Friendcation 2016, Part 1

Friendcation 2016 was a lengthy road trip to Drummond Island, Michigan.  The players this time around were the Jacksons, the Kelbs, and Sean Viets.  We took off Friday night and drove to Joliet, IL, where we caught less than 6 hours of sleep in a hotel before driving on to Drummond Island on Saturday.

 While traveling, we have a rule: NO CHAINS.  We pulled off in Cadillac, MI on Saturday for lunch, and the restaurant we found on Yelp was an hour wait.  No worries: there was a car festival going on down by the lake with several food trailers.  We ate at Smokin' Bob-b-Que. 

 It was the first of many lakes we would hang out near on our adventure!

 Bridges make me nervous in the best scenarios.  The Mackinac Bridge was no exception.  I think I held my breath the whole way across!

 We stumbled upon Drummond Island after batting around several different destination ideas.  Viets had suggested Mackinac Island, but we were wanting a cabin with certain features (a hot tub) and Mackinac Island didn't pop up in our search criteria on VRBO.  Drummond Island did. 

 The view our our back deck.  The cabin was perfect, the island was quaint and sparsely populated, and we had a lot of relaxing downtime.

 We were in the car A LOT on this trip.  15 hours up there, 16 hours back (came back through Wisconsin, which wasn't that much longer, except there was a major traffic snarl due to road construction).  Not to mention a day trip to Canada and a day trip to Mackinac Island.  We farkled (rock, paper, scissors) for placement in the vehicles every where were went.  In fact, farkling decided a lot of things we did!

 More pictures to come...

Elise's Soccer

 Elise is a soccer player!  We joined the league in the next town over and she absolutely loves it.  Practice on Mondays, games on Saturdays.

 There have been some chilly game days, but she's had a good crowd watch her each week.

 She is good at kicking the ball, and loves to be goalie.

 Sean helps coach when he isn't on shift. 

 Elise doesn't really like to be in the thick of the game--she usually plays defense and stays out of the middle of the chaos.

 A few Saturdays ago, we went to Grandma and Grandpa Jackson's for lunch after her game.  Elise helped Grandma make this fruit tart and was so proud she wanted me to take a picture.  She did a good job!

Roxie

Erin thought Roxie was cold.

We put a blanket on our new couch when Roxie is allowed to lay on it (at night).

 Elise and Roxie are the best of friends.  Roxie likes to be near her if Sean isn't around (she's really Sean's dog, with a preference for Elise.  She could take or leave Erin and me :))

Maybe this is why Elise is her bestie

And this is probably why Sean is her main guy

And for good measure, our cuties playing in the tree out front.  We've got some great climbing trees at this house!

Nature Adventure

 I took the girls to the Nature Center during a gorgeous day mid-March.  It was one of those days that you just knew Spring was here.  Of course, this is Missouri, so it was a total fake-out day, and there were more cold days that followed, but I digress.

 Elise was all about posing that day.  She is such a little attention lover, it cracks me up.  I don't have any idea where she gets it.

 Erin, on the other hand, wasn't always as excited.

 Elise was really interested in finding "cool places" to get her picture taken.  She did a good job.

 Water fun.

 Elise thought this was a cool tree.

 Erin was a little more excited about a picture on a big rock.

 Or a big tree.

 Or when she didn't know I was snapping pictures.

 These pictures make me laugh the most.  She really wanted a piggy back ride (I got ambitious and took us on the long trail.  Seemed like a good idea at the time.  Not so much when I was carrying a monkey on my back).  I said "then please take a picture with your sister and smile."  These were what I got.  Good effort (as I roll my eyes).

The kids love the Nature Center, and so do I, but I really need to take them on some of the shorter trails until Erin stops getting tired midway through.  We all slept like babies that night!

Wicked Fun

 In February Elise and me got to go on a date night, just the two of us (until we met up with several of our friends!).  We ate at Qdoba, enjoyed some Insomnia cookies, then watched Wicked!

 It was my first time seeing the production, as well as Elise's.  We were so glad Hannah let us in on the early ticket sales and got a big group together so we'd have access.

 Our seats were excellent!

 Elise was amazed by the stage and asked me to take a picture.

 I got a little one-on-one time with Erin later that month--Barbie time

I have no idea why they cracked up so much, but they do have a great time with their Daddy!

Lamest Blogger Ever

Living life gets in the way.  Seriously--I love to blog, love to look back at things we've done.  But I get so busy DOING those things that I don't take time to pull pics off my phone (I'm not smart enough to blog from my phone), then put those pics onto a blog post. I resolve (yet again) to be better about the blogging for those friends that care, those family members we don't get to see often, and for my family.  Scrapbooking is out of the question (talk about a time commitment!) so this is my version.  So let's catch up, shall we?

 January 1st I took the girls to Springfield to visit Sean at the station, and on a whim decided to get the girls haircuts.  I pulled into the first place that had an open sign and Erin got her very first hair cut!

 She was a rockstar!  I promised they could get manicures if they were good getting their hair done, and they both delivered.

 We cut several inches off their hair if you can believe it.

 Elise's manicure

 The girls wanted to try Burger King for the first time (they saw the big play place) and while they didn't like it as well as McDonald's, they were pleased with the play place

 I hadn't take a pic of the girls with their Daddy in front of the fire truck at Station 9, which is where he was moved after his promotion in November, and since they were both looking so pretty, we made it happen!

 I also took them shopping at Penney's home store that day.  They got along smashingly, and this was a fun picture!

 Loved this little peeker and her pretty finger nails!