Camping in Holland

If you noticed my lack of participation in blogging/leaving comments, it's because I've been busy on vacation. Actually it wasn't that busy at all, but we had to drive to the park pavilion and pay money whenever we wanted to get on the Internet. We went camping, but in style. We had the best handicap spot, closest to the water and with the most space. We had a lot of stuff and a lot of people, so we needed it. At night, Sarah and David slept in the bed, Leah slept in the bathroom area in her pack-n-play, Grandma Lois slept on the table, Adam's dad aka Pops slept on the couch, his mom on the kitchen floor on an air mattress (she knows the advantage to sleeping alone on an air mattress) and Adam and I on another air mattress on the kitchen floor; oh, and we had Walter too. He slept in the little tiny, maybe 3sq. ft. of floor space that was not covered up with luggage or sleeping people. We had a couple days were there were pretty good waves. We went one day to a beach that you had to cross the channel to get to the other side of the pier where the waves were not so big and messy. Not a big deal, the channel is maybe 5yards wide. On the way back, some guy thought we were trespassing on his private beach, even though there is a law that says no one owns the water or the land up to the 100 year water mark. So because he was so drunk and rude, and threatening to call the police, we were forced to swim back to the other side of the beach by swimming around the pier. It was probably a mile worth of swimming. It was miserable because we all had stuff with us, including my cell phone because we needed it to get in touch the friends that were meeting us. I had to swim with it in my mouth. There were 4 of us and 6 boards, so the two guys had to paddle on one, and pull the other strapped to their ankle with the leash. I had to ditch my towel because it was such a dead weight. It was OK when it was all over though, because we had a really good day surfing some really good waves and there was a photographer there from National Geographic*, taking pictures of us because I guess not very many people know you can surf in MI. And...I found $20 bucks on the beach. My not so lucky, lucky day. My cell phone rang once while I was paddling, and my arms hurt SO bad that I sat up on the board to rest and answered the phone. It was Adam's mom, I didn't want to explain the predicament we were in, because she would have worried, but she worried anyways because a big wave was headed my way and I was like...um...I'll call you right back, then she said "no, wait, I wanna say something quick" and I said...."I really gotta go, I'll call you in 15" and hung up on her just before the wave came. My cell phone allowed calls when we got back despite how wet it got in my mouth from the splashing waves and slobber; but it's not working anymore, so those of you who tried to call me, I won't be able to answer. Call Adam's phone if you need me. Wish I had time to say more, but if I want to get this posted at all, I better do it now.

These pictures are not from the day we had to swim around the pier. We thankully did not take our camera's with us that day.

Adam (above), Me (below)

Sarah (below)
David cutting Adam off, thats Adams board in the air, Adam is under the water, probably trying to dodge David's fin...

Change of Pace

This last week was a lot of fun. On Thursday Rachael, Lori, Francie, and Kristen came to my house to see a concert showing in my city. When we all get together, there is a lot of commotion. Here is how it went down:

First of all, I got to leave work at noon, that alone made my day. Then we went to my favorite restaurant. I parked in the Pick-up Only spot because that was the original plan, but everyone else was so hungry that we decided to stay. I drove there from work, my sisters came straight there from driving from the other side of the state. When we were walking in the door (I was holding it open for everyone) Francie says to me 'do you want to move your car'? I reply 'no, it's not that busy, it's almost 2, no one will notice or care'. Then Rachael walks in right behind Francie, she says to me 'shouldn't you move your car', I gave her the same reply. Then right behind her walks in Lori, 'hey, you should move your car I think that's 'to go' only.' Wow, my sisters are very much alike...deaf to what others are saying around them, and very much concerned for parkers getting take out. Then we painted pottery. Well...THEY painted pottery. I TRIED to paint pottery. It went sort of like this:

