Step 2 Is Over/Camping In Michigan

Step 2 is OVER!! Yes....we are one step closer to being finished with Medical School. Vaughn took his board exam last Monday. It was an eight hour exam covering everything from his basic sciences to everything he has learned in clinicals. We are so proud of him and his hard work. He was glad to get the test over with and he was about brain dead when he got home.
We then packed for our camping trip up to Mackinaw in the Wilderness State Park. It is located at the top of the hand of Michigan, about 4 hours away. I have been waiting for this trip all summer long. I love to camp and couldn't wait to take the kids camping. We even bought us some new camping gear: tent, cooking skillet, air bed...etc.... (We needed a few things.)
Tuesday morning we packed the Edge and we looked like the Griswolds from Chevy Chase's National Vacation, because we were wall to wall stuff. We had the car so packed that we could barely see the kids in the back seat. HEE HEE So off we go to camp and we drove there in about 3 hours. Everybody else who drove there took anywhere from 4-6 hours. We didn't stop, that is why we went so fast. The kids fell asleep and so we drove and drove. It was a beautiful drive. Vaughn and I got to talk to one another uninterrupted for 3 hours. It was great to laugh and talk with him for that long and not hear "Mom!!!"
(A little side note. When camping in Michigan you have to book your camping site months in advance to your arrival and then you have to specify how big of a space you need to occupy and then pay for it. I have never had to PAY to CAMP, but whatever, this is Michigan not UTAH!)
As we "check in" to the camp ground, which was a little weird to do, we notice that all the camp sites are so close together that if you happened to fart in your tent, your neighbors are going to hear it and laugh at you......OH MY!
Our camping space was 20 feet by 20 feet. We barely had enough room to place our tent and the table and chairs. We had neighbors on each and every side of us. Luckily some of our neighbors were our friends who were camping with us, the Seficks and the Johnsons. It took us no time at all to erect the tent and set up the rest of our stuff. We had hamburgers for dinner and then it was a nice chat by the fire.
Bed time was another chore in itself. There was a lot of people around making different noises and Tyson thought we had monsters outside the tent. He had a hard time falling asleep. Taryn didn't sleep and so neither did I. Once the sun came up, she finally decided to take a sleep and so did I, for about 2 hours. No worries, we were camping and I wasn't going to let it dampen my camping trip; little did I know that something else was going to damper it.
That afternoon we were going to go down to the beaches but the storm clouds rolled in quickly and before we knew it we were under our makeshift lean to watching the rain fall hard and fast. It rained for about 1 hour and then drizzled for several afterwards. Our tent had water on the floor and therefore our stuff was wet. We loaded up the cars and headed into Mackinaw City to check out some sights. Then it was back to the camp site to air out our wet stuff and clean out the water from our tent. It took a better part of the day and evening to almost dry our stuff. That night Tyson and I braved the showers that they had at the camp ground and then wished we hadn't. This camping ground was like a 2 star hotel with showers and toilets and running water in sinks and electricity at your camp sight. It wasn't your "normal" Utah/Colorado camping.
That night it was SO COLD. I ended up taking care of Taryn the rest of the night, sitting in a camp chair inside our tent. I was warm on the front of me, but where my butt was in the chair it was frozen. My face was also frozen and if I could have pulled my hoodie up any more around my face I would have. (I looked like Kenny off of South Park)
By the time the morning came I was ready to go home. We were suppose to stay one more day, but I was so cold and tired that I was done. Luckily the time spent wasn't a total bust, I did get to spend time with family and friends and I also got some good camping cooking to eat, so I would say it was still an ok time. I have just decided that the next camping trip will either be without kids or we wait until they get a bit older.
(THE REASON THAT THERE ARE NO PICTURES TO SHOW YOU OUR TIME CAMPING IS THAT IN ALL THE PACKING, I FORGOT THE CAMERA, BUT AFTER THE EXPERIENCE WE DECIDED THAT IT WAS PROBABLY BEST NOT TO DOCUMENT IT THAT MUCH!)

