Camp Pet-o-se-ga

My mom and dad discovered this little gem not too far

from home and suggested we check it out...

Except for the mosquitoes, it was lovely.

We hiked along the river and check out the cabins,

and, of course, my son made new friends;

lots of new friends.

Their campsites looked nice, so I'm sure we'll end up back

there for the weekend or two later this summer...

Mackinac Moment

Hello June.

It's so nice to see you. 

May is always so rough for me; the craziness of the end of the year, field trips, report cards, packing up my classroom - it's a whirlwind. But once my dear friend, June, arrives things calm down. Hopefully I'll have time to post here more often...

Honey Bee Birthday Treats

Since we are still allowed to send treats in for birthdays (yippee!), my daughter wanted bee cupcakes. We were worried the Pringles wings wouldn't make it down the hill in my bicycle basket without breaking, so we waited to put the wings on after we arrived at school. 

A Party Fit for a Queen

A queen bee, that is...

It's hard to believe my baby just turned eight. She really doesn't appreciate being called "my baby," but that's what she'll always be - my sweet little girl, even though she's not so little any more. Second grade has been a good year for her. She's developed into a great thinker - whether it is mathematical problem solving, spelling patterns or reading fourth grade level books - she does a super job. Each day she is getting better at controlling her temper and remembering that it's more important to be a good friend than it is to get your way all the time. I'm so proud of her. And I love that even though she's eight, she still wants me to tuck her into bed every night.

For her party, I made the bee dress and our friend, Miranda, whipped up that adorable crown - Her Majesty didn't take off off all day. You should have seen her face light up when she saw her place at the table. Plus we tried to call her things like "Your Majesty," "Your Ladyship" and "Your Highness" pretty much all day long. Each time we did it we got the look, but I know she secretly loved it.

We know quite a bit about bees 'round here, so Her Royal Majesty laughed heartily when she noticed that all the female party guests had name cards, while the male's place cards simply said, "Drone." She even told her brother  she was going to kick him out of the house after the party. He so didn't appreciate that...

About a week before the party she managed to find my stash of party goodies and noticed the bottles of Diet Vernors in the tub. She smiled to herself and said,"It's going to be nectar, isn't it?" Guess I'm not as clever as I thought...

However, borrowing the yellow hexagon pattern blocks from school and raiding our Honey Bee Tree game for free table decorations was quite clever. 

And, of course, what bee themed party would be complete without one of Grandpa's favorite candies?

As usual, Allen made the cake. (He found it here.) He made a few changes and described his result as, "A complete fail," but I disagree. It looked cute and was really good, though I don't think it was sweet enough for the Queen. (Allen says that if he made it again he'd decrease the amount of cocoa by one or two tablespoons, and increase the amount of sugar in the pastry cream. That said, it was delicious with my coffee this morning.) In the cooking department, I got off easy this year. K requested chicken nuggets, french fries, green bean casserole and honey buns for dinner. As a rule we do not eat chicken nuggets and french fries at home  - ever. But what the Queen wants on her birthday, the Queen gets.

In the end, my little honey loved her bee themed birthday dinner. Since she was happy, I was happy. And, luckily, in the end, she decided not to kick her brother out of the house...

Find free bee party printables here, here, here, and over here. The garland I used came form here.  Some cute bee fonts can be found here and here. I found the background of my nectar labels here and the little bee here.

Almost

Yesterday, both the Shepler's and Arnold Freight boats managed to make it across the Straits. It's a good thing too. Several Island businesses, including the Grand Hotel have opened, and until Friday there were only five teams of horses on the island. Not nearly enough to transport the volume of supplies, summer employees and guests that have been arriving each day. Hopefully, now the the freight boats are out, the passenger ferries are soon to follow. It's been a long winter - this is the latest in to the spring that we've gone without boats - at least in my time on the island...

Icy Straits

I just had to share these great pictures of the icy Straits. They were taken a few days ago by a crew from the US Coast Guard Air Station down in Traverse City.

Photos via

There's been a ton of freighter traffic in the Straits today. Since about 10:00 am we've heard pretty constant freighter horns. We tried to get a look at them here, but it's just too foggy.

As you can see, we're going be hearing them all morning... 

