MI Fave #6 Lake Michigan Beaches

We've been to Lake Michigan to play at the beach four times now. We love it! The sand is wonderfully fine and soft. We love that we feel like we are at the ocean, just with smaller waves and no saltwater that the kids think is icky. We knew we couldn't leave Michigan without one last trip this summer, and we couldn't have asked for a better day. The kids played and played in the sand, we climbed the sand dunes and ran down getting nice and hot, then swam in the refreshing cold (freezing) water. The little ones were even happy to play without naps, amazing! It was so relaxing and great to make more Michigan memories.

MI Fave #5

Fireflies!!

MI Fave #4 BERRY PICKING

Each year we have thoroughly enjoyed our berry picking excursions. There are strawberries, blueberries and our favorite RASPBERRIES! The farms are all within a half hour from our house. Strawberries are not my funnest thing to pick. The plants are low to the ground and the berries are hidden under the leaves, and the first time we went it was 100+ degrees, 100% humidity and I was 10 months pregnant with Lucy. I never exaggerate... But, oh, the taste of those sweet candy like berries is so worth the back pain! We went with some friends just a few days ago and this time the kids were the perfect height for picking (and stepping on them) and the weather was beautiful! Blueberries are awesome because the bushes are tall, no bending there! And you can get 4 or 5 off the bush in one pull. We eat them fresh for a while then freeze the rest and enjoy yummy blueberries all year in oatmeal or pancakes or just because. The raspberries are the best because we LOVE how they taste combined with pounds of sugar and gelatin. Every fall we make tons of raspberry jam and each year we go through it faster and faster. Oink, oink. Our big boys have become jam snobs and refuse to eat store bought jam. I honestly don't blame them, but come on, we've been out of jam since February and they've got to be sick of Peanut Butter and Honey sandwiches by now! But no, they think it's better than sicko jam... The best berry picking we have every year, however, is right in our famous Abbot Elementary's backyard. The Abbot Woods has hundreds of wild berry bushes growing in there and it seems no one else knows or cares. And since we didn't die the first year eating them, we kept doing it and loving it more each year. It is so fun to walk up to the school and go have a snack of handfuls of berries. We are sure going to miss these this summer and fall. The dream of Arizona oranges come this winter might make it a little more bearable...

MI Fave #3 ABBOT ELEMENTARY

Tomorrow is the last day of school. A good time to give props to the best school in AA. (Which, by the way is the best. I am always joking (fighting) with my friends about OUR school being the best in AA, which is dumb because they are ALL excellent. It was confirmed, however, when one of the BEST teachers from highly acclaimed Dicken Elementary moved to Abbot and said that the Abbot community of parent involvement is AMAZING, way better than Dicken... or something like that...)

And thank goodness for those amazing parents who rally the amazing teachers here, so slacker moms like me who have 2 babies in 15 months can be literally nonexistant at school and still know that INCREDIBLE things are going on at school. It really has been a wonderful, supportive, growing place for our boys to be everyday.
First grade was a hard transition for Jack to be gone to school all day, but Mrs. Rutz read him wonderfully, not only challenged him the way he needed, but also gave him his quiet alone time he wanted sometimes during recess. Second grade was wonderful with Ms. Gause again challenging him and letting him be himself. Third grade would be a dream for Jack as Ms. Gause moved up with her class, he loved it and had a great year. He was disappointed when he found out about his fourth grade teacher, he heard she was strict and not much fun. After the first week it was a complete turn around for Jack. Mrs. Publiski won his heart and their entire class. They have worked really hard, but have had more fun than they can measure. She is straight forward and expects responsible students, it is a parent's dream!
Max was lucky enough to have the famous Mrs. Bradley who came from Dicken. She was the perfect transition for Max who was used to VERY playbased preschool and had never held a pencil or crayon for more than 5 minutes at a time. His already active social skills blossomed and she reigned those in for him. She even let him bring in Lucy for his shown and tell one day. What a teacher!
Max was lucky enought to get Jack's old teacher Mrs. Rutz, who again has been amazing but for all different reasons. Max has excelled in math, he gets it and he doesn't even have to think about it. But his reading has been slow going, and she has patiently pushed him and has given him the support and confidence he has needed. She even met with me early this morning to give me a good picture of what he needs for the summer to keep him going strong. She is amazing, she has taught at Abbot for 22 years and is now retiring. We feel so lucky our two boys have been able to benefit from her experience and no nonsense but fun learning classroom.
A shout out to Abbot would be incomplete without mentioning "Mr. T", the beloved PE teacher. We knew we were at a great place when the PE teacher's name is Mr. Tennis. No joke! He is Mr. Tennis and he too has taught at Abbot for 22 years. From the opening social, to the run a thon, the book fairs, and ice cream socials, we have loved our Abbot community. AND, it is down the street and around the corner so the boys have walked everyday, even in 12 inches of snow. It is the best! Go Abbot All Stars!

