44 years!

Last week Thursday was our anniversary.  I'm blessed to have a wonderful husband and we've now been married for 44 years. We decided that we would have a fun day out to celebrate.

We started at our neighborhood Sprinkles which is a donut shop.  A friend is the manager and she had told us to stop by for their grand opening.  Bob won a t-shirt and a free donut.  

From there we drove to Fallasburg, which is about 45 minutes from our house.

We had a picnic lunch and ate it near the Flat River.

We took a little walk to get closer to the river.

There were lots of geese enjoying the area too.

A little selfie!

Next we moved on to the Historic Fallasburg Covered Bridge.  It was built in 1871 and is on the National List of Historic places.  It is one of 2 covered bridges in Michigan that is open to vehicle traffic. 

Isn't this a beautiful bridge?  And I thought I'd take a picture of that good looking guy too!   The sign says "$5 fine for riding or driving on this bridge faster than a walk."

We did drive through it, but also walked through and admired all the beautiful timbers.

The river from next to the bridge

There is also a historic village.  This was the home of one of the founders of the village, John Fallas.  It was built around 1840. He and his wife lived here until their deaths, in 1891 and 1896.

The old schoolhouse, which was built in 1867.

Next we drove to an adjacent town, about 10 minutes from the bridge. This is Lowell and you know you are in a farming community when this is in the town!

We walked through town and saw the Lowell Show Boat.

This was such a charming town.  It was full of beautiful old buildings.

We enjoyed walking down the main street and stopping at some shops.

One of them was this antique store, always fun to walk through!  I even made a few purchases.

I thought this old paperweight was pretty.

Look at this cute little pewter pitcher.  I thought of Janice from Prims by the Water when I saw this one, as she just purchased a little pewter plate.

One last shot of this charming town.

We avoided the highway and took the country roads home.  It took a little longer but was a pretty drive.

We went out for supper, Bob got meatloaf and I had a southwest salad.  A good meal after a lovely day!

Friday Funny

 

Cooking Thursday

The recipe I'm sharing today is one I got from my friend Deb at Days of my Life.  She posted this taco recipe and said her husband wasn't usually a big fan of tacos, but he liked these.  Bob is also not a big fan of tacos, so I thought I would try them and see what he thought.  He really liked them too!  They are easy to make and it's nice to have them ready to go when they come out of the oven. They make a perfect summer meal.
*I halved this recipe so am writing it out that way.  It still made 12 tacos which was more than enough for us.

Oven Baked Tacos

1 pound ground beef, cooked and drained
1/2 can refried beans
1/2 envelope taco seasoning
1/3 cup water
3 tablespoons tomato sauce
1/2 can Rotel tomatoes
grated cheddar cheese
12 crispy taco shells

Stir together the ground beef, refried beans, taco seasoning, water, tomato sauce, Rotel and cheese.
Spray taco shells with Pam to keep them crispy.
Fill the taco shells with the meat mix and set on cookie sheet.

I leaned them against each other and the edge of the pan to keep them a little bit upright.
Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

We added shredded lettuce, taco sauce and sour cream when done.

Wordless Wednesday

 

Connor is one!

Our Connor had his first birthday last Friday and we had a party on Saturday. Here's a few pictures of the celebration.

The party was Sesame Street themed and these signs were on their slider doors as we were outside for much of it.

Pictures of Connor through the last 12 months.

The birthday boy!

It was very hot, a good day for some water fun.

We had a nice picnic supper.

And then went inside to open presents.  Connor was happy with the tissue paper and wrappings!

Connor's cake looked like a giant cookie that Cookie Monster would have enjoyed.  

He did get into it and made the usual mess!

Happy Birthday sweet Connor!  You are so loved!

Annual Granddaughter Shopping Trip

When Alaina started school we started a tradition of Grandma taking her out shopping for some new shoes, and just having a fun time together. When Ruby started school, she came along.  This year, Cassie is starting preschool and the older girls said we had to all go shopping together.
Since school starts this week, we had our shopping day last week.

Laura took this photo of all of us before we left.

They wanted Chik-fil-A for lunch.

This Chik-fil-A had a play area so we spent a little time there.  (Cassie would have stayed all afternoon if we let her!)

Then it was time to look for shoes.  Here's the shoes we found for Cassie.

Ruby with her shoes

And, Alaina with her shoes

After getting shoes, we moved on to look for some tops. We went to Target, but were disappointed in their selection.  We couldn't find anything.

We went to the Mall where we found some things.

Our last stop of the day was at the frozen yogurt place.  

Cassie said "Maybe we can come back tomorrow?"

One more picture when we got back to Laura.  The sun was shining in our eyes!

After leaving Alaina and Ruby, I took Cassie home.  She was sad to leave the girls - she thinks they are the best!

Shortly after I got home, this happened.  I've mentioned that we've had an official drought going on, with the lowest amount of rainfall on record.  We'd had 1.5 inches since June 1.  
On this day we had 2.25 inches!  We were so thankful for this rain.  It was a great day from start to finish!

Friday Funny

 

Cooking Thursday

We had a church potluck last Sunday and the dessert I made for it was really good, and it was easy to make too!  It has a fudgy brownie base, creamy chocolate filling and whipped cream on top.  All good - so, I'm sharing it with you today.

French Silk Brownie Dessert

1 box brownie mix
1 egg
5 1/2 tablespoons melted butter
1/4 cup milk
8 ounce cream cheese at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups powdered sugar
4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
1/4 cup butter, cubed
16 ounces Cool Whip, divided (may also make your own whipped cream
shaved chocolate for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9x13 pan.
Stir together the brownie mix, egg, melted butter and milk until smooth.  Spread into prepared pan and bake for about 25 minutes until done.  Allow to cool.
Beat cream cheese and vanilla together, then add powdered sugar.
Melt chocolate and butter together, stir into cream cheese mix. Then stir in 8 ounces of the Cool Whip.
Spread over cooled brownie base.
Spread remaining Cool Whip over chocolate layer and garnish with shaved chocolate.

Wordless Wednesday

 

(Fungus on a branch that I thought was pretty in its own way)