Celebrations

Spring is coming! A few days of temps in the 70's last week has the flowering trees in bloom

and the tulips beginning their dance of beauty....
Usually it is the middle of May before my tulips bloom, but this year I'm being treated to an early show.....who cares that the temps have now dipped into the 40's for highs!
Yesterday was my niece Meg's 21st birthday! We celebrated early, on Sat night and as usual Miss Emma stole the show. I can't believe my sweet niece is 21, but she is such a lovely young woman finding her way, and I adore her. Happy Birthday Hon!
The week-end was also the 50th Shepherd Maple Syrup Festival. Emma visited the craft show and came away with this adorable "crown" - just perfect for our little princess. At the Festivals pancake meals that go on most all day fri - sun, they serve more than 10,000 people , over 1700 gallons of homegrown syrup and 4 tons of homemade sausage! There are also carnival rides,a quilt show, arts & crafts booths, music, a classic car show and more. The final event is an hour long parade through the small downtown on Sun. This little town comes out in full force to volunteer their time and energy to this event - probably the reason so many thousands come back every year to enjoy it. A small slice of Americana!

YaYa weekend

This past week-end the Yaya's gathered again - this time at cousin Susie's beautiful home in Novi. We decided to make it a whole week-end instead of just an over nighter. What a great idea that turned out to be! One we will continue from here on. ......

The weather was gorgeous, so hot that we needed to replace our sensible shoes with sandals.

A trip (or 2) to Meijer and and our feet were bejeweled in an array of colors..

After a couple hours indoors at the mall we hit the streets of Northville, a quaint little downtown where we lunched and shopped a bit more. The above photo is all the "Call" girls....

Later back at the house a couple "YaHoo's" (male cousins) joined us for dinner. Here my brother Bill with Linda draped over his shoulders and the "Call" girls again, were searching for a video on YouTube. Linda by the way had just gotten out of the hospital on Weds - what a trooper she is, but it takes more than that to cause us to miss our time together!

This beautiful Magnolia was in full bloom in Susie's front yard .....

Time to say good-bye. For years we've had this inexplicalbe quirk of wearing the same color tops without even trying. Today was black - the day before was shades of blue/green.

Never planned - we just turn up this way!

Spring Cleaning

My dream has been for years to have enough flowers in my gardens to create a live bouquet like this silk one in my living room. So far that dream hasn't been realized! Seems every year my bouquets consist of 2 or 3 blooms at any one time, but I keep trying! Lot's of stems poking their heads up out of the cold ground and even had crocus pop out and bloom. I had forgotten I'd even planted them!

As I wait for gardening to begin in full force, it has been spring cleaning time around here. Lot's of trips to Goodwill and Salvation Army with carloads of donations. I swear "stuff" just grows in the corners while I'm not paying attention!

In between raking and cleaning there was a trip to the allergy dr. with Emma and her mama to find out that Em has allergies to most everything outdoors....., a retirement party last night for my friend Cheryl's husband Jim who retired after 35 yrs in law enforcement, the last 18 as chief of police in Midland.....throw in the committee mtgs. for the week and another week has flown by! Right now I'm on my way to weigh in at Weight Watchers. This is only my 3rd week and I've already shed 10 lbs. There's hope!!!!

Girlfriends

The sun rising greeted me this morning as I went out to retrieve my newspaper! Tho the view of the hospital and all it's construction trailers is not so beautiful, the sun outshone all of that for me! Today is to be sunny and 60. A perfect day for picking my mother up and bringing her to my house to be outdoors while I clean out my gardens. She so enjoyed being outside working around the yard. Her blindness hamers that now, but she can still sit and keep me company, soak up some rays and bask in the fresh spring air.
Last week-end I went to Traverse City and Harbor Springs with 3 old friends and a few new ones too. My cousin Libby was able to join us for lunch in TC - that's she and I above. What an unexpected treat it was to see her! We all had many laughs.
After lunch we spent the next 2 or 3 hrs at a 4 story antique store ! As usual Sue had the most fun trying on every hat in the store. She didn't end up with this one, but she entertained us for quite some time!
On Thurs I met my friends Mary and Mo in Lansing for lunch. I hadn't seen Mo in at leat 8 yrs, so it was fun to catch up. So much fun that we are doing it again at the end of the month, but allowing ourselves more time so we can actually shop!

I am soo blessed to have so many fabulous women as friends. There is nothing like a girlfriend!