April goes to Washington

 _________________________________________

A couple of weeks ago JB and I went to Washington D.C. to visit his bro Austin and our new(er) SIL Lauren. I had never been to D.C. before, and as someone who likes America and History and Family, I was set to have a good time.

And I did! (So did JB!)

Here's our Top 10, chosen by me (you'll be able to identify the usual suspects in most photos, but Lauren is the ghost in the long shot of the Lincoln Memorial):

10.) Went to a fabric shop in Fairfax, VA. Fail. The place was nice, but all the fabric was sorted by color. Which defeats the purpose of buying matching fabrics from a particular line! Which is what people like to do! The fabrics are spread all over the place and you cannot find what you're looking for. I got a few things. But it wasn't as exciting an experience as I hoped it would be.

9.) Watched the series finale of LOST with JB. We cried and cried and cried. It was a great finale. 

8.) Went to the MegaMall in Tyson's Corner. Money,  money, money. They had stores there that I've only seen in magazines. Like United Colors of Benetton. Naartjie. L.L. Bean. Shopping there really hammered home how downtrodden the Michigan economy is right now. This mall had big name stores, little to no sales or clearance racks, bright lights, and even brighter, happier shoppers. Michigan malls seem so funeral-like compared to that place. However, I still scored a megadeal at L.L.Bean. There was one lone sweater on the sale rack. One lone red cashmere sweater originally $100. I got it for $25. My first cashmere sweater. Or part-cashmere. I don't care. Even 10% cashmere would make me feel glamorous!

7.) Lost all four games of Ticket To Ride (Europe) that we played. I tried and tried and lost and lost! But you can't go wrong with building your own trains through Europe so it was fun anyway.

6.) PUPPIES!! Puppies, puppies, puppies!! Took a harrowing car ride in and around curves, up and down mountainous road, to see Austin and Lauren's future black lab puppy (and 9 others). By the time we got there JB, Lauren and I were about to vomit. Austin was perplexed at our sickness. JB explained to him it was because he was the driver and was not subjected to the chaotic ride. He drove as carefully as he could on the way home. We all felt much better. Though perhaps we were just riding in on our puppy euphoria. 

5.) Smithsonian! There are a ton of Smithsonians. We hit up the American History one. Most of the exhibits were not as impressive as I had thought. Perhaps the hundreds of people milling about everywhere were the problem. JB and I dug seeing the Julia Childs kitchen and now he has agreed to do our next kitchen with all wood cuttingboard countertops. I am thrilled. My other huge memory from there was the Vietnam War exhibit. I saw an actual helicopter that had to fly in and out of the warzone chaos, picking up dead and wounded. It wasn't like the big helicopters that rich people buzz around in. It was dinky. Like smaller than my kitchen. Vietnam vets are some brave mother f'ers.

4.) Went to the Holocaust Museum. A great experience. Very disturbing, though. Why didn't more Jews or good Germans revolt??? How did that much mass murder happen in modern day?? I held it together until I walked through the boxcar that had taken Jews to one of the concentration camps. I thought of all the babies and little kids who had to squish in there and who died by the time they reached their destination. Imagined being a mom and a.) watching your child die in front of you, and then b.) having to hold that dead baby for days in a cramped car. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

(Did you know that Denmark refused to play the Nazi's game? They resisted till the end. Go Danes!)

3.) Walked through Arlington. I don't care what the liberals say: God Bless the U.S.A.

 2.) Saw WWII and Vietnam Memorials at night, as well as the Lincoln Memorial. If that don't make you proud to be an American, nothing will.

1.) Rode to the top of the Washington Monument: AT NIGHT. Tours are closed to the public at night. Unless you flirt with the security guard like Austin did. :) The view was amazing. Unfortunately the windows were clouded over on the outside, so I didn't get a stellar shot, but I'm sharing what I did get anyway.

I Remember Daddy

My Mom emailed me this article written by my Dad's cousin, Betty Jerrell, about her father, my great uncle. Betty's mom, Great Aunt Gladys, and my Grandpa Carl Teague (Dad's dad), were siblings.

It's a story of farming in Alabama during WWII. And Betty has a way with words, if you ask me.