Rach: do you have water so that I can rinse off my brush?
Lori: I need some inspiration.
Francie: Do you have any new vinyls?
Lori: these aren't pottery idea books, these are scrapbook idea books. I need pottery idea books
Rach: I need a chair, don't you have chairs (we got a new table, but the chairs were too expensive, we'll get them later or find cheaper ones)
Lori: I need a plate to put my paint on, can you get me a plate or something?
Francie: does this look straight? I think it's crooked. I need a new piece of vinyl.
Lori: OK, I painted the inside blue, what should I do now?
Francie: I don't think this looks good, can you fix it later after we leave?
Kristen: Can you scoop the rest of this paint back into the bottle for me?
Lori: How do I separate the vinyl?
Rach: Can you find me the perfect paint brush, I want to be able to write words with it.
Lori: Will you help me peel the vinyl off, how do I do it? Is it dry, should I put another coat on it?
Rach: This looks terrible, I hate it, how do I fix this? I don't want to do this anymore, can you just do it for me? I'm horrible at this.
Me: Lets just go tubing, this is too much work.

So we went tubing, but the only rush in it was that I was afraid we would run out of gas. Rach was driving, Lori was spotting. The spotter neglected to translate to the driver that we were giving the thumbs up. Kristen didn't get enough tubing time, so we decided she would stay with us for Friday and Saturday and we would take her home Saturday so that she could get in some good tubing. But that meant she had to go to work with us. We start work at 6:30 in the morning. But she didn't seem to mind. Kristen and Walter played all day at work. Walter has 5 tennis balls at work, Kristen threw one after the other all day. Walter was so tired, he had to go lay down. Kristen thought he was sick, but I think he was just wore out. He even lost a toe nail. You know how soft his feet are, I made Kristen give Walter a break to take a nap because I was afraid he would play to the point of hurting himself like he always does and not realize it until it was too late.

Kristen insisted on sleeping with Walter, and I was fine with that. He takes up a lot of space in the bed. Kristen kept calling him her fuzzy man.

Walter is so funny, he has really taken a liking to his tennis balls. He will lay down with them and chew them like bubble gum.Kristen's only complaint... Walter drools too much. His arms were soaking wet and so was the seat she had to sit next to.

The concert was a lot of fun too! Rach, Lori and Francie had to drive back that night and get up and go to work in the morning. I guess they were pretty tired the next day.

and some of the After.

These two vases I think turned out cute, but they did what I was afraid they would do...they have little imperections that you can't see with the camera. The paint tends to pull away from itself where 2 colors meet. Oh well, I'll keep them for myself I guess.

Here is the plate. bowls and mug Francie made, they turned out very cute.
Some of the mugs I made for Rachael. Not all of them turned out the greatest but I made so many that at least some of them are cute.

And for the grand finale....

Rachael's surprise........

Matrioshka Dolls. But I forgot to fire the littlist one because it was so small it rolled under a piece of paper, and I didn't realize I had forgotten to put it in the kiln until I was laying in bed. By then it was too late.

I hope you like them Rach!

Cookin'

No, not me. My pottery. I might possibly be the most talented kiln stuffer. I got more stuff in that thing than ever before. But the trick to loading it, is that nothing can touch anything other than the stilt each piece sits on. Once I turn it on, I have to set the alarm and get up in two hours to flip the next set of switches. I really should set it for another hour after that, but I'm going to take my chances and hit the last three switches at the same time. Then I can go to bed because the kiln will shut itself off when it gets to the right temperature. I hope everything turns out good. If everything turns out good than I'll post pictures tomorrow. It takes a full 10-15 hours to cool once it shuts itself off. Just about the time I get home from work it will be cool enough that I can open the lid without everything cracking from a drastic temperature change. For some strange reason, every once in awhile I'll get little bubbles in the pottery. Not sure what causes it, but that is why I am always nervous as to how everything will turn out. I guess I'm off to bed, I'm already going to get terrible sleep as it is. Stephanie, I didn't make any Iron man ones yet because I need to pour more mugs, I didn't have any extra, but I promise they are on their way!

