A day away

Hi all!  I've missed you while I was gone, but I did have a nice little break.  I had a few days off from work.  I used some to get some things done at home that I haven't had time to focus on.  One day Bob had off too and we spent the day having fun.
This past Christmas, Laura and Aaron gave us the nice gift of a day away.  They wanted to thank us for the times we spend with Alaina and Ruby, which was very sweet.  As you know we love that time and feel we should thank them!  Anyway, they gave us a package with a nice letter, some ideas of things to do that weren't too far from home and money for gas, meals and entrance to some of these things.  Here's a few pictures of how we spent part of the day.
One of the suggestions was to tour the Hackley and Hume Historic Site in Muskegon Michigan.  What a great idea!  Charles Hackley and Thomas Hume were lumber barons/partners during the big lumbering years in Michigan.  They must have also been good friends because they built houses next to each other, with a barn behind the two houses that they shared.   These houses were both built around 1880 - 1890 and they are amazing.
When we got there, we first spent time walking down the street, because the other houses in the area were also beautiful

Here's some of the houses we walked past.

 This is the Hume house.

 This is the Hackley house.

And this...   is the barn!  The carriages and horses were kept here, and there where two carriage drivers who also took care of the horses who lived on the second floor of the barn.  We toured that also and there living spaces were quite nice.  You can see the two drives for the carriages that come past each house.  The barn is split down the middle, with the architecture on each side reflects the house it went with.

These pictures were inside the barn to show the size of the trees that were being cut down at this time.

 This is the front entry of the Hackley house.  The woodwork was incredible throughout the house. Mr Hackley hired 13 men who worked for 2 years straight, just doing the carving on all the woodwork.  The girl who was leading the tour says she finds new things all the time.

Here are a few examples of the carvings.  There are little faces all over, lions and tails on stair rails, a bat carved over a stairway for good luck...  The 3rd photo from the left in the collage above is drawers.  You have to put your hand in the mouth of those creatures to open the drawers.

 A fancy bathroom for the time.  The pipe in back sprayed water straight out and water also came from above you.

 Beautiful stained glass windows.

 It was fun seeing some of the old things that were in rooms in both houses.

This is a neat old stove, but I can't imagine being a cook and having to use this to make large meals.

This was the attic of the Hume house.  Isn't this a fun way to use that turret?

We were told that the spindles on this stairway had to be replaced because of kids sliding down and knocking them out.  They said it was mentioned several times in letters that Mrs Hume, who was a Grandma at the time also slid down this bannister!

I took lots more pictures but don't want to overdo it.  Tomorrow I'll share what else we did on our day away.