My Grandpa Teague didn't get married until he was 25, which was "old maid" age back then--especially in the South (Alabama). And Grandma was an old maid, too, even though she was just 20.Today we gasp when we hear about 20-year-olds getting married, because they're so young, but back then they gasped because they thought they already had one foot in the grave.

Grandpa's sister, Gladys, Betty's mom, beat her brother to the altar by a decade, getting married when she was 15. When I visited her back in 2002, Great Aunt Gladys told me that she never had to learn how to drive because she was didn't need her drivers license when she was 15, and then she got married so her husband carted her around. Her brother, my Grandpa, died in 1979, but Gladys is still kicking around to this day. She lives with her daughter Betty, who is only 16 years younger than she is. Her other two children have passed on before her.

Betty's article recalls when she was 11, so her mother (Gladys) was only 26 at the time, and "Daddy" was 31. 

The same age as I am today.

Two different worlds. They had so much responsibility back then. They had to be so grown up so quickly. Not only the parents, but the children. Eleven-year-old Betty worked the fields all day with her Daddy, and her 7-year-old sister joined them after lunch. Amazing.


(You'll probably have to click on the image below to be able to read it.)

Our Dream House

Though we love our home, JB and I have been talking about our dream home for years. I don't really want to move, and if I could have my way, I'd have this house airlifted to some acreage in the country and call it good. But technology has not advanced that much. And since our yard is very, very small, our driveway even smaller (I have ripped off the side mirrors of JB's car 3 or 4 times now), and the area of yard that gets enough sun to grow vegetables even smaller, we are aspiring to a better place. Or, well, for a better yard.

I often daydream about our driveway neighbors moving away, and their house burning down or something, and us getting to just add on an extra city plot of yard. Yes, I know. Dreaming of someone's house burning down is evil. But it's not like they would be living there! And no one would be harmed in the making of our new yard. The neighbors would get insurance money exceeding what they would sell the house for, we'd get a yard, the city would get an inimpressive house turned into a beautiful garden, we'd save money on sideview mirrors.

But since God is more clever than I, I don't think the house will burn down. A housefire is probably not in everyone's best interests, contrary to what I imagine. 

One thing I appreciate about JB is that he has similar interests to me. We both would love to live on acreage in the country in a cool old home. My dream home is a bungalow, which has garnered JB's interest too. Unfortunately, bungalows were a revolution of city neighborhoods in the 20's, so if we want one in the country, we have to build.

Here is our current pick.

 

 It's called "The Winslow." 

I'm not a fan of the size: 2,500 square feet. Our current house is 1,850 and that's plenty of space for me to have to dust and vacuum. BUT, the extra square footage results in a living room AND a den, meaning that I can have my own quiet place in the living room full of books, and JB and the kids can watch the TV drone on for hours in the den. Or they can play nerf tag. Or whatever. I don't care. Just don't come in the living room unless you are going to do a quiet activity. 

Here are some example interior shots from the Winslow's company:

Looks pretty fancy-pants to me. A little too new looking for my interests, but I'm sure we could break it in in no time. 

So on cold dreary days when the sun has gone off to play somewhere else, and the sounds of Modern Warfare 2 are wafting through the house, this is what I think about. 

We'll see what God's got up his sleeve for us. Even if it's not The Winslow, hopefully it'll be a place with more yard, lots of sun, and some dreamy shade trees.

Guess who?

Tonight as I was searching for something else I stumbled upon this photo:


Holy crap! Either my Mom got some botox done, or Olivia went back in time to 1979! I look so cute I want to hug me! It is sooo weird to see my likeness in someone else.

Here is an actual photo of Mom and Olivia. Yep, O has my hair (and my Mom's)--sorry, O!



And Marian and Olivia, where you can see the side profile likeness.



On a related note, my mom saw this photo in an album that my cousin Bonnie made for Granny for Christmas. Mom said, "How did you get that photo of me and April??"


(To give her credit, back in the day she did have a shirt exactly like this one...)

Christmas Part III

After our Berkley Bonanza we hiked north to Mayberry for our part of Teague Christmas. I was pumped to give my family all my homemade gifts. JB was tired. Olivia was FLIPPED.

We got there ahead of the other car of Teagues, so it was just Aunt Annie and us for a little bit. Which was perfect for Olivia, who loves Aunt Annie, and who also needed some quiet times. So Annie changed O and put her in her jams and the little girl started to feel a little better.