Me VS the Onry Old Woman At The Laundry Mat.

Yeah....the title should just say it all, but since I haven't really had a good story to tell in a long time, I guess I was destine for one.
Taryn was the cause of this one. About one week ago I was changing her diaper on my bed, 1st mistake...and as I traded the wet one for a clean one...she had a massive explosion and christened my bed. YUCK!! Now luck would have it that my bed spread is too big for my washer. GREAT! It was off to the laundry mat up Lapeer RD. Now just so you know, I have NEVER been inside a laundry mat and didn't know what to expect. Upon entering the place I noticed tons of washer and dryers that were the exact same size as mine at home...DOUBLE GREAT! So where are the BIG ONES? I was in luck, because there was this older lady working the front counter. I kindly walked up and explained my situation...Here is how that conversation went:
Me: Excuse me
(eyes lazily looked at me)
Me: I was wondering if you have any BIG washers, big enough to fit a queen sized bed spread in?
(eyes then looked me up and down and then board into my soul as if searching for something to break)
Laundry Lady: Yeah we got those.
Me: Okay...........................where?
Laundry Lady: Right over there (pointing to her right, still looking at me like I was some kind of monster from the deep)
Me: Thanks

Okay, so I walk over to these things and they are a front loader, which I have no clue how to run. So it was back over to "Miss Sunshine" to find out how to work the damn thing.
Me: Excuse me again.
(eyes seem to seethe at my bothering her. Like she was busy anyway.)
Me: How do you work the machine?
Laundry Lady: Put your money in and soap and watch it work.
And that was all she said. Not "Here let me come and help you," or "I can show you. Sometimes these things are difficult."
So I trudged back over to the machine and put my bed spread in, and was about to add the soap, when this kid, who was washing what looked like his whole family and their family's clothes, said, "Wait! You shut the door and then put your money in and then put the soap in the top in this thing." (Pointing to the top spout looking thing.) "Thanks," I said. I then explained that I wasn't stupid, I just had never used one of these front loader machines. He was nice enough to explain and then went back to his mountain of laundry.
Okay, so I got through that part.....and yes there is more to this story..................
Then I had to dry the thing.....Another problem. How do you work the dryers, because they don't have directions on them. It was like you were just suppose to know how much money to put in to make them work and which buttons to push since none of them were labeled. To my dismay the young man that helped me before was gone. Great!!!! Now I have to go back to "Miss Sunshine" a third time...WONDERFUL!!!
Up I walk to the front counter:
Me: How much do you put in to make the dryers work? (Notice I didn't say, excuse me this time around. I was done with being nice)
Laundry Lady: It uses quarters....
Me: (Was she deaf? I didn't even ask if it used quarters, I know that duh! So I chuckled and said) I mean how many quarters does it take to turn it on and all? Like how many quarters per minutes????
Laundry Lady: I don't know!
Me: Okay, thanks. I just muddle through it.
GEEZ!!! If I could have yelled to help my cause I would have, but it wouldn't have helped. So I went back to the big dryer and just started plunking in quarters until something started to light up and it started to dry.
Needless to say, my bedspread is now clean and I now know how to work the BIG machines. I am not a complete idiot, but having never used those foreign machines I had no IDEA what to do. So there you go. There is my story for the next 6 months........I hope.......Who knows, I head to Utah on a plane in less than 2 weeks. I am sure a story is just waiting to happen to me along the way! GREAT!!!!!