Before

As I mentioned before, Francie and I spent the weekend painting pottery. Rachael wants me to paint her a bunch of stuff for her etsy store. Which I don't mind doing, since all her profits go to buy Christmas presents for orphans in Russia. So I painted mugs for her store and a few for mine and Francie painted a couple of things for her kitchen. All these mugs you see here are just the ones I did for Rach. So as you can clearly see, we were very busy. I guess I didn't do all of these this weekend, but I doctored up some of them that needed more detail. They look pretty dull and boring, but the color doesn't show up until they are fired. I made something for Rachael that she doesn't know about. It is a surprise. I can't wait to see if it turns out, she is going to like it so much she won't want to sell it in her store. She's going to try to talk me into letting her just keep it. She does this a lot. But that's OK, because I have made arrangements to make sure I can get more just in case. I will post pictures of her surprise once I have finished it and given it to her. I was supposed to make a bunch of Christmas stuff for her too, but I have so many other things painted that I'm going to be able to fill the kiln more than once with all the stuff I need to fire already. She might have to do a Christmas in August theme because July is quickly disappearing. Stay tuned to see how everything turns out. I should be running the kiln this weekend I hope. I need to hire someone to help me glaze all this stuff. Too bad I can't make any money doing this, then I could stay home all day and play in the basement. Maybe in another life time.

My Precious Pets

I don't have anything new to blog about, but I'm sure you're all sick of seeing the same page over again. So you get to see a picture of my precious pets. I did have a really fun weekend, but I didn't have my camera battery charged and I hate to blog without pictures. Adam and I went west. He surfed, I painted pottery with Francie all day. It was a ton of fun though. I guess I gotta go to bed so that I can get up early.

Fourth of July Weekend

There are a thousand things to love about America. One of my favorites would be National Holidays! The 4th is Adam's favorite holiday. He likes it more than Christmas! So we did exactly what he wanted to do, that he has done with his family for years. We spent the long weekend in Northwestern Michigan. For those of you who have never been to Michigan, did you know it was this beautiful? We had fun the whole weekend. To start, Adams parents stopped by the house to pick us all up, we all drove together...in the motor home! It was so nice, we layed around and played games, read magazines, napped, and ate ice cream. Walter loved it too. I felt a little silly at first when that giant motor home rolled up, blocking ours and the neighbors driveway, with a trailer on the back soon to be holding 4 motorcycles and 2 bicycles. I think we took everything but the kitchen sink! We spent about 45 min. to an hour loading the motorcycles, strapping them down, and all the other stuff we had to take. Guns, ammo, suitcases, backpacks, purses, helmets, motorcycle jackets, etc. I didn't think we would ever be done loading and strapping. It was the most pain free traveling I've done in a long time. (Even though I got an entire empty row on the airplane a couple weeks ago on the way home from Lindsay's wedding, even though the rest o the airplane was almost completely full... I got lucky AND took advantage of it; I had no shame stretching out on my back with a pillow-aka:stuffed backpack and a book). When we got to Grandma Lois' house, which is where we stayed, we unloaded all the stuff and went straight to bed. Adam really likes to go back to his childhood ways when he goes to G. Lois' house. He insisted on sleeping on his (single-person) cot in the basement. I was OK with that though, I wasn't about to share an air mattress. Ever slept on an air mattress with someone who was heavier than you? We only had Grandma Lois' 5 seat car since no one drove, so I rode on the motorcycle to church with Adam. I had my dress on, and my sweatpants, and my jacket, so I looked like I was wearing a nightie and sweats. I'm sure it was a site. At least I didn't wear my heals until I got there. Remember all the flooding that has been happening all over last month? We came upon a road that was completely washed out! We couldn't help but wonder how scary it must have been for the first person who discovered the giant gap in the road. It was impossible to drive around, we had to turn back. It was a good weekend, we had a lot of fun and will probably do the same thing next year. Don't worry family...that gives me dibs on the where and what for Christmas.

Oh...about that 6 words that sums up my life...I keep forgetting to think of something...here is what I came up with in about 5 seconds that pretty much sums me up in a very vague way:

Eh... I'll Worry About It Later!