We've Moved!

Not the big move yet... but we did move! We had to be out of our house the end of May and couldn't get into our new house in Mesa until the end of June, so we found a great place here in Ann Arbor to rent for the month. The movers came and packed everything up one day, loaded it all on the truck the next day and took it away to store it for a month until they deliver it to Mesa for us. You can read that again because I have to keep reminding myself that it actually happened too. REAL MOVERS! Not just the Elder's Quorum (not that they don't do a good job....)! And NOT paid for by us. Yeah for a real job!!! I still can't believe it.This is a picture of the great furnished place we found to rent in a great part of town on a great street with great neighbors. It has a great view of a cute little house out the front window. If it looks familiar it is because it is OUR house! That's right, we are now living directly across the street from the house we lived in for four years. It is really weird and was a bit hard watching the new owners move their things in and have a bbq in OUR HOUSE! We are getting over it and are so grateful to be surrounded by our familiar environment, the boys can still walk to school, play with their friends, and that we are done packing and moving. It sort of feels like we are on vacation in a nice summer rental home. We have been filling up our time with some of the fun things we have not been able to do in the last 4 years here. The other day we took the big boys out of school by surprise and the whole family went to the Tiger's Baseball Game. They were so excited and it was really fun to be doing something not associated with moving or packing or house stuff or even regular life. It is really fun to "vacation" in your own city, and we are planning to do a lot more of it until we move to AZ. We did find a great house in Mesa that we are super excited about it. For all you Mesa readers, it is North of McKellips, East of Gilbert close to Hermosa Vista Elementary school. That's right, right back in good ole Mountain View territory. Go Toros! Weird, I know. Here is a picture of our house, we still can't believe it is going to be where we will be living ... hopefully for a VERY long time!

MI Fave #2 SPRING!!

Spring in Michigan is amazing.

Unless you have lived somewhere where it does this:

you could NEVER appreciate this:
I have lived in Utah where it snows, and snows even more than here in Michigan, but it is different. Michigan winters are DIFFERENT. But, since this is a post about the favorite things of Michigan, I will definately NOT talk about the winter....

I love that when there is a random "warm" day in March, you know, around 55 degrees, you see hoards of people out jogging, playing outside, walking dogs (does everyone in Ann Arbor own a dog, by the way???), and all in their shorts and tees! Love it!

I love the light greenish yellow glow that all the thousands of trees get when they start to bloom. They drop the same greenish yellow color on the streets below and everything seems alive. Two weeks later, poof, you can't even see branches anymore and the leaves are bright true green, full as if they have always been that way. (There aren't many trees like this in AZ, you can tell this girl is fascinated...)I love that the trees that don't bloom green bloom PINK. And I love that I now have a daughter who loves pink and notices every single pink tree out there, and that is ALOT, mm, hmmm. These trees are awesome, little tiny flowers bloom really close to the branches so they look like fuzzy pink catepillars instead of tree limbs. They go from fuscia to light pink, eventually fall and turn green like all the other beautiful trees in ann arbor. Very cool, very girly!
I love that the sky is finally BLUE, with occasional white puffy clouds that actually have form to them (unlike the before mentioned evil winter...)

