimming!!!  The boys are also participating in a Mini Running camp in the evening. Today went exactly as planned . A perfect afternoon for hours of swimming followed by Running camp. 

Wednesday - We are going to make a 4th of July Related craft today! The boys have Running camp again. No craft again this week :-) I really planned to do a craft a week but it just never gets done!  Today was raining for most of the day so everyone just played inside. 

Thursday - In the morning we will attend the Library activity.  The boys have running camp at night.  Another "just as planned day".  We went to the Library, went swimming, and then running camp.  Plus Josh is camping with Nana tonight too - something he loves to do! 

Friday - Mooville for Ice cream followed by swimming at the pool!  There is also a balloon festival in a town not far from us that I've always wanted to go to so that is an option too.  It's supposed to be hotter than the surface of the sun.  Swimming happened - ice cream did not  . . . we swam instead :-)  The boys caught some lightning bugs Friday night too.  

Saturday - Our local Missionary Aviation prgram (SMAT) holds an activity day that we've never been able to attend but we are planning on it this year.  There is also the option to go to a local fair where they have some kids activities in the afternoon too. Today it was so hot that we stayed home.  I think it was actually hotter than the surface of the sun for real today (makes Friday look cool!) So we stayed inside and did nothing until dinner.  We met my mom for a dinner out and then went swimming.  

Our Week in Photos #44

This week followed our summer plan pretty closely.  I'll post a few photos here but there will be more in the post tomorrow.

 Fun at the park - Monday was a perfect park day - not too hot with a great breeze.  

 The cat . .and Josh's toes :-)  

 Running camp - hosted by the local Cross Country Team.  It was a fabulous experience for the boys.  Josh had a goal of running two miles by day three and he did it.  Nate ran 1 1/4 mile which was more than his goal of 1 mile!  

 The library activity this week was the hula hooper.  She was great.  The boys also earned a homemade cookie from the local bakery for reading all week. 

The last day of running camp brought lots of fun games!!

We also did a lot of swimming this week as the weather really warmed up and the boys did some Lightning Bug catching too! 

Weekly Menu

Last week I actually stuck pretty close to the menu except my mom brought over soup for us to eat on Monday night (and yes, it was really, really good!)  so that was a nice treat.  It's hard to believe that we are already half way through summer! (Well, almost - 4th of July seems to mark that!). 

Friday - Leftovers.  There is pulled pork and a sloppy joe mix I made a few weeks ago (in the freezer).  I'll cook some Mac and cheese and chop up the last of the salad stuff for a nice meal. (And if needed, I can also make some garlic cheese biscuits!)

Saturday -  Sausage Gravy and Biscuits, Fruit (I'll see what's on sale), and roasted zucchini (you might guess that this is one of my favorite veggies!)

Sunday - Asain Style Drumsticks (In the crockpot!), Fried Rice and Cresent Rolls

Monday - Slow Cooker Brown Sugar Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, and green beans

Tuesday -  Mac and Cheese along with Ham Biscuits (I actually had a ham in the freezer and cooked it on Monday, then sliced up the ham to use for dinner and froze alot of it to use in the future.

Wednesday - Today is the 4th of July!  I'm hopeful the weather is decent and we can grill some Hamburgers.  I'll make my favorite sliced cucumbers, some baked beans and chips and dip for a nice early dinner before we head to my choir concert followed by fireworks.

Thursday - Spaghetti and garlic bread (this is becoming standard Thursday night fare!)

What I Read in June

One of my goals in June was to read books- 10 total throughout the month.  I actually have a full basket of books to read which has helped me to attempt to not spend money on new books!

 The Atomic City Girls was a book for my book club in the month of June.  I did not like it at all.  It was boring and I skipped alot of the book.  If there is one good thing I could say is that I learned something about our history that I never knew.  During World War 2 there was a "secret" town built by the military.  All of these young civilians came to work there (a lot of young women) but they weren't told what they were doing until it was done - they were helping to build the Atomic Bombs that were dropped.  It's like a secret part of history.  It makes me want to read more about this topic. 

The Wood's Edge is a book that I started probably a year ago but then got distracted and put it away while I read lots of other books!  I also put it away because it was a very hard book to follow due to Military and Indian names and words.  BUT, ironically, when I picked it back up (with about 1/4 of the book left) I really like it because the last 1/4 of the book resolves everything.  I was actually sad that it ended because I wanted to learn more about the main characters. 

Jane Kirkpatrick is an author who digs into a story with lots of historical facts and a way of telling a story that almost makes you feel the joy and discouragement that the characters feel.  The Road We Traveled shares the story of a family who basically loses everything as they travel west yet they were drawn closer together and found personal strength to overcome those trials.  I found that it took a little bit to get into the story but once the characters where introduced and started to develop, I wanted to know what happened with each of them.

Lauraine Snelling is one of my all time favorite authors.  I especially love her series around the Red River Valley.  This book is number one in a new series that revolves around the extended family in the Red River Valley Series (There are multiple series that spin off of the original series.)  In this one a family leaves their home to follow the American Dream and live/help a cousin.  The cousin takes advantage of their goodness until they stand up for themselves and succeed in obtaining that dream.  It is a fabulous book that I could not put down (Thank goodness for a 95 degree day for a good excuse to sit inside and read!)

Last fall, my mom and I got hear Lynn Austin speak about writing this book and she signed our copies.  Lynn is one of my favorite authors also so I was really excited for this latest book.  To keep it real, though, this book is my least favorite book that Lynn has written.  I found it hard to follow and the fact that it would just back and forth in time drove me nuts.  It is written in a style that tells the store of 4 (I think) different people, one at a time so you kind of relive the same time period 4 times with 4 different perspectives.  I skipped alot of the story just to get to the end and find out what happened.  It ended well so I guess sometimes that is all that matters!

 One of the great things about my favorite Christian Bookstore is they have a $5.00 table.  The books on the table are a mix of well known authors and new authors so its a great way to find really good books to read at an affordable price.  This is one of those books - Tamera Alexander is a a great author and this book did not disappoint.  It takes place in Tennessee after the war and brings a different twist to the lives of the freed slaves and those that were still fighting for them.  It was a book that I couldn't put down and wanted more of it when it was done. 

No Way Up  is another one of the bargain books and it was better than I thought it would be - it was actually very well written if not a little predictable.  It was an easy read with a great story of family who come together when things get difficult and, in the process, learn to love each other better. 


Whew!  Seven books this month (and I have one that I'm half way through!).  I've spent a few mornings sitting on the deck, eating breakfast and reading which has been great.  I've also taken books to the Laundromat, the park, and to VBS (where I sat in the truck for 2 hours reading HA!).  I truly enjoy reading and am glad that I've taken time to actually read some of the books in my "pile".