Taryn And The Bottle

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July to everyone. I love the 4th of July and I have missed going to a real 4th of July celebration for far too long. This year I remedied that. I found this little town named Fenton, MI on the Internet. They have a Freedom Festival for the 4th that lasts for 3 days. We decided to go and check it out. Taryn was less than pleased in this picture if you can tell. She was a bit tired that we got her up so early.
I rose my family up at the crack of dawn to get ready for a wonderful 4th of July. Fenton, started out their festival with a pancake breakfast at their community center. So we loaded up with the Seficks and Janelle, seen below, and headed to Fenton for some fun.
Janelle Bennett, a friend of ours from St. Maarten came with us for the festivities. We were sure glad to have her with us. The 4th is a day to spend with family and friends.
After the breakfast we headed to our chairs, that we had set out before going to the breakfast, which was a smart move on our part, and prepared to watch the Fenton parade. The Lions Club of Fenton brought around mini American flags for everyone to wave during the parade. Tyson thought that was cool.
The parade started off with the presentation of our Nation's flag and then the precession of the police march.
This was one of the few floats in the parade. The parade wasn't small by any means, but it was different. It lasted 1 1/2 hours and had the parade look, but a lot of the presentations in the parade were propaganda for churches, voting rights and community vendors. It was interesting. But they threw candy and so the kids were happy. Our pockets were full with the spoils of the parade and it looks like I have enough candy for Halloween in a few months. HA HA
I love Clydesdale horses. I think these big beautiful horses are a 4th of July icon pulling a wagon dressed in our nation's colors. It kind of make ya want to stand a little taller and thank Heavenly Father that you are an American.Tyson and his buddy Decker. They enjoyed the parade and jumped around when the candy came, danced with the passing music and waved a whole bunch. The only part of the parade that was a BIT noisy was the last 5 minutes. About ten fire trucks passed from the surrounding areas and they all BLARED their horns and sirens. Taryn didn't like that at all and was practically climbing up me to get away from them. I had to hold my hands over her ears for her to endure it all.As the parade ended, she passed out. Getting up at the crack finally got to her. We then loaded up the chairs and headed to walk around all the vendors and go on some rides for Tyson.There was a vendor who was painting faces. She had a bunch of cool designs to choose from and Tyson wanted the scorpion. He thought it was so cool that he had this creature on his face.They had a few of those blow up areas for the kids to jump in and it was all FREE. A major score in my book.And of course there was the SLIDE! I think Tyson went down it ten times.Some of the vendors had little crafts you could make and one of them made the sand designs in the containers. Tyson was awe struck and wanted one. Why not! So we made this little creations and he was elated that he got to make something so cool. Some of the vendors had really neat hand crafted purses, hats, scarves and lots of other stuff. Then some of them looked like they had gone through their attic and found all the stuff that they no longer use and decided to put up a stand at the 4th of July parade and sell it. Funny stuff.Miss Fenton was wandering around the festival grounds and she started talking to Tyson. He was smitten and he wanted a picture with her. ARG, it has already begun. I need a big bat to beat all the girls away. (Wishful thinking) We had lunch from the Lions Club BBQ with chicken, beans, potatoes, and slaw. It was good eats and I was stuffed after the consumption.

Taryn enjoyed playing with her stroller restrains and was actually an angel for 90% of the day. She looked like the little Americana princess in her little dress. One of the vendors was selling these little Patriotic halos with streamers down the back, and if she had been a bit older I would have bought one for her. But as old as she is now, it would just be a chew toy.
They had pony rides and Tyson begged to ride the pony. I couldn't resist. He thought he was Lane Frost on his pony and would raise his arm up in the air as he rode. What a kid. I was just waiting for him to fall off.
We stayed in Fenton till about 2:30 and then called it a day. Here we are on the ride home. Tyson's scorpion stayed on, surprisingly.Taryn looks ready to pass out, but she didn't. In fact she didn't take another nap until bed time. What a GIRL! She doesn't want to miss anything. After a little relaxing at the house we headed over to the Buccellatos for some more BBQ and wonderful eats and good conversation. We tried to catch some fireworks, but we only caught the tail end of some. The little suburbs around here kind of do their own thing, so they aren't really big. Even so, we had such a great 4th of July. I felt like we were back in Circleville at the festival there. Happy Independence Day and a prayer for all the men and women serving in our Armed Forces around the globe. You are truly our heroes.