A Day in my life - September

It's September! I know a lot of you are rejoicing in that fact. I'm kind of sad as I hate to see Summer come to an end, but I'm trying to live in the moment and not think about the cold weather that's coming...

In the meantime, here's how I spent the first day of the month.

We have been in the middle of a heat wave here, with high humidity. This was what greeted me when I got up.  It was so hot and humid already that the slider was steamed up.

This it the view I saw across the street when I started my morning walk.

Walking down our street.

I saw this sign of Fall on the road.

I walked for a bit in the woods. It's hard to see but there is a trail there.

I got home and had breakfast, then did a little cleaning around the house. After that it was a day to run errands and I had a lot of them to do!

I went to Staples to do some Amazon returns. I made a Costco stop - that's never quick!  Gordon Food Service is a place that supplies a lot of facilities, hospitals and restaurants and I occasionally stop there for some things for the freezer. I stopped at the butcher to get some meat and then went to Meijer to get groceries.

Italian sausage was on sale, so I bought 5 pounds and when I got home, I browned and drained it and put it in freezer bags. Next time I need it for lasagna, spaghetti... it'll be easy to use.

I also had peppers to take care of. I cut up 10 peppers and put them into freezer bags.

At 5pm we were invited to be somewhere for supper.  Bob and his brother have been doing some work on a couple buildings for a lady in our town who lost her husband suddenly. She wanted to have us for supper to thank them.

The barn they've been working on; all that's left is to paint the doors.

This cute little shed had some repair work done too.

We had a yummy supper and then played some Dominos. This is Bob, his brother Tom, the homeowner Lori, and Toms wife Bonnie.

We had a really nice evening together. Here's what it looked like when we were leaving Lori's house.

And that's the beginning of September - another good day!

Happy Labor Day

 Happy Labor Day to my friends in the USA.  Hope you all have an enjoyable holiday, and happy day also to my friends in the rest of the world!

(Comments off for the holiday)

Friday Funny

Now, you know I love my husband dearly!  But I do remind him of this if he starts teasing me too much.  :)
 

Cooking Thursday

I use my crockpot a lot so I'm always interested in new recipes for it. I came across this one recently and made it last week.  It's another one of those recipes that is so easy to put together and you get a yummy meal later in the day!  You can serve it over mashed potatoes or pasta, and you only need a veggie or salad to complete the meal.

Italian Cream Chicken

1 1/2 pounds chicken breast tender
1 package Good Season Italian dressing mix
3/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 small sweet onion, finely chopped
8 ounces softened cream cheese
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup sour cream
Hot linguine or mashed potatoes

Combine water, dressing mix and salt in a large ziploc bag.
Add chicken tenders and onions. Marinade at least 2 hours or overnight.
Place chicken in slow cooker and pour marinade over top.
Cook on low for 3 hours.
Beat together the cream cheese, heavy cream and sour cream.
Pour over chicken and cook for another 1-2 hours.
Serve over linguine or mashed potatoes.

Wordless Wednesday

 

Squirrels and pine cones!

We have some big pine trees in our yard, and this time of year they start dropping pine cones.

This is what they look like, they're about 6 inches long.

A funny thing has happened this year.

We are finding things like this....

and this!

Apparently, the squirrels are enjoying them.  They have a few places they take them to and leave the remainders looking like corn cobs. You can also see all the little "petals" from the cones laying on the ground, all dry and brown. So I really don't know what the squirrels are doing with them and it's not something we've seen in years past.

There's no real point to this post, but I thought it was interesting and a little funny, so I thought you might too!

A family weekend

We had a very nice weekend.  Our son Andy and wife Nikki came from Kentucky to spend the weekend here. The reason for the visit was to get a new family photo done. Our last one was way out of date. It's not easy to get everyone together to get one, but especially when there are people out of state.

They arrived Friday night and it was just nice to spend some time together.

I made us a nice breakfast on Saturday and we had a relaxing morning. They had errands to run for a bit but we had some time to hang around in the afternoon for a while too.

