Young Love...

Hard to believe my daughter has been dating this young man for a full year now (their official "going together anniversary is early November).  They've had their little bumps in the road but as a whole, they are pretty rock solid.  Maybe one of those high school romances that lasts forever??

Homecoming Part 2 - Parade

After taking a very unprofessional and non-statistical survey, I'm not so sure many towns still have a homecoming parade.  But Whitmore Lake does!

This is a slightly different view from my normal parade spot on the other side of the street.  This was afternoon so we had to go with the shady side.  I was also only using my phone for the pics so they aren't so great.  You CAN see the leaves changing on the big maple on the right though...really early this year in my opinion.  It's not even October yet and we already have a lot of color going on around here.

The marching band:

Flag corps

 JV Football team

Varsity Football Team  - where's my kid??????

Oh, there he is - in the back of the truck. With Dad running out to give him Gatorade.

And Motocross Boy/Man got to play again!  This pic is horrible (via phone at night long distance and zoomed does NOT make for good photography).  He's the kid in his three point position in the red jersey on the right (there are two of them down).  I have video to post later once I figure out how to combine all the little clips.

Early Morning Visitor

This little woodpecker must thing we have bugs in our bathroom wall.  She (or her friends) usually visit at least once or twice a year and we have quite an interesting line of little holes circling the house EXACTLY at this level all the way around. 

Homecoming

So apparently "creative" asks are all the rage for homecoming so Equestrian Girl's boyfriend fired up the brain cells and came up with a good one taking into account her love for her horse.

I had to help a little with getting her to the barn at the right time.  He saddled up her horse and had a cute necklace on her saying "Homecoming?" along with a big bouquet of flowers.  

He came walking out from behind the trailers on the left as we drove up.

Equestrian Girl was totally surprised and ran out to hug boyfriend. Mata Hari was a tad upset that she was hugging him before her.

 Then Mata Hari wanted to eat the flower.

It was a very sweet homecoming "ask"!

And boyfriend was quite proud of himself.

 And they walked off into the sunset to live happily ever after.  Not. Yet.  Ugh!!

So Dang Lucky

I've never considered myself a water person but sunrises over the water just flip my skirt.

This was the last of the sunrises over the lake I'll see for a while since the sun is coming up so late right now until daylight savings time kicks in.

But I still catch a few that are spectacular over the Detroit River while at work.

Science

I bought this app last year thinking Equestrian Girl might be able to use it for her anatomy class - and because I thought it was uber cool (which was actually 99% of the reason for buying it if I'm honest about it).

This year, with Motocross Boy/Man going to public school for art and gym and doing English, math and science at home, I was pushed to figure out a science curriculum for him that would be educational yet not too time consuming considering his commitments to sports. 

Ah ha!  Visible Body can get used!  It's actually a pretty cool app and has built in quizzes.  I am creating questions within the notecard section on each chapter which will hopefully be enough "review" for the Boy to get through the quizzes.  We shall see.  So far he likes it.  I think.  I know I do!  Heck, I learned all kinds of stuff creating all those questions!

Being Close to your daughter....

...Means she sends you stuff like this and says, "Story of my life".

15 Best Things About Being Close With Your Mom

You're turning into her, and you love it.

By Alexandra Martell

1. You look forward to going home. You don't even need a holiday or some other occasion. Sometimes you just go home for the weekend just to spend time with her.

2. You have the most amazing role model in your life. It doesn't matter what she's done for a living — she's always shown you what it means to be a loving, successful human.

3. You have a travel companion who doesn't get offended when you get hangry. Your best friend gets offended when you snap at her. Your boyfriend gets annoyed. Your mom has a granola bar in her purse for you even though you're 28, and will silently hand it to you and ignore you until you chill out.

4. When something great happens there's no doubt in your mind who you'll call first. It takes approximately 0.2 seconds from when HR calls you with a job offer to when you call your mom to tell her.

5. When something bad happens she'll be there faster than your best friend even if she lives in another state. Your ex-boyfriend better hope he never runs into her, unless he wants to be murdered.

6. You still use your phone to talk, but only to her. Your voicemail log just alternates between "mom" and "home" (and "landlord").

7. But now that she's discovered texting it's hilarious. Half the text screenshots in your phone are from her.

Alexandra Martell

8. She treats your best friend like her own child to the point where your bestie even calls her mama. "Why haven't you brought Willow over for dinner lately?"

9. You're guaranteed at least one like/favorite on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram because she likes everything you do. And she will probably like it within five minutes of you posting it.

10. She's the best person to go shopping with because she's the only one who is completely honest. And she will probably buy you that shirt.

11. You already know how you're going to parent your kids, because you're going to raise them just how you were raised. Except you won't say no when they ask for a Barbie Jeep.

12. She sends you inspirational emails when she knows you're having a bad week. And she signs all her emails, "love ya," even when she's guilting you about something.

13. You never have to explain who anyone is, because she keeps track of all your friends.She even always knows which Jess you're referring to.

14. You don't worry about turning into her, because you want to. Why wouldn't you want to?

15. You feel bad for everyone else because they do not have the best mom. Sorry everyone.

Pretending it's my birthday....