I love that Sam was confused and fascinated by his shadow because it was the first time in his life he had a chance to run around outside with a shadow following him.
I love the bright yellow Forsythia plants scattered throughout Ann Arbor. I love that our neighbor Flo taught us about forsythia and every spring when they start to bloom and we are driving around town we randomly shout out "Forsythia!!" every time we see these beauties.
I love the tulips and daffodils that pop up all over the neighborhoods, smiling at us, even through the late snowfall. It confirms that the snow will not overpower like it does in November, but that the sun and blue sky will be back. These flowers make me smile everytime I see them. You wouldn't have thought it'd take me 4 years to plant some of our own. It did. But we are enjoying them now and hopefully every spring I can think of my tulips and daffodils that are popping up in Ann Arbor, still making other people smile.I love that we can sleep with our windows open and feel the crisp cool air, but not freeze!

I love that I can run outside again. Hoooray!

Most of all, I love that we can spend all our time outside at the parks, on the trampoline, taking walks, doing bubbles or sidewalk chalk.... WHATEVER... it is outside and we are all much happier because of it.
Yes, we love SPRING!

Michigan Favorites

I told myself that if I ever started a blog, which I wouldn't, it would never be just a travel/events log. Well, I did start a blog, and it has become a travel log. Hate that! So, even though I am dying to post about our super fun Easter Spring Break trip to Alabama, I am going back to my initial desire to capture some of the every day memories of our lives. (I'm sure the AL trip will sneak in somewhere...)

Since our weeks are getting to the counting down stage, we decided to start posting some of the many favorite things we have loved and will always love about Michigan and our four years here. These are things we will truly miss about living in Michigan. Each individual in our family has different things we love and will miss, so we'll document as many as we can. Sounds fun to me! We'll see how we do...

For the sake of what is most on my mind right now, I will start with our house. We got an offer on our house when we were away in DC, decided it would be the best thing in the entire world if we didn't have to try to keep the house clean, accepted the offer and closed on it just last week. We are now proud RENTERS. It's time for another party!!! Who cares about trashing the place now? Just kidding... We have LOVED our tiny little box of a house! It has suited our needs perfectly and even though I don't want to share a bathroom with my four kids for the rest of my life, it worked well thus far.

So, top things I have loved about our house:

1. the BASEMENT
Ooooh, I love our basement. The best place to send the kids away from me, a place big enough for them to run and jump, play swords, make HUGE forts (and messes), do my craft projects and leave forever because I never finish them, have movie nights, fake camping nights, grown up game nights or kid birthday parties (I mean who needs chuck E. Cheese when you have a basement??). It is the greatest use of space a builder could make. In the long Michigan winters it has been a lifesaver and a blessing. If I don't have a basement in my future house I think I will miss it every day.

2. the THREE SEASON SCREEN PORCH
We so made fun of these when we started looking for housed in the midwest, but once again ate our words and have LOVED it! It is attached to our garage and sits in the back yard. We have had many a ragin' BBQ's in our back yard. We always serve in the porch, kids eat on the tramp or on blankets outside, and the parents try to hide from them in the porch (and stay closer to the yummy food.) Our own little family has many week night dinners out there, rain or shine. The metal roof makes the rain sound wonderfully alive and even though you can hardly hear one another, it is a fun experience.3. STICKY VINYL TILE
So this was a toss up between storage space and the tile. But really DIRT COLORED kitchen flooring changed my every day life dramatically, tile wins out. We had horrible white linolium that we had had in every house or apt we had lived in and I was at my wits end. No matter how often you swept or mopped, still dirty. We decided to put sticky tiles down, but didn't like it when we laid them out square. We turned them on the diagonal and loved it. And even though it was a bit trickier that way, it was way worth it. Now, word of advice: I would only recommend these for very temporary living, since we have had some trouble with some of them sticking. But, I am completely, totally, with passion recommending them for the fact that it makes your floor the color of dirt. I sweep, looks great. I don't sweep, it looks great! Mop? Who needs to mop? LOVE DIRT COLORED FLOOR!!! Plus, people always think it is real tile, and who am I to make them look foolish?? Love the floor! We have loved our house!