Can somebody please explain this?

Why is it that I moan and groan so much about driving down to the Big City?  The first outpost of the Big City is only 20 minutes away.

I can’t even count the number of times I have decided against going to some store or another because it was at the Fancy Mall, and the Fancy Mall is an hour away.

And yet, I will drop everything and drive to Chicago to shop or just to hang out with my sister.  Chicago is a six-hour drive from here.  On a good day.

I mention this because I had to go all the way to the Big City today.  I needed some things for the Halloween Party.  A party I really need to get cracking on.  Of course, I still need part of the guest list from a certain somebody whose initials are Tom.  (Just consider that a friendly reminder there sweetie).

I will give you more details about the party later.  Once I have my act together.  In the meantime, I am still wondering why I would rather drive 6 hours than 1 hour to shop at more or less the same stores.  Clearly I have some sort of mental block.

Farewell Michigan

We are going home tomorrow.  The garage still isn’t done but we have to go home anyway.

I have to take The Princess to the Middle School orientation on Thursday.  Heaven help us all.  She has to get her school ID/bus pass and I get to do things like write checks for her lunch account and sign up for the booster club.  I think I also have to buy her a gym uniform.  It’s amazing how expensive a public education can be.  And I know I shouldn’t complain but I am going to anyway.

But I digress.  We have had a wonderful long weekend in Michigan.  We were actually supposed to go home yesterday, but we were having such a good time we decided to stay another day.  We have been swimming and tubing and riding around in the boats.

Yesterday dad took us tubing on Big Mable, giving grown women (me) the chance to squeal like a little girl.  My dad is evil when he is towing the tube and he was whipping us around all over the place.  He launched the C-Man and I way high in the air.  Mom said she couldn’t believe we didn’t fall off.  My arms are killing me today.

So, tomorrow it’s back into the car, back through the traffic gauntlet that is the Chicagoland Metropolitan Area, and then back to stupid street parking in front of my own house.

I’m not crazy

So here are my photos from Bronners, the world’s largest Christmas store.  This place is awesome.

I feel much better now about my little Christmas obsession.  Compared to this place, my five Christmas trees, light up Christmas pig, constantly evolving porch lighting scheme, Christmas towels and two sets of Christmas dishes seem pretty tame.

Burp

Well, I have so much to tell you about Frankenmuth.  I can best sum up Bronners with three words; I’m not crazy.  I really need photos to do this place justice, and since I forgot the cord that will allow me to transfer pictures from my camera to my computer, you will just have to wait.  So there.

I gotta tell ya, I have never seen a place that was more likely to put someone in a food coma.

Yesterday we went to the Frankenmuth Brewery for dinner.  I had a plate of nachos the size of a rowboat.  I am not even kidding.  Here is one of the dessert items.  I lacked the intestinal fortitude to order it, but I did write down the description so I could share it with you.  Aren’t you lucky?

Oreo Cookies dipped in sweet dough batter fried and topped with ice cream, powdered sugar, chocolate fudge, caramel sauce and whipped cream.

Oof.

Today we went to the Bavarian Inn Restaurant.  They specialize in German food, and a lot of it.  I ordered the sauerbraten (I like sauerbraten) and it came with all of the following:

• Noodle soup
• Bread with butter and preserves
• Creamy cucumber salad
• Chicken and pasta salad
• Cranberry relish

And those were just the starters.  My meal came with twelve; count ‘em twelve slices of sauerbraten and all of this:

• Cheese and potato puffs (mashed potato croquettes)
• Dressing and gravy
• Buttered noodles topped with breadcrumbs
• Butternut squash
• Sauerkraut

Are you full yet?  I may never need to eat again.

Hello from beautiful Frankenmuth

I am here with my mom on a road trip.  What the h-e-double-hockeysticks is in Frankenmuth, Michigan you ask? Bronners, that’s what.

And that’s not all.  There is also a quilt shop, a Cheese Haus, a store called Joami’s Jams and Jellies, Zak’s Kandy Haus, a clock company and a fudge kitchen.  We are deep, deep in tourist territory now.  I cannot wait to get out there tomorrow with my camera.

Last Day

Today is our last day in Michigan.  This makes me sad.  The children don’t want to leave either, but they have camp next week so off we go.  I suppose we could stay until Sunday, but there is nothing worse than trying to drive from Michigan toward Chicago on a sunday, except maybe driving from the Chicagoland Metropolitan Area to Michigan on Friday.