Then we opened presents. I made something for everyone this year except for Dad, who got fishing gear. I cannot make fishing gear. Though I did give him and Mom a copy of the Les Cheneaux calendar that I'm in. So that was kind of homemade.

Anyway, I did not take photos of everything, but here are some of the things that I made:


Okay, so I didn't make the French drawing on the left that Annie got. But I did dig it out of a pile of art at an estate sale and took the time to go back the next day when everything was 50% off. I think my favorite thing I made for Teagues was Tommy's MSU Vernor's picture in the middle there. I self-matted a double mat for that sucker. And I like it so much I'm going to make one for myself! I also made Mom an upholstered cushion for her kitchen bench, and matted for Krystal a photo I took of our beloved pet, Reba.

Present breakdown: Again, too much to name, but most memorable gifts were a mega-giftcard from Tommy to my favorite quilting shop, Smith-Owen. He was sneaky and picked it up when he was in Grand Rapids a few weeks ago. I had no idea he did that. V. cool! K embroidered each of us a pillowcase that she (er, MOM) made. K does beautiful embroidery. And since my old purse was dead (I bought it over six years ago when I was in Nashville for cousin Sarah's wedding!), JB and Annie put their dollars (and Anne's Macy's discount) together and got me this:

(Note also the new MSU shirt, and the cool Christmas tree that we picked out of Mom and Dad's front yard a few weeks ago. I think it was a Norwegan Pine. Very good branches for hanging ornaments.)

After presents were opened and Olivia went to bed, it was game time. Our last game of the night was Apples to Apples, which by that time, our Czechoslavakian maid, Rachel, was there to play.

Some quotes:

Krystal : "I think Abraham Lincoln was ugly!"
Tommy, looking at K: "People have told me that I look like Abraham Lincoln."

"If you pick Broadway, the terrorists win!"

"I did not tie a couch to my back!! It was a (upholstered) chair!" (True Story.)

And of course, as many family conversations tend to do, the talk came around to bodily functions. Don't everyone's family conversations do this?

So a few hilarious stories were told, causing tears to come to our eyes.

Then it was my turn to pull out a card for people to choose a definition for: Nasty.

The entries were thrown into the middle of the table and I picked them up and flipped them over, revealing two "fill-in-the-blank" cards. Anne shouted out, "FECES!" for her entry. Tommy couldn't top that one, I thought. But I didn't give him enough credit, as he said, "Dad's horseshoe-shaped turd!"

No contest.

"Tommy's feces wins!" I said.

Hope you all had a wonderful, horseshoe-shaped-turdless Christmas!

Christmas Part II

We put a lot of miles on my Grand Prix in order to celebrate Christmas Parts II and III. Olivia was not pleased. She broke down in the car twice, sobbing so hard that she was choking. JB thought she really was choking on something, but I told him that she was just that upset. Poor bird! We had subjected her to several days of parties with no down time. I don't think we should do that anymore.

On our way to Berkley, we stopped at MSU to exchange the sweatshirt that I had gotten, as it was too small. Are college students shrinking or something? I do appreciate that the women's clothing is slim fitting, as to look feminine, but we do need room to fit our bodies into the clothes, people!

So we ended up buying more MSU gear. Our old stuff was 10 years old and ratty.

But even more exciting than that was having lunch at Pancheros.

Best. Burritos. Ever.

JB and I love burritos and have gone to several burrito restaurants. None compare to Pancheros.

Then we hit the road for Berkley, where my Aunt Carol was hosting a Fraser get-together. There were seven people 6-years-old and under there, and it was quite entertaining watching the kids open their presents. But the best moment did not come until Granny was opening her giant gift that everyone went in on.

A little background on Granny: She saves everything. And she loves cardinals.

And her mega-gift was covered in cardinal wrapping paper.

Each piece of tape was carefully pulled away, so that she could keep the glorious paper. The Frasers are used to this. That's why Granny opens her gifts last. My brother has often said that any gifts for Granny should be wrapped using one piece of tape, so that when she removes that one piece, the paper will fall down around the present and her work will be done. No one has perfected that strategy yet.

