lake life

This weekend we were lucky enough to spend time with family up in Michigan City.  This is where I grew up and spent the first 12 years of my life.  We spent a lot of time at the beach on Lake Michigan as I was growing up and it is always nice to be back up there.  My grandparents still live there so we all gather at their house which is just a short walk/even quicker drive to the beach.  My mom, niece and nephew, and Uncle's family were all there this weekend.  I absolutely love spending time with all of them.

Matt and I drove separately to his mom's house where we dropped Jax off and then I hopped on the motorcycle with him and we rode the rest of the way to MC.  It was SO HOT on Saturday.  I got up at 7 am to water the flowers before we left and it was already 82 with 60% humidity.  Once we actually got on the bike it was even hotter and more humid.  It was over 100 degrees during that ride.  I did ok until about 3/4 of the way there and I hit my wall.  My butt hurt, I was hot, getting sunburned even through my SPF 30, hungry, thirsty, and just done.  We pulled over to a Burger King and grabbed a little snack and rest and then headed the rest of the way up there.  Matt handed me back his headphones with the radio playing and said it would help.  It actually did distract me from my complaints the rest of the time :). 

I have never been so happy to arrive at my grandparents house.  We were shockingly the first ones there. That rarely happens.  We hung around for a little bit catching up with them and then the rest of the fam trickled in.  We ate lunch and then the girls packed up and headed to the beach.  I thought we were all going like usual, but the boys wants to stay back and play cards instead.  It started off hot and then a front came through around 3 pm and brought cooler weather and some nice waves in the lake.  It was absolutely gorgeous down at the beach-cooler with a nice breeze and then water was actually warm enough to get in!  We actually all got in and made our way out to the sandbar-tugging the kids along when they couldn't touch.  I don't remember the last time Mary came to the beach with us (I'm SO glad she did) while it was hot and sunny or the last time my Mom got in the lake water before August.  It was a great time :) My only regret is that I didn't take more pictures! I am a bad aunt and didn't get one of my niece and nephew together.

Lake Michigan

Playing in the sand

We came back to the boys in the middle of an intense Euchre tourney so we all showered up.  The whole crew went up to New Buffalo for some Redmak's burgers.  It was busy as always but the weather was so nice no one minded waiting almost an hour outside.  The food was delicious and the company was priceless :).  "Do you guys serve pizza? Sushi?" It took while for our waitress to warm up to us crazy people.

Matt's first Redamak's burger

After dinner, we all stopped at Oink's ice cream on the way back home.  Redmak's and Oink's are both a huge staple in my childhood up in MC.  We visited there a lot. It was awesome to get to go this weekend and also to show Matt what its all about. He had never been to either.

Absolutely packed at 10 pm on a Saturday night

 We came back, played around with Apple TV (you can stream your photos and videos from your iPhone to their TV just through their WiFi...we had a lot of fun with this), and the final four people awake finished the night with a Euchre game.  My team lost but there were plenty of laughs to make up for that.

I think we called this "3 generations of facial hair"

All photos from my iPhone and blown up bigger so sorry for the poor quality. 

This morning, we had a fantastic homemade breakfast of pancakes, egg casserole, and the best watermelon I've ever had.  Once we got around to cleaning up everyone started to pack up to leave.  That's always the sad part. I never want it to end. I can't wait until we are all together again!

summer rituals

It's so funny how daily/nightly rituals change between the Winter and the Summer.  I've got to say that I am really loving Summer rituals.  It must be the sun setting later but it is so motivating to get stuff done!

On my days off, I usually am teaching in the morning and then it's either time for errands (groceries, Target, Costco), a day of cleaning, or a good dog walking/laying outside/reading outside kind of day.  The latter is my fav of course, but those don't happen very often. Or if that is what I'm doing I usually feel guilty for not doing the other two options.  If I am off and not working out at night, I try to have dinner ready by the time Matt gets home (or close enough to then).  I have a taken a few random PTO (vacation) days this Summer, mostly because we have something planned that night, but then it gives me a whole extra day that week to do my own thing.  It's nice to only work two days week.  I could get used to that...

It is so nice to have Matt home in the evenings too. I am loving his hours.  It gives us time at night to eat dinner together and unwind.  The only thing I would change is if he wasn't working 10-11 hour days Monday-Friday.  There's not a whole lot he can do about that right now, but it would be so great for him if he only had to do 8 like most people (well, normal Monday-Friday people).  Selfishly, I would get to see him more and spend more time with him, but it would also not wear on him so much.  Oh well, can't complain about having a job these days!

Another Summer ritual that I can't say I absolutely love (sometimes it's relaxing and nice to be outside, but then it just turns into an annoyance) is watering all the plants and flowers and new trees.  With our drought we've had so far this year I am having to get out every single night and water them! If I for some reason don't have enough time to do everything at nights when I have to work, I still always at least water my potted plants and most importantly-my tomatoes! Mt tomato plants are really shocking me.  What I mean by that is that they are actually growing and producing those special little red things! My cherry tomato plant is thriving-I have already eaten about 10 from that and there is still a lot to go.  I have a really hard time seeing a red one on the wine and not eating it.  I have to consciously tell myself not to, so it will get more ripe, taste better, and then maybe I can eat more than one at a time! Or make something from them! It is so hard to contain myself though.  I almost have to smack my own hand when I reach for one.  My beefsteak tomato plant on the other hand isn't doing the greatest.  I am hoping it's just because they take about 2 weeks longer to mature than the cherries, but right now I only have one measly green one.  That green one is definitely growing bigger but it's the lone ranger for now. To be honest, if my cherry tomatoes keep on the right track I won't even mind if I only get one beefsteak tomato this year.  Hey, that's at least one night of BLTs right?