The applesauce showdown

As you may have surmised, I am in Michigan this week with my sister and her boys.  My sister and I consider this our vacation and so we let our parenting standards slip a bit.

While we are still pretty vigilant about things like safety we tend to let smaller things slide.  Things like how much television is too much, and whether or not Goldfish crackers and lemonade can be considered a nutritious breakfast.

Every once in a while, however the mother guilt kicks in and we decide The Children need to eat something organic.  You should probably consider it a testament to just how far our standards have slipped that we consider applesauce an organic substance in these situations.

So at lunchtime today we made everybody have some applesauce with their lunch, and told them they couldn’t have any potato chips until after their applesauce was gone (we are such good moms).

Well, my middle nephew O was not excited about this plan, and so he said he didn’t want any chips and could be please be excused even though he didn’t eat his applesauce.  My sister said yes, but you can’t have anything else to eat until after you eat this applesauce.

A couple of hours later after some hard swimming O said he was hungry, so my sister pulled out…the applesauce.  Ta da!  O was not pleased.  We then upped the ante by giving his brothers and his cousins giant Tootsie Rolls and told him he couldn’t have his until – you guessed it – the applesauce was gone.

He swore up and down that he had not been informed of this condition when he left the table at lunchtime.  He refused to eat it.  My sister stood firm.  In the end, she managed to up the ante even further by getting him to eat an actual apple that actually grew on an actual tree.  Amazing.

And then he ate the Tootsie Roll.

Cottage of Thieves

This morning my nephew Little J ran into the kitchen while S and I were cooking breakfast threw something into the trash and ran out.  He was throwing out a wrapper from a mini Reece’s Peanut Butter Cup.  The little thief.  He denied it of course, but we could see the offending candy sticking out from his cheek.

This has been the theme of the week so far.  The children are stealing candy like there is no tomorrow.  We have already gone through three pounds of licorice.  Yes, you heard that correctly, three pounds of licorice.  We suspect Little J was just standing at the counter (which is right at his head height) and sucking them down while we weren’t looking.

The best story though, is the story of the Tootsie Rolls.  My mom had put a dish of festively wrapped Tootsie Rolls on a table in the living room.  When we made our first grocery run we glanced at the bowl, and it still looked full so we didn’t get any more.

The bowl was full all right.  Full of empty wrappers.  The sneaky sneaky children were just putting the empty wrappers back in the bowl so we wouldn’t notice that the candy level was dropping.

I swear they are all preparing for careers as petty larcenists.

I just hope they don’t find our 56-ounce bag of Peanut M&Ms.

Tuesday

It’s late, I’m tired.

We took the kids swimming off the boat today.  The sun was warm but the water was freezing.  Even the kids didn’t seem to interested in submerging themselves for long.

Tomorrow is supposed to be cool, so we will probably take them to the park.  Or maybe Meijers.  S and I love going to Meijers.  The kids hate it, but this is our vacation so they can just be quiet for a change.  Hah.

Wild kingdom

Today was a day for bugs.  We’re in Michigan.  There’s a lot of nature here.

First, let me give you a little background.  When we arrived on Friday, we discovered that the storage shed where we keep the buckets and shovels was full of ants.  And I mean full of ants.  We keep meaning to Do Something about that, but we keep forgetting.

Anyway, today S when to get some super-soaker type of squirt gun out of the shed, and yep, you guessed it, ants all over the place.  When she pulled the cardboard the squirt gun was attached to out of the box, the cardboard insert looked like it was moving.  Gross. She threw it in the water to get them off; it worked, but not right away.  And the real tragedy is, the stupid thing didn’t even work.

Now we move on to bug number two.  Your favorite and mine, leeches.  The Princess got out of the water with three stowaways.  Eeew.  Luckily they were very tiny ones, and S pulled them off easily.  She was pretty weirded out by the whole thing but I think she will survive.  However, I suspect she might not venture so far into the weedy part of the lake in the future.

And finally, when we were readying Big Mable for today’s tubing adventure we discovered it was covered with Daddy Longlegs.  That put Miss D right off tubing.  (She doesn’t like spiders).  We flicked them all off and the story has a happy ending.

Speaking of tubing, dad managed to flip Big Mable with both my sister and brother on board.  He does like to do that.  I didn’t go out today, so dad will have to wait until tomorrow to try to chuck me off the tube