5 weeks in Michigan

Josh has been traveling a lot, and has more trips coming up, so o decided to head home.

I came home to enough packages I thought it might be Christmas!!!!

One of those packages was this beautiful fabric, designed by Minick and Simpson who Lives in Michigan!!! And this fabric line is based on Michigan.

I babysat my sisters kids and we went out to pizza and it was amazing... and we had a great time, see the shirt the older one is wearing, I handed that down to her, and my uncle handed it down to me... 

I got to see one of my best friends announce her second pregnancy!

I got to meet one of the members of the online quilt group I'm in :)

My parents took me out to an early birthday dinner since we won't be together for my real birthday and they gave me this book I have been wanting :)

And I got these two books, my first books of grad school.

I was able to see the beach and have a great day with my sister and 6 of my nieces.

I may have also gotten a slight sun burn because I missed a spot with the sunscreen... oops.

I ran a 10 mile race while I was home, I was so happy to run it, I have heard about it most of my life. It was a tough race,  but good. It was fun to run past places I knew. And the medal HUGE

And later that day my cousin got married and it rained the whole afternoon and it was cold.

Saw some good friends

And my parents went on vacation and left me in charge of the house.

And being a good daughter I mowed the lawn and picked the berries...

I also dyed my hair for the first time ever!!!

And I spent a lot of time working on my fresh quilt, but I didn't finish it sadly, mostly quilted though... I tried to get it done so I could give it to my parents for their anniversary... maybe next year.

I met a friend and we picked apples and ate donuts!!! I love cider donuts!! 

And tried to catch this snake for my parents to no avail, I think it's hibernating in the garage for the winter!!! Eek!!! I even set rat traps! They said they didn't catch anything when they got home :(

Which was a learning experience, I had never set a mouse or a rat trap before, so thankfully my brother had been over earlier and set up one of the rat traps, so I could use it as an example.

Met up with more friends and hung out

And finally, 

Headed home

Back to Mexico

I woke up to this

With more on the way

It snowed pretty hard while I was at the airport, but we ended up with no delays,

And they decide the plane, I've never seen it be green before. I'm sure it is good for the environment...

I made it home safe and sound.

Homeward Bound

I flew home and spent 5 hours in the Atlanta airport.

I went to my oldest Niece's confirmation and afterwards we went out to lunch.

I took my MAT test, and after waiting a week I got my results, I was in the 87th percentile over all, And 78th in my intended major. I hope that means I can get in.

My Mom set up a meeting with my Great Uncle and we worked on some Ancestry, they shared some pictures they had.

Two of my nieces turn 13 this spring/summer, and since I don't plan on going back to Michigan until Christmas I took them out for their day with a

aunt Lisa. They both wanted to go shopping, one was looking for summer clothes and the other a dress for her spring formal.

I went ice skating

And bike riding

It really is a fun day to spend with them, I let them choose everything, from what we do to where we eat.  And we talk, and it's nice to spend some one on one time with them as they are becoming teenagers.

My family got together for Easter, it turned out to be a beautiful day, so after lunch we played frisbee and tag outside. My grandma even stopped by.

I also had to squeeze in a ton of shopping. Since I needed to get everyone birthday presents before I left, and I also needed to freshen up my wardrobe :)

And while I was out one day I met up with two girls who used to work for me in India, but they have now moved to Michigan! It was really nice to see them.

One of the girls brought some Indian deserts, they were pretty good!

The day before I left I accidentally broke a bracelet I had bought in China :( but luckily I know a girl in Mexico who was headed to China and she said she would pick me a new one up.

It was also my Dad's birthday, we went to Big Boy to celebrate 

And at night I finished up a gift for Josh, for our 9th anniversary present, some Willow coasters... Now to hold on to them until September.

Day 410

Mr took a nice nap in the sun today

Then Josh and I checked out a new beer store in town.

They have beer from Michigan.

Then we tried out a new pizza place. 

They have a wood burning brick oven, and the chef is from Italy! They had great pizza!

Day 355 & 356

We spent Saturday at home, and Josh did his homework.

On Sunday I got an email from my parents that Roscoe my cat at my parents house that we got when I was in high school passed away during the night.

Roscoe was born the summer of 1999 So he was about 16 years old. I am happy I was able to see him while I was home at Christmas. We knew he wasn't going to make it much longer, he wasn't leaving his little house much and he was having trouble getting into the litter box.

I still remember his first winter, he wandered outside in the snow and when he didn't return for a couple days I went and looked for him, followed his tracks through the woods and across the neighbors driveway and down into a swamp area where he had tried to make it back out, but the snow was slippery and the incline was too much for him, and when I found him he was covered in snow, and he had lost his little meow because he had been meowing too much. I wrapped him up in my coat and brought him home, he recovered well, but his meow was always scratchy and he never went anywhere in the winter that wasn't a path we had shoveled, he didn't want to get lost again. 

He also didn't really like anyone but my Dad, myself and he would tolerate my mom if my dad was gone hunting or something.

He will be missed.

Christmas

Well we headed to Frankenmuth for a tradition of dinner with friends.

When I was little we brought these home and I insisted my birthday cake be decorated with these... Lol, I still think they are adorable.

Then it was time for Christmas with my family, look how big these girls are getting! It makes me so sad. I wish that my siblings would have spaced all of the babies out and not had them all before I was even married, I think I could have been a better aunt if I wasn't busy being a teenager when the first couple were born.

But luckily Josh's brother has a little one, and we got to see them for Christmas too!

She really enjoyed opening presents this year, it was pretty cute.

A day in Detroit

We met up with some friends and went to the brewery for lunch

Visited the science center with them, it was pretty interesting

One thing I love about Detroit, is it was where my family settled after immigrating from Germany, and the other thing is the architecture you can find there so beautiful, I hope they can clean up d-town and keep the cool old buildings, if I was rich I might try to redo some of it on my own :) but I'm not.

More basketball and a little band

My brothers oldest two girls both play on the 8th grade team, even though the younger one is in 7th grade.

Here is a good picture of them playing together, the younger one is passing the ball to the older one.

And I love this one of the older one shooting a freethrow

Also I went to see my sisters oldest play in a Christmas band concert, and since Star Wars was coming out the same week they played like 6 songs from Star Wars.

She plays all kinds of percussion. I was pretty impressed.

Holiday sewing

In between the hustle and bustle of shopping I decided I was going to make my friends some hot pads. I had 6 people I wanted to make hot pads for.

So I sat in my parents basement and cursed the super strong new fan. And by new I mean newly put in the basement to blow the heat from the wood stove upstairs.

Real new huh? In fact one morning we woke up to the house smelling like electrical fire, and the old fan had had enough, and thankfully broke the breaker and didn't burn the house down, my dad went out into the garage and dug this beauty out of the attic. My parents had helped my grandparents move to their lake house the summer I was born, and this fan had been up there ever since. With a little cleaning it was up and running.

And I sewed

This is my first ever hot pad, the binding I felt was too big, so I made it smaller for the rest.

I made two sets of each print.

And some pockets on the back.

Wedding time!

My little sister in the sorority got married at a ski resort, and the wedding was scheduled to be outside, but because there was no snow the winter wonderland wedding wasn't going to happen. I wasn't that sad about not sitting outside freezing. I did get to hand out programs :)

But I had a great time spending the whole weekend with friends that came in from all over the country :) that I haven't seen in a long time!

Nothing has changed.

The happy couple!