Sunday, 7/2/23, Came home for church, met Bev, Ron, Sue and Doug to plan State Rally, went to Jacob's Eddy band concert

My plants sure grew while l was gone with all that rain

So cool to see Jacob playing the Marine Corp song and seeing his Papa stand when they had the marines stand. Loved this so much.

Jacob and the band sure did amazing tonight.  Such great 4th of July music

Bill and I after the concert

Papa, Jacob and Nana.  We sure are proud of Jacob!

Eli and me!...he sure is tall now!

We came home in the morning and got ready and went to church.  Great worship and also a great sermon. After church we prayed for people, then left and headed to Okemus to Lucky’s to meet Ron and Bev and Sue and Doug to plan for the State Rally.  That went well and we had fun getting together.  We headed home after a few hours.  We stopped in St Charles for ice cream. Yum! We got home a half hour before we had to leave for Jacobs concert.  We stopped to pick up my bag Rody brought home from camping for me.  

Jacob’s concert was amazing.  It was a 4th of July concert celebrating America!  They honored all those in the different branches of the service as they played their song.  

They played amazingly. Jacob came and talked to us on his break.  We visited with Wes, Gayla and Joel too. 

Saturday, 7/1/23, Celebrated 4th of July, Everyone was able to come except Hailey and Travis, fun time but rain came at time for fireworks,

Kenzie with her Hermit Crab she got in Tawas

Peyton with the cookies she decorated

Ryan, Nick and Jacob at Nick's graduation party

Adam, Nick, Jacob, and Eli

Jacob, Adam, Kenzie, Peyton and Isaac fishing...Demijohns, Vikki's friends were out there and were talking with Kenzie

Jacob and Adam are sure looking grown up these days  

Isaac, Kenzie, Peyton, Jacob and Adam

Jarefd, Rody, Evan holding Lucy, Peyton, Melissa and Adam in back of them...waiting for the fireworks to start

Peyton, Evan and Lucy, and Adam

Me and Bill...Max in the background sitting and Bruce standing

Max and Vader, and Adam

Papa and Kenzie 

Melissa and Kenzie

Jared was more excitement for the night...he threw Vikki's knife to her and she missed it and it went behind the long couch.  He tried to get it with a wood back scratcher and a wood stick, but ended up dropping them behind the couch too.  I decided I could reach them because I have long arms, but ended up getting my arm stuck when the couch seat I was on reclined with my arm behind it.  I couldn't move it and I just told everyone it was stuck and tried to get them to pull me forward so the couch would go up instead of in the recline position.  Kimmy finally sat on the seat I was on with me and it went forward and out came my arm.  Then Jared went down to the other end and got back where the end table was and could finally get the things back there out.  

Success!!!!

Kenzie is really starting to show...Baby boy is growing

Poor Lucy stepped on a hook with fish line connected down by where we were waiting for the fireworks to start.  Kimmy and Jared had everything needed in their van, so Jared got it and Kimmy got it out pretty fast.  We were all relieved and Lucy did great afterwards.

Kenzie came back in the morning.  She showed us the stuff she bought in Tawas, including her hermit crab.  She also showed us her Petosky stones she found while visiting Oma and Poppi.  

Very cool!  Kimmy, Jared, Eli and Isaac came around noon.  We hung out, then made hotdogs and potatoes on the grill and ate together.  Around 3 Kimmy, Jared and the boys left to go to Nick's graduation party.  He lived across the road from them until he moved to Texas and was their best friend.  He comes back in the summer to see his grandparents and always spends time with the boys.  So nice to see pictures of them all together again.  They came back after the graduation party to hang out and watch the fireworks.  Melissa, Bruce and the boys came to watch them too.  We sat there for a while and some of us came and went.  About 40 minutes before the fireworks were supposed to start, Bill showed us on the radar that a store was going to hit soon and it was 100%.  We decided to hurry and pack all the chairs up and take them to the camper, then go back after the storm.  Eli and Jack had gone one a bike ride.  Melissa and I didn't put the chairs in bags because it was getting so dark and stormy looking, and just hooked the handles over the cooler.  We were hauling 3 chairs.  They kept falling off and we would put them back on.  Then Melissa was trying to hold them on while we hurried down the road.  Some young lady,  driving a 6 passenger golf cart with 5 passengers besides herself, stopped next to us and told us to put everything we were carrying and hauling on their golf cart and they would drive it to our camper.  Bill and Jared were ahead of us, so we told the girls where our camper was and they took all of our stuff and dropped it off for us.  Bill and Jared were there  a few seconds later and took all the stuff from them.  We got there and all of us carried stuff and loaded the clam up so stuff would stay dry.  Jacob and Adam put their bikes in too.  The guy next to our camper said the storm hit where his house is 35 miles away and was bad and was headed our way.  Then we went inside and waited, but noticed Eli and Jack weren't with us.  Jacob and Adam went looking for them on their bikes.  Very scary to have them all out there knowing a storm was coming.  The guys went outside, then Kimmy and Melissa did too.  They found the boys.  It never did rain real hard. While they were outside the fireworks started.  They watched them, but got a little wet.  Vikki, Peyton, Isaac, Jacob and I stayed in the camper.  The kids watched a few out the windows.  Bill offered to take Melissa and the boys home, but Kimmy and Jared said they would take them in their van and and then Bruce met them to get them and take them the rest of the way home.  He had left with Max and Vader and was coming back to get Melissa and the boys after he took Max and Vader home.  What a lot of excitement in one night.  I slept really good after all that.

 

Friday, 6/30/23, Kody left, Jacob, Adam and Kenzie came, Eli a

Vikki put the bird feeder in the clam and forgot to take it back out when we got home.  In the morning I went out and this is what I saw.  The clam door was open and something had a party..,probably squirrels.

Isaac, Eli, and Kody.  Last swim before Kody left.

Always pretty quiet during our morning swims

Adam and Peyton relaxing

Jacob

Fun at the indoor pool

 

 

 

 

 

M

Adam working on his very delicate metal

Isaac and Adam

Kenzie

Peyton, Kenzie, Jacob, and Adam

Fun around the campfire eating s’mores 

 

 

 

Bill helped Kenzie and Travis pick up their kitchen cabinets 

 The boys went swimming before Kody had to leave.  They also did lots of bike riding. Bill was helping Kenzie and Travis pick up their kitchen cabinets and countertops and took the to their house in the morning.  He was going to come back up north, but was too tired.  Kimmy, Jacob and Adam came up.  We went to the store and ate lunch, then I took Kody to meet his mom so he could go camping at Houghton Lake with them.  She was early so came more than halfway to meet me. I stopped and got some groceries.  When I got to the campground, I changed then went to the inside pool and swam with Vikki, Kimmy and the kids.  We had fun and it was nice to cool down.  Kenzie came up after they got done with the kitchen cabinets and spent the night.  We went to the store and got ice cream.  It sure tasted good.  Kimmy took and Isaac home with her for the night.  Peyton, Kenzie, Jacob and Adam had lots of fun playing on the beach and swimming and diving down to get clay.  Jacob made us a nice campfire and we sat around it and made s’mores. When we went in, we played 3-13.  Vikki didn’t want to play, but sat in by us some of the time. Jacob won( He was the scorekeeper) and Kenzie came in second.  We won’t talk about the rest of the order.  It was such a fun day!  Adam slept in the loft and Jacob slept on the couch.