Well, my cousin's daughter Pepper, who is a few months older than Olivia, was feeling sad about something. As she walked by Granny and the cardinal paper, my Mom suggested, "Hey Pepper, why don't you help Granny open her present?" in an effort to cheer her up. But Pepper was not interested. The two boys, Rex and Ivan, did not hear the part where Mom was addressing Pepper. All they heard was "...why don't you help Granny open her present?"

They roared with excitement and pounced upon the present. We were all laughing our butts off except for Granny, who was not having it. Here is a breakdown:

Ivan and Rex, roaring, roaring, grabbing at the paper: "Aaaggghhh!! Raaaaah Raaaaah!!"

Granny, swatting, "No! Stop! That's MY present!"

Audience members: "Ivan, Rex, stop! Granny wants to open it herself!"

Other audience members: "Go on, help her! You can do it!"

Aunt Carol: "Mom, I'll give you the roll of cardinal paper!"

Granny won the battle in the end (has Granny ever NOT won a battle?), and resumed careful unwrapping of her new large flat screen HDTV.

I think this is her first new TV since the Carter era. Seriously. Her TV is one of those old floor models without a remote control. Uncle TJ said they were taking bets on whether Granny will get a new TV stand or just set the new TV on top of the old one. I gathered that they got her the new TV because she was having trouble with the digital conversion. Aunt Carol told Granny that she won't have to throw her converter through the cable company's window now, but Granny said that she's still gonna do it. Granny kicks ass.

And I didn't take a single photo because I was too busy visiting with people. So you'll just have to take my word for it!

Birthday Goodness

Saturday was my birthday.

I love looking forward to my birthday, and it's not because of presents! When we were little my Mom said that we couldn't start decorating for Christmas until my birthday came (even though this did not mean that we would be getting a tree that soon. Trees were reserved for the last minute of Dec 23 or 24). So for me, celebrating my birthday symbolizes the approach of Christmas.

Then when I married my part-Dutch husband, I learned that for the Dutch, my birthday IS Christmas! Aka Sinterklaas Day. Children put their wooden shoes by the fireplace in hopes that Sinterklaas will leave them a present for being good. Ambitious children leave hay and carrots in their shoes for Sinterklaas' horses, which results in a thank-you treat being left.

(If you want a humorous take on this Dutch holiday and Sinterklaas' strange habits (like summering in Spain) listen to David Sedaris' essay, "Six to Eight Black Men". I promise you'll laugh out loud at least once. There's also a humorous bit on Michigan hunters in there.)

So on this Sinterklaas Day, we went to Meijer Gardens to see the Holidays Around the World exhibit, which includes several Christmas trees decorated the way different nations do it. While they had an England and Ireland tree, there is no Scotland tree. Fail, MG!

Mark and Marian treated us to lunch at the Gardens, where I had never dined before. Who wouldn't enjoy mushroom and artichoke salad? Weirdos. Oh, and JB. So he got something else.

Then JB made me a FAB dinner of a favorite I share with Garfield: lasagna. JB made Emeril's lasagna. BAM! The Hunts came over to help celebrate, and Marian brought me a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Oh, and did I mention that I didn't have to manage Olivia while I ate dinner? Mega bonus.

And the birthday fun just kept continuing.

For there were presents (in addition to the dozens of texts, phone calls, and FB messages wishing me a happy day)!

Top presents:

• Membership renewal at Meijer Gardens for JB and I (one adult admission is $12, so a membership to get in for free anytime is awesome!)

• Art-deco topaz earrings
  

• Money

Toppest present:

Yes, there is a toppest present.

JB said he was going overboard on a Christmas/Birthday present, which totally blows the budget.

Wanna know?

Here are some clues:




I'M GOING TO SEE MIRANDA LAMBERT AND BRAD PAISLEY IN CONCERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AAAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love going to concerts and haven't been to see a lot of my favorite acts because it is so expensive. Each summer I cry and cry when the wonderful concerts come to the county fairs, etc., and leave again, while I stay at home.

Then when I learned that my two faves (after Keith Urban and Alison Krauss), Brad Paisley and MIRANDA LAMBERT were coming to town for a show in January, I was quite dejected. They will come and rock out without me.

But not any more! I am v. v. excited.

Thank you, JB!!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving

Real chefs don't make this just for Thanksgiving...