And eating this whopping big dessert for dinner (no kids home!).  Homemade ice cream, home grown raspberries, double chocolate brownie and a drizzle of Hershey's syrup.  Oh yeah.

Lovely, just lovely....

I just continue to be so impressed with this little mare...

The Three Mouskateers

 The other night Scott came into the house from the garage saying a baby mouse fell out of the rafters and was laying on the floor but was still alive.  Equestrian Girl and I went out to investigate. Sure enough, the little guy was stunned but alive.  He was tiny with his eyes still closed.  It was fairly late at night - almost 10 pm so there wasn't much we could do but we heated up this sock filled with rice and left him covered up in a smallish container.

I was pretty surprised to find him still alive in the morning so with a little advice/help from friends, I was off to the store for a milk replacement while Equestrian Girl went to her job.  A couple hours later he was well fed and doing fairly well.

Almost exactly 24 hours after finding the first mouse, Scott was back in telling us there were two more on the floor. Apparently the word got out that we had good milk and a warm bed. All three got moved to a larger container after having their share of milk from a tiny syringe.  They made it through the night and were doing well the next day with two of them opening their eyes!

And then they weren't.  Sunday morning I got up to find one had already crossed over the rainbow bridge and one was close.  By the time Equestrian Girl got up, the third was was fading fast and passed in her hands...  It was so sad to see them go like that after doing so amazingly well at first!  Rest in peace little mice.

Enough Said....

Harvest Moon

I often stop for a moment to take a picture of the sun coming up over the lake...it's not often that I see the moon rising and creating such a glow on the lake as it did last week...

Football!!!

Motocross Boy/Man wanted to enroll in public school as a homeschooler. This meant taking at least 4 extra curricular classes to be eligible to play sports.  His main goal was to be able to be on the bowling team - it's a MHAA rule.  A rather dumb one to have bowling included in those rules but whatever.  

After a brief tour of the school a few days before classes started, he was recruited to join the football team. Varsity.  Ahem.  This kid hasn't played football since he quit the "little league" team when he was like 7 or something.  Oh boy.

Exactly one week later, we were sitting in the stands watching Friday night high school football as an epic storm rolled in.  #76 was standing on the sidelines patiently waiting to be called in.  And then the game got called for a rain delay that turned into a cancellation until noon on Saturday. 

Saturday afternoon we were back in the stands watching warm up - our boy all suited up and ready to go!

Look for the arrows to point him out - hard to find these kids when they are all dressed alike. And I thought it was hard to find him in the motocross pack of racers!!

Near the end of the game with about 30 second left to go, down by 2 points and not much hope to move the ball, the coach called him in!!!

And Perry, the other team, downed the ball like 4 times to run out the clock after using their last time out.

But my boy is a good sport and was one of the first to go congratulate the other team.

But wait!  There were a few seconds left so they had them run another play!

And then it was over.  On the good side of things, his white pants stayed clean!!

Evenings at the barn

We have a new horse at the barn...this little guy has so much mane it's crazy!  He's a haflinger.

I caught this view of Equestrian Girl giving Mata Hari a quick rinse after their ride looking through the feed room doors.

You can barely see the horse and rider (Equestrian Girl and Mata Hari) in this picture but the sky behind them was so beautiful.  I love watching them ride at sunset though I'll admit to get distracted by the background at times.

This girl loves her horse. The fiery clouds behind them (looking south) was just a bonus here.

Panorama shot looking west over the pastures.  So beautiful!

Again, looking south over the riding arena at the fiery clouds lit up by the sunset.

This pic is actually clipped from a bit of video.  Equestrian Girl and Mata Hari are starting to do bigger jumps and boy does she like having something solid under them!

I think this is actually the same picture as above but cropped in closer...love the form!

My 2:55 Minutes of Fame this Week

I've been using eMeals for a couple of years now and when they asked on FB for a volunteer in Detroit to do an interview, I jumped at the chance!  Besides loving eMeals and being a true believer that it not only saves me money but motivates us to try new foods and eat FRESH, I love having my family sit down to dinner every night.  I believe it's a bonding time that can't ever be replaced.  Anyway, here's my few minutes of fame!


Of course, once I knew I was going to do this, I had to go buy a new dress.  I rather like it!

 When I arrived at the studio, they sent me to the "Green Room".  It had one green wall.  That's where I met "Nitro", formerly of American Gladiators fame who told me how to sit up straight after we watched some ladies from Selfridge Airforce Base look rather slouchy during their interview.

I had hoped they would "do" my hair and makeup but alas, I wasn't all that important.  

They had brought me out into the studio before the show started filming to see how the iPad would work with the screen behind us and it was easy-peasy.  Then just as we were about to go on, it wasn't working right so they grabbed it back from me to fix and then later handed it to me where it STILL didn't show up on the screen right away.

Then it finally started working right and I was able to demonstrate the app.  The funny thing is that I almost never really use the app from eMeals and more often than not, just print it out even though on TV I said I use it on my iPad!  Since they had set it up as this great "app", I figured I had better go along with it that way.  It's not like I can't use the app, I just find the paper to be more convenient most of the time.

It was such a fun experience doing this interview!  I had a blast!

If you are interested in eMeals, let me know and I can send you a 15% off coupon.