Feeling Springy

Normally, by mid-April, the ice is gone, the boats are running, and my husband has already started keeping a watchful eye on his morel mushroom patches - but not this year. Most of the paved roads are clear of snow, but grassy and wooded areas on Mackinac are still white, so it really wasn't feeling very much like spring to me. Until this week. On Wednesday I managed to get my first peek at open water; water I've not seen since before Christmas. Let me tell you, it was a wonderful site. It made me feel like spring might actually find us up here.

My daughter and I flew to the mainland for doctor's appointments on Thursday and despite the open water on the the other side of the island, we got a first hand look at just how much ice is left in the Straits.

Rumor has it that the U.S. Coast Guard is planning to begin breaking up the ice today... 

Mackinac Moment

It's been so warm lately that no one has ventured out onto the ice for the last week or so. The Sault Locks have opened, we've had freighter traffic passing by, and there are rumors that the Coast Guard will break up the remaining ice any day now. While we still have knee deep snow in many places, most streets are clear and it's finally starting to feel like spring...

Dragon Birthday

How does a Mama throw

a small dragon bash?

Does she work really hard,

and then fall down and crash?

She might set a nice table

with napkins a light,

and make yummy bread dragons

whose heads we can bite.

She may find a nice dragon

on the table to sit,

but don't touch her eggs,

or she'll throw quite a fit.

Her chef of a husband may

whip up a cake,

but the Dragon Fire Juice,

she surely can make.

She may sew up a shirt

emblazoned with fire,

and send treats to school,

her daughter's friends will admire.

When party time comes, Mama will gather her friends,

and they'll all stay up late tying up the loose ends.

After the fun is all finished, Mama'll tickle K's gizzard:

"Happy birthday. 

Happy birthday, little fire breathing lizard."

This post was inspired by some

of our favorite books.

And it's only a year late! My daughter turned seven last year. I searched and searched for the pictures, but thought I'd lost them. As I searched through old photos, looking for pictures of Sushi for my last post, I found them - yippee! 

The New Normal

We're all trying our best to get use to the "new normal" -  life without our dear sweet Sushi. Her little body just couldn't keep going any longer and, sadly, we lost her on Friday. When the vet started saying things like, "End stage organ failure," as hard as it was, we knew we had to say goodbye.

Needless to say, it's been hard on the kids; they've never known life without her. It's been easier for me. I remember the 18 pound (about 8 kg) cat she used to be before her thyroid stopped working correctly. I remember the sweet kitty we met at the shelter 13 years ago; so curious that she stuck out her paw to grab me as I walked past her cage. As soon as we let her out, she walked right over to get to know us better- dog and all.

She will be sorely missed....

Making

My daughter has been pestering asking me for some time now to share the projects she and her brother made with their dad over Christmas vacation. Now that we are less than a week away from spring break - It's time.

He taught them about electric circuits,

and how to solder. 

I was surprised just how complicated these little trees turned out to be.

The kids were very proud to show me their little blinking trees and then to teach Mama all about resisters, LEDs and jumpers. 

I'm still surprised my daughter asked me to pack her tree away with the Christmas decorations.  It's going to be fun to watch her face light up when we get it out again next year...

Get your own tree kit here. They're out of stock now, but I bet they'll have them again next fall.

Vintage Fun

This past weekend I had a great time hanging out with these folks. My friend, Ken, is a member of the group and he invited them to cross the ice, tour the island and enjoy a hot dogs and chili at Turtle Park. Ken owns a few vintage machines and asked me if I would like to drive one. (OK, he owns quite a few, but only six of them are currently on the island.)  I had a great time tootling around on this lovely little 1973 Evinrude snowmobile. It's just three years younger than I am!

I also had a great time taking a ton of pictures, and then playing around with editing software to make them look like they were taken when the snowmobiles were new. The two pictured below were probably my favorites. The one on the left is a 1963 Arctic Cat. The one on the right is a 1969 Hus-ski;  it was in amazing shape. Frank, the owner, even let me drive it. I'd love to own one, but I'm not very mechanically inclined...

The Ice Bridge

I ran across to St. Ignace this weekend to pick up a friend, and decided to take my husband's GPS tracker with me so I could get a look at the "Beeline" trail. We mapped the British Landing trail a few weeks ago, but never the trail that left the island near the school. (The more southern of the two.)

Often, in years we have good ice, it's gone and the boats are running by mid early to mid-April. There's a lot of ice out there this year - it makes me wonder how long we'll be able to cross it...

That's me pulling in to St. Ignace. Steve, thanks for the photos!