Happy Thanksgiving, all, and may you truly be thankful for all of your blessings.

God DOES bless America, our home sweet home!

Labor Day Weekend

We spent Labor Day weekend up at the cabin. We had vacationed there in July, when it was cold and rainy. When we returned in September, it was bright and sunny and the water was 70 degrees! Weird!

Day 1:

Mark kept throwing a ball far into the bay for Lexi to chase, and then another ball near to the shore for Lucy, who doesn't like going into the water if she can't touch the bottom (she usually just jumps from rock to rock). Most of the time she did not feel that the ball was well-placed enough for her preferences, and would just stand on a rock, staring alternately between the ball and us, as if to say, "You'll have to do better than that."

...and she would do that until Lexi, having fetched her own ball out in the bay, swam back to snatch Lucy's ball, too. Of course, no water is deep enough to keep Lucy from besting Lexi.


O played with Grandma:

and read with Nana:


I took photos of pretty things. Surprised?



That night JB, Grandpa, Mark, Marty Feldhake and I went salmon fishing. Well, I did not fish; I was the staff photographer. No fish were injured in the making of this trip, much probably to PETA's pleasure, but our dismay.

Grandpa and Mark fished from Pooh Bear. The lake was smooth as glass!


JB and I took to the waters in Marty's boat.



Us girls also went shopping in Detour, where Olivia wowed the shoppers and shopkeeper with her love of jewelry. Marian would put a bracelet on Olivia's wrist and Olivia would hold out her arm to admire it. She's a girl through and through!

We also stopped at my favorite jeweler's: Dave's Up North. He seems to have erratic hours, so it was a treat to see him open. Oh, the treasures! There were 3 pendants that I loved, totaling $375. That's affordable, right? :)

All in all, it was a fun first day!

I rocked my baby tonight

I rocked my baby tonight.

I really wanted to read more of Dick Francis’ The Edge.

and to shop for vintage books online.

I wanted to research Alfred Meakin’s Denmark china pattern, circa 1891

or sew Olivia’s windmill quilt and to fancy different ways to quilt the final product.

But I rocked my baby instead.

I should have unpacked from our Labor Day trip to the cabin,

or emailed a woman about starting a Book Club.

Perhaps paid some bills

and put a clean handtowel up in the bathroom.

But I rocked my baby instead.

I rocked her because every time I rock her in her light blue room,

I look at her half-open doorway with faint light spilling in from the hall

and see a 20-year-old girl standing there,

looking at me, saying,

“Mom, have you seen my book?” or “Mom, can you drive me back to college tomorrow?”

And I realize that one day

I will never rock my baby again.

Austin and Lauren's Wedding

I wish I had some entertaining things to relay about Austin and Lauren's wedding, but we were so busy at that time that I didn't have a chance to reflect or write down thoughts. Sorry, guys!

Basically, the wedding consisted of four days of wedding festivities, and I gathered that this was typical Southern fashion. And this was only wedding stuff, and did not include Bier family fun-times, which JB and I were not able to participate in as much as we had wanted. Cry, cry.

JB and I enjoyed the celebrations, but I still craved a day of rest. At one point I broke down crying in front of JB because I realized I wouldn't have time to return to the mega quilting store, Stitcher's Garden, in Franklin, to finish shopping. The store is so huge that Marian and I only got through about half of the building on our first trip. We squeezed it in while the guys were off getting their tuxedos. Fortunately, Lauren's Dad lost his car in the mall parking lot, so it gave us extra time to shop before we had to meet up with the guys again. Okay, so it wasn't any fun for Mr. Brown, who thought that his car was stolen (it wasn't--he just couldn't remember where it was parked), but it helped Marian and I out. :) Yes, I am weird for crying about not getting to go to a quilt store, but that's me.

