Bekah’s first diorama

We picked up a fossil dig kit a while back and stuck it in what we call the “bored box”. Last week, Bekah declared herself bored and headed to the box. Although I had plenty of other things to be doing, I couldn’t resist digging bones out of the clay with her.

Digging away the clay

Brushing the dust away

Look what I did!

Then, it seemed like the perfect excuse to create her first diorama. And since I have recently started saving all sorts of things ‘just in case’, I had a shoe box just waiting for this sort of day.

Midwest trip: July 3, Day 14

Well, I’m almost done posting about our trip – what a bummer. It’s been so fun to relive it…

We left Chicago the morning of the 3rd at 10:00 with our destination for the day being Vicksburg, MI – just outside of Kalamazoo; 171 miles away. Our friends from Chicago were heading to her parents’ house on Indian Lake for the 4th and we accepted the invitation to join them for the festivities and arrive home a day later than first planned. However, we didn’t consider the traffic patterns of the Great Lake area or that many people would be getting away early for a long weekend. The traffic was horrendous and what should have been a 3 hour trip took us SIX; so we didn’t arrive until 5pm local time (Eastern). We didn’t even realize we would be passing into the 4th timezone until we arrived there. However, it was fun to then be able to say we’d traveled through 14 states and all 4 timezones! Now, that is a roadtrip!!

We stayed at the Nazarene Camp and Conference Center across from Heidi’s folks’ house. The guys went to get fishing licenses while the ladies took the kids to the park. Jordan had a great time playing soccer, while the youngest Ellis kiddo, Jeremy, jumped from a toy and hurt his foot. Following dinner, the guys went out fishing in the boat while Heidi, myself, and the kids fished off the dock, talked, and read.

 

Heidi’s brother (Darren), Wayne, Cole, and Willie head out on Indian Lake

 

Heidi and Ashley try for some fish – no luck

“Labor” Day weekend

I just realized I never posted pictures of our fastastic front ‘yard’ transformation!

Willie worked so hard during this extended weekend. I had one request: Please do something about the dirt path at the front of the house since the rain is coming! So, he borrowed a friend’s F350 pickup truck, loaded it up and brought it home to unload 4 yards of crushed rock and 3,000 pounds of flagstone to our driveway.

Here is the “Before” photo, although it is “after” the crushed rock was shoveled out and smashed down as best as we could:

 

Ready to lay the stone

I love how this turned out!

My Honey is so talented at this! I occasionally help with design, but for the most part, the garden is his ‘baby’ – and he loves it, quite obviously.