Groovin' Along

Well... I know I've been awful at blogging from the start, but I really did think I would get better with time. Mmmm... maybe not so much, but I'm still hanging in there and hoping that one day I will be better at keeping up with it.

One thing that may help is our most recent exciting news. We are getting another exchange student in the fall. His name is Fredrik (goes by Freddy) and he is from Finland. Mike and I are very excited to have a new son! He will be living with us for the entire 2010-2011 school year and he is a hockey player. So, he will be playing hockey on the St. Johns/DeWitt team. I imagine for how athletic he seems though that he will be playing many more sports. I have a few projects in mind to finish up around the house before he arrives and I look forward to working on those in the coming months. I need to make a complete checklist for myself so that I'll have something to work towards.

We just returned from an amazingly fun and relaxing weekend on Myrtle Beach with the Keenan side of the family. Mike's Aunt & Uncle were gracious enough to invite us down to the beach house they had rented to stay with them. We not only got to spend lots of quality time with the family we also got to hang out with Brandon & Cynthia. We really enjoyed seeing them after such a long time! The weather wasn't that great at the beginning of the week, but it warmed right up by the end of the week and I got two full beach days in. Enough to get a little bit of color to return to MI with. Mike played golf, we did a 1,000 piece puzzle, we visited some gorgeous gardens, had great seafood and Mike & I went kayaking together for the first time. Fun, fun, fun! The most enjoyable part of the week, no disrespect to anyone, was playing with my little niece Helena all week. She lives so far away and I was overjoyed to be able to hang out with her for a whole week. I have some great pictures of us together and I love her to pieces!!!!!!

Mike and I spent a lovely weekend on OMP with Ken & Janet the weekend before we left for Myrtle. We had such a nice time!! We did a little bit of everything and really enjoyed all of the adventures. Especially an exciting run in with nature at the lighthouse! Just a hint, a couple of geese did not appreciate Ken & Mike. We'll leave it at that!

This weekend will be a quick trip up to OMP (Old Mission Peninsula) and the Leelanau Peninsula to do some wine tasting with a large group of girls. It should be super fun and I'm looking forward to it!!

Other news:

We have quite a bit of the finishing touches on the chicken coop and it is working out beautifully. Mike and I designed & built a great new coop and I couldn't be happier. Chores are enormously easier now and I think our flock is infinitely healthier. So healthy in fact that yesterday we got a record breaking 32 eggs!! Holy mother of eggs! We ran a new fence to keep them out of my garden, but it blew down in a thunder/wind storm and they figured out that they could hop it. Now that it's back up... they just hop it. Argh, chickens are smarter than most people know.

The garden boxes are just finally dry enough to plant a bit. I'm looking forward to fresh lettuce for salads and some radishes for breakfast!! I'll plant some of my garden tonight and cover the box with windows. That way the chickens won't be able to hop in my garden box and dig up all my seeds and I'll have a greenhouse effect going on. At least until the plants get big enough and we get the chicken fence re-run.

Photos to follow.......