The rehearsal was your typical rehearsal, but the dinner was something else! We ate at Mere Bulles, and it was very good food, and JB and I had a lot of fun visiting with people and also relaxing. I had 2.5 glasses of wine. That was about 1 glass too many. Ooops--haha! Here is Austin working hard on rehearsing, with Aaron Zull in the background:



The ceremony was very nice, if you ask me. The Reverends did a nice job. Aaron Zull (longtime family friend of the Browns, and incidentally I went to SLT with his son, who played the cello at the wedding, and his wife was Marian's IV staffer at UofM--small world!) did the message, and Chris Wright (longtime family friend of Hunts) did the marrying part. I enjoyed myself. Though perhaps a bit of the enjoying was due to the fact that Olivia was in the nursery with a sitter. I love being a free woman! Oh, and I had a front row seat:




The reception took place in downtown Nashville, at the Avenue, an old warehouse just south of Broadway. I had never been down Broadway, which is full of honky tonks and cheesy neon lights. It looked so fun! I secretly wanted to go there instead of the reception. I wanted to drop Olivia off at the reception and go have fun without her. No, I am not a bad mother. I am a woman. A woman who has for years loved Big & Rich's song that has the line, "Ridin' up and down Broadway, on my old stud Leroy," and now I knew what they were talking about.

But I was a good sister-in-law and attended my brother-in-law's reception instead. Where we got to hang with JB's family, who are lots of fun:


There was a live band, which I learned was Lauren's Dad's band. The dinner was dee-lish, though I didn't get enough of it, due to time and Olivia. JB did his best-man speech, which I think was head and shoulders above the girls' speeches (sorry, ladies, but victory for Jib!). And, no, I don't just like it better because I helped him write it (the gun show reference was all me)! Then they cut the cake. Wedding cake is so...so...generic? IDK. I just don't like cake, unless it's homemade with the frosting that you get in a plastic tub. Any other frosting is too sugary to me. So I never get excited about desserts at weddings. Fortunately, Austin had requested cheesecakes as a special side thing. MMMmmm. Good move, BIL.

I attended the reception with Olivia in tow. I had wanted to get her a sitter, but Marian reminded me that there would be plenty of people to play with her (and who would want to see her), so she came along. And Marian was right, that plenty of people wanted to play with her, but in an odd twist for Olivia, she only wanted to play with me. She was a very, very good little girl, but I couldn't just do whatever I wanted because I felt responsible and that I should be checking on her regularly, since she kept wanting me. She stayed up until 10:30, and then her little baby body gave out on her. The next morning I realized that she was cutting a tooth that night. So really, she probably would have been a party animal like usual, if it wasn't for that tooth.


So, a good time was had by all.

For more photos of the fun, check out my flickr set.

Laurel Falls, Tennessee

Last week JB, Olivia, and I took a much anticipated vacation to Tennessee. We spent the first half in Johnson City with the Biers (Marian's brother Tommy and his family) and then drove 4.5 hours to Nashville for five days of festivities surrounding JB's brother Austin's wedding. (Yes, apparently weddings are more than a one-day event in the proper South.)

We did many things, so there will probably be several posts about Tennessee.

Today's post is about our hike to Laurel Falls, a 55' waterfall along the Appalachian Trail near Elizabethton, TN. We set out with Uncle Tommy, Aunt Rhonda, Lydia, Nathan, and their cousin Kyle. Apparently there are two ways to get to the falls. The first way is a more circuitous way, and the Biers took cousin Sarah and Dave on. We spiced things up and took the other trail, which is shorter, but more arduous. Much of the trail was pleasant and easy, and very picturesque, like this:

I liked this because JB was carrying Olivia in a pack on his back and this seemed a safe, reliable route. At one point we walked across this narrow bridge. The mom in me was nervous about JB and the babe, though JB seemed to have no fear. Even though his feet were this close to the edge of the bridge:

Horrible scenarios kept running through my mind of him tumbling off some edge like this, or off into some ravine, with little Olivia getting crushed by JB (who would get beat to pieces himself) and impaled with branches and brush. I trusted that this would not happen, but I had to be prepared mentally.

As we neared the falls we could hear their loud rushing waters. It was very neat. As we hiked closer and closer, the falls got louder and louder. But the trail still had us walking way above the falls. Then came the hike down to the falls. According to an online brochure, it is a 1/4 mile going straight down. There are stone steps along the way, some seemingly placed there, others seemed carved out of the mountain. I am kicking myself for not getting a photo as evidence. Uncle Tommy counted the steps on the way back, and there are around 277. And these are not evenly-spaced ones that you'd find in a building. They're mountain steps.