We've also been busy with the projects again.  We almost set out to divide and conquer our spare bedroom this weekend, but then we knew if would turn into more and we weren't in store for that.  I did end up getting the guest bedroom looking fabulous though! Matt had told me we really needed to get some stuff up on the walls and off to Home Goods I went.  I hung this little shelf/sconce set I bought last year and then bought a nice mirror and picture for the walls as well as some decorations for the shelves I just hung.  I got everything up on the walls tonight and it looks great!  Hanging stuff on the walls is never my favorite thing to do-especially when you are married to the "have to get your measuring tape and level and pencil and center it and level it and blah blah blah".  Yes, Matt it does look great but I wish I could just magically know where to put it and it look just as good :).  Only thing that bedroom needs now is a ceiling fan!

I'm pretty sure they say this every Summer, but this has got to be the hottest on record.  Well, actually I know it is because we have had at least 5 days that have broken the record for high temperature that was set back in 1930s!  This whole 100 degree stuff has got to go.  Our Spring was so beautiful, I wish that could've just carried over into Summer.  I don't see any relief coming either.  Rain and a little cool-down please :)

planted

Matt and I have been doing a lot of work on the outside of the house this Spring/Summer.  Last Summer was spend doing all sorts of remodeling inside and it's nice to have a break from that for a while and do some fun stuff outside!

My mom came down last month and we had a nice day together running around town looking for pots and different flowers.  It was great to be able to spend time with her like that.  She is great with flowers and making stuff look nice outside so I really valued her opinion.  We stopped by Big Lots to pick out some nice potters for the flowers.  We headed to a nursery close by my house to pick out the flowers!  It was there that my mom learned what Matt has to deal with everyday...my indecisiveness.  I am SO bad! I don't know why either? Why can't I just make a decision and live with it. Poor lady :). I finally made a decision and we went home to start potting!

Our beautiful plants!

These are SO much bigger and fuller now! It's crazy to see how much they've grown.  I look like I am talking about a child...I love watching my plants grow!

My hard-working man did all of the planting of our new trees.  If you look back at a couple posts ago, I talk about what all we bought.  I have to be honest...it took us 5 weeks-Yes 5 WEEKS to finally get every single thing planted.  The trees got in first, then Matt randomly planted my hydrangea, and then we got all the Boxwoods planted last week.  And it's DONE! Now I reallu want to do more :).  I want a couple more hydrangea bushes-ours now is already starting to bloom and I LOVE it.

The dog doing just what I was...watching :)

Trees were in and the next step was the complete renovation of our walkway.  We knew we wanted to plant the boxwoods, but we also ended up digging up way more grass and then mulching around the bushes.  It looks great! Next year I plan on adding in some flowers throughout and in between them for some color!

Starting the measurements

My rental car while my Murano was getting her mirror fixed.  Take a look at the grass to the right of the sidewalk...get ready for it's transformation!

Grass dug up and dirt layed out.  I made two trips to Menard's to fill my trunk with dirt and mulch.  Just about as bad as Matt trying to go pick me out a pair of shoes.

Captain of the ship

15 bags of dirt!

He got soooo dirty out there!

And they're in! Cute little ones.

Now for some mulch-spreading

Finished product.  Doesn't it look great?! That stupid red lava rock to the right is getting removed next year.  I hate that stuff!

Our friends Amber and Rob stopped by

My friend Amber said, "I don't think I've ever seen you guys so dirty." Yep we sure were!

surprise party

A couple weekends ago, we planned a surprise 60th birthday party for my Dad! I worked with his girlfriend and my aunt and we planned the whole thing.  I didn't know if we would be able to pull it off...my dad can be difficult sometimes.  I knew if we asked him if he wanted to have a party, he would've said no.  Solution? Surprise him and give him no way out :).

He had been calling me the couple weeks before the party trying to figure out a weekend for all of us to  get together.  The party ended up being on Father's Day weekend too, so I felt guilty saying we couldn't come that weekend (even though we were coming I just couldn't tell him that!). My aunt told him they were coming down to visit my grandma the next week and we told him we would come visit the next weekend or he could come here.  We had Ann, his girlfriend, conjure up some plans with her siblings who they hang out with a lot.  I made some trips to Party City and got all the decorations for the party.

We had everyone get to his favorite restaurant around 3 and then they were going to come around 3:30.  The "plan" was that Ann's brother-in-law invited my dad to "come watch the golf game at Barleycorn's". Little did he know we were all there...

Gift table

Cousins

So anxious waiting for them to arrive!

And they are here!! SURPRISE!!!

My Dad said his first thought was "Why is this girl taking my picture?" We had the hostess snapping shots the whole time.  He said "Then, I saw you and I had to fight back the tears." All worth it :)

Dressing him up in all of his "60" gear

Looks good on you :)

Our gift to my Dad

Whiskey's a-flowin :)

Love you Dad! So glad we pulled it off :)