We were sitting out on the front porch and our sweet neighbor girls came over with sunflowers for us.  :)

We were supposed to meet the photographer at 6, but would you believe - it started getting dark and threatening rain?  So we went and met her a bit early to try to beat the weather.

Ruby and Alaina, waiting for their time for pics.

Bob and Connor had matching caps for a grandpa/grandson pic.

As we were finishing, it started to rain!  We were so thankful we started early...

We came back to our house to spend some time together and eat some ice cream dessert.  Heather was smart and took some pj's for her kids to change into so they didn't get their nice clothes dirty.

Here's the whole gang.

It was so nice to have all our kids together. It doesn't happen that often so when it does, I enjoy it.

Andy and Nikki left on Sunday morning for their 8 hour drive back to Kentucky.

I'll share some of our new photos when we get them!

Friday Funny

 

Going home and an anniversary

When I told you we were doing this little getaway, I mentioned it was for our anniversary.  Well, the day we went home was the official day.  It was our 45th anniversary.  I'm so thankful for each of those years and the way God has blessed us through all of them; good times, hard times - but He has always been with us,

Here we are now and 45 years ago!

Now back to the trip.  It's time to begin the 6 hour drive home...

One last view from our hotel room.

Leaving the lovely town of Munising

A pretty scene as we drove.

We've made it to the bottom of the U.P and are now seeing Lake Michigan again.

And once more, we cross Mackinac Bridge.  From here it was a little over 4 hours to get home.

We had a wonderful time, we love the Upper Peninsula, but it's always good to be back home.
Thanks for traveling with us.

Grand Island

Day 3 of our trip was filled with more adventures. In Lake Superior, 1/2 mile from the shore of Munising, is Grand Island, a 13,500 acre island which is part of the National Park Service. It's a rustic and remote area with no permanent residents, it has no modern amenities and can only be reached by ferry service. It has 41 miles of trails, is home to deer and black bears and so much natural beauty.

We heard about a bus tour that the Park service runs on the island and decided to take advantage of it.

We took the ferry to the island and then got on a small bus with 8 other people. The tour driver was a lady in her 70's who used to be a school bus driver. She was full of fun and information!

The view on arriving on the island.

This is the parks building on the island, a fitting style for this rustic area.

In the 1800's the island was owned by a corporation, and they had a few homes and cottages on it. The cottages are no longer in use.

The bus stopped numerous times, allowing us to explore and hik on the island. This is near an abandoned home.

The roads are dirt and only wide enough for one vehicle.

At one of our stops we hiked to this small waterfall.

This was one of my favorite spots; this old cemetery where there are 57 graves. Most of from the early 1900's from a family that settled there in the late 1800's. There are a few descendants of that family that were buried there up to 2020.  As you can see, it's left natural, and they still come to decorate the graves of veterans.

There are 4 spots on the island that you can pump water from artesian wells.  It was cold and good for drinking.

We stopped and had a picnic lunch at this site.

Another stop had us hiking to a small lake on the island.

We were able to tour this lodge. It was built when Teddy Roosevelt was president.  The owner was a wealthy man who started a wild animal preserve on the island. He had a lot of exotic animals there and people would come and stay at this lodge.

William Mather, the lodge owner and his wife.  A pretty dapper fellow, don't you think?

Some of the rooms in the lodge and the back deck.

The view from the back deck.

Our next stop was at this beach for a little rock hunting.

This is under water. I can't get over how clear the water was.

This was the last little hike we took, walking through the woods to a high cliff.

A cute little mushroom seen along the way.

This is where we ended up, such a beautiful view from up high.

Then it was time to get back on the bus and go to the ferry to be taken back to the mainland. We totally enjoyed ourselves on this island.

When we got back, we wandered around town for a bit.

They have these arty bikes scattered through town.  The DDA stands for Downtown Development Authority.

Here's a few of the fun murals we saw as we walked around.

What a fun day!