Category Archives: vacation

What? Thanksgiving is THIS Week?

November 26, 2008life, Thanksgiving, vacationKirsetin

Here’s what I’ve been doing:

frantically putting pages into the family scrapbook from last February, so I don’t hit the “year behind” mark in a couple of months
shopping for other families for Christmas
taking my kids to swim lessons
taking my kids to piano lessons
sending my kids outside to play in the snow because they are much to crazy to be inside

Here’s what I haven’t been doing:

planning the Thanksgiving meal I’ll be making beginning tomorrow
washing the sheets for my visitors’ beds (yep, arriving tomorrow)
cleaning the house
cleaning the car
shopping for my own family for Christmas
blogging

I’m having nervous withdrawal twitches from being mostly offline for a couple of days. When your kids have an entire week off for Thanksgiving, it can throw you for a loop, let me tell ya.

Still, I know my mom will want clean sheets. Better get busy. Hope she’ll be thankful.

Mackinac Island, with kids

July 7, 2008travel, vacationKirsetin

We’ve lived in Michigan for almost ten years (is that possible?!), but until last week had never been to one of its jewels, Mackinac Island. In the beginning, we had babies, and traveling several hours with diaper bags and baby bottles, just to drop a bunch of money on a pricey island resort seemed like sort of a bad idea. As the boys got older, we’ve traveled with them quite a bit, but you know how it is. Sometimes the places closest to home are the ones all of the tourists visit, but you never quite get there yourself. So finally, we decided to join the tourists and see more of our own state. And I have to say, it was worth the wait.

The boys were bursting with excitement as they begged us to take them for a carriage ride. There are no cars on the island, so if you want to cover a lot of distance without tennis shoes or a bicycle, horses are your other option.

We biked it! Yes, we did. We brought our bikes and the five of us road the whole way around the island, even the littlest, proud to have circled the island at 5-years old. It’s 7 miles around, but mostly level with lots of stopping-off places to play and explore.

They also loved exploring Fort Mackinac, although less for the historic information than for the freedom to run like wolves.

As for my husband and I, you can’t beat the scenery. This is Michigan? Yep, who knew?

Once Upon a Time, in a Land Far, Far Away, My Friends Went on Spring Break

April 25, 2008cottage, travel, vacationKirsetin

For Spring Break this year, several of our friends

travelled to far away exotic locations.

For example:

No, wait, that’s me, peeling wallpaper. I meant to show you this:

and this:

These are Ann’s kids, seeing some cool stuff & hitting the beach in Texas.

And this – these are Heather’s kids, kicking back in Florida. She’s probably sipping something tasty by the pool! (No, no, I’m sure she is just drinking some iced tea & taking the family photo!)

Or even this, my very own co-blogger, who left me here (WITH SNOW FLURRIES), while she and her brood relaxed in the Bahamas.

But the one that takes the cake has to be my friend Rena, who wins for best-trip ever, because she went to France with her girls. I’ve known you for eight+ years, Rena, and this is the biggest, most at-ease, joy-filled smile I’ve ever seen! I don’t care what it cost, I’m so glad you went. You can always make more money, but you can never buy these memories with your girls.

My family, as you can tell from the wallpaper, did not travel to an exotic location this year.

But if we’d skipped the hours of torture trying to peel paper off of plaster walls from 1873, we would’ve missed these moments:

And they are priceless, even if we did have snow flurries…