It was a crazy hike down, and my legs felt like Jell-O at the end. But it was cool. Especially seeing the falls at the bottom. So we had a packed lunch, and then JB and the kids decided to hike to the top of the falls (look for then at the top right of the falls):

Aunt Rhonda, Tommy, O, and I enjoyed the view from the bottom, until Olivia decided to drop a deuce. Try changing a baby when there are nothing but jagged rocks to lay her on! Aunt Rhonda was nice enough to offer her lap. Shortly after this slight fiaso, the kids returned from the top of the falls.

"Where is JB?" we asked them.

"He's not here?" asked Lydia. "He left before us a while ago."

I thought that she was joking.

She wasn't.

JB had left about five minutes before them, but there was no sign of him, or their dog Greta, who went with him. We tried calling him, but the falls were too loud for our voices to travel. I had prepared myself for my husband and daughter to get broken to pieces in a ravine, but not for solo JB. I began to wonder if this was a serious situation, but my heart of hearts knew that he was okay, but we just didn't know WHERE he was okay.

Then he appeared.

Apparently the trail back to the bottom of the falls was not clearly marked, and JB got on some hairbrained path that went up some other part of the mountain, then down this very steep hillside/ravine, etc. And on and on until he somehow found his way back. His legs to got bruised and cut, and at one point he had to carry the dog, because she wasn't making up the mountainside herself.

By the time he returned to us, it was time to hike back. Back up the 277 steep mountain steps. I had been quite sick with headaches on our trip, so JB decided to haul Olivia himself again.

Only crazy people choose to rehike this after their first adventure! Biers, you are crazy!

Remember my post about JB outwalking my sister and I on our trip to East Grand Rapids? Well, you add my headache and Jell-O legs to the mix and I was walking really slowly on the way back from Laurel Falls. JB walked right with me on the way back. He did not race ahead. He did not lead the pack. He even had to stop a few times to rest. But in the end he made it to the top, with his bruised and bloody legs, and an extra 22+ lbs on his back, which included a crying, then sleeping, baby. Olivia is not one to sleep when in a social setting, so she hadn't taken a nap yet that day and hadn't slept well the night before. At some point coming up the stairs her little baby body gave out on her and she passed out in the pack. And if you didn't know this, a sleeping baby is much heavier than an awake baby.


I love going on hikes and I loved this one, but I think that once is enough for me. Those stairs are not for the faint of heart! Though perhaps I should return to photograph the steps, if anything.

1.) "Once upon a time I was shopping at the mall with Annie.
And this was last Tuesday."

This was the start of a story that I was relaying to JB last night. He told me to post this on the blog.

2.) Dog sitting is over. Uneventful! Well, except that Maggie is so old that our hardwood stairs are tough for her, so JB had to carry her up at night for bed. Lucy was unnerved by this and barked loudly at JB when he picked Maggie up once, so he punted Lucy (don't worry, she's fine). She didn't bark at him again.





3.) Sister Annie has moved back home. Boo! She got a job as a store manager at Macy's in Port Huron, so that's good, but this means that she's gone, and we miss her.



4.) Since Spring is coming, along with a muddy yard, Chewba got a haircut. She looks like a puppy again! She is also feeling just as energetic as a puppy and yesterday when Marian, Olivia, the dogs and I went for a walk in the old orchard, Lucy raced around like a little jackrabbit. Run, run, run!!! Both Lucy and I were quite muddy after the walk, because even though it's only 20 degrees outside, the sun was making the path muddy. Marian washed Lucy's muddy paws before we got in the car, but my jeans would have to wait until I got home. A few minutes into the car ride I smelled it. Poop. Agh! The car STANK! Since Lucy's paws had been washed I assumed it was me. It was almost unbearable. At first I thought it was dog poop. But it had this "woodsy" feel to it. So I decided it was deer poop. No, that wasn't it... Hmm...

I considered just what kind of feces was making me feel so nauseous as I drove down Burton with Lucy sitting happily in my lap, a big adventure behind her. Then it hit me.

I wasn't smelling poop at all.

It was dead animal.

And it was all rubbed into Lucy's back, which was 6 inches from my face.

Agh!!!

"You stink, Baby Lu!" I told her. She did not react. I think she was too busy dreaming about the Drama Clean shampoo waiting for her at home. :)