Look what I caught!!!!

I did not grow up fishing, but my awesome hubby has gotten me "hooked" on it! He has always been great on introducing me to new adventures like fishing and hunting, snowmobiling, camping and kayaking! I love that we both enjoy doing these things together and with the kids! We are definitely an outdoor family. I love that man!!

Anyways, last week we grabbed the boat and headed to a local lake one evening. We were not having too much luck, but then I caught an 8 inch bass and then a few minutes later I snagged this big fellow! It is a 28 inch Northern Pike and it weighed almost 6 pounds! This is the biggest fish I have ever caught. I was so excited! It was a lot of work getting him to the side of the boat so Kyle could scoop him up with the net.





This is a really bad photo of me, but I had to have a picture with my fish, who was extremely slippery and slimy! I grabbed a towel to hold onto him because I am not a huge fan of slimy things! lol

Wordless Wednesdays - Fishing fun!

This is an Almost Wordless Wednesday!

We have been doing some fishing the last few evenings. This was Emily's first time and she has a new princess fishing pole (there is not a real hook on it!). The fish that we caught were pretty small but we had fun and enjoyed the beautiful spring evening. By the way, I caught the first fish this night and it ended up being the biggest! :)

Such a big girl.

She knows what she is doing!

Helping Daddy reel in a bass.

Kyle and Emily with their fish!

Brayden and one of the fish he caught!

Spring Break Getaway Day 1 at Higgins Lake

We went up north to Houghton Lake for the weekend with the kids and Kyle's Sister Katy and her family. We stayed at a hotel that had a pool, water slide and lazy river. We were right on Houghton Lake. Friday night the weather was really cool, but by Saturday it started to warm up! We decided to head out and do stuff outdoors with kids for awhile on Saturday afternoon (we all needed a break from the pool).

We ended up going to the Higgins Lake State Campground for a picnic. The sun was shining and the park was empty! The kids had fun running around, checking out the lake and climbing on a fallen tree. There was also a playground. Here are some of the photos.

Look how clear the water is! We are hoping to go camping this summer at Higgins Lake!

When we drove up to the lake it almost looked like the water you would see in the Caribbean! This picture does not do it justice! It was so beautiful.

Having our picnic lunch

Emily loved the beach.

Hannah, Emily and their cousin Marhea had to put their toes in the water! brrrr

Brayden, Hannah and James doing the obligatory photo for their mom! :)

Hannah and Marhea

Look for more photos and details of our trip coming soon.......

Playing in the rain!

Emily has been waiting for it to rain so she can use her new umbrella! So this afternoon she looked out the window and informed us that it was raining. She ran over and put on her new rain coat and boots and asked me for her umbrella! It wasn't raining very hard and was not to cold so I sent her outside to have some fun in the rain! She had a blast splashing in the puddles in our driveway. I of course had to grab my camera and capture some cute photos!

Off Camping again!

We are headed to Grayling for a long weekend to go camping and Kayaking! Will be back Tuesday I believe. I promise to finish posting pictures from our vacation. I have 2 days left! Been busy, busy, busy! I hope everyone has a great weekend and enjoy the heat that is headed to Michigan!

Our cutie pie Emily Ann!

Just posting a few pictures of Emily that I of course find very adorable!! Enjoy :)

Our Day at the Race Track!

I'm a little behind, but on Friday, June 12th we took all 4 kids to Michigan International Speedway to watch the ARCA Race. We all had a blast! Emily loved it! We watched Nascar Sprint Qualifying first and then walked around and checked out all the merchandise trucks, ate the lunch we took in and checked out all the cool race cars! The race started at 5pm. The weather was beautiful. We all picked a car at the beginning of the race and my car was the winner! #77! So it was a great day and we all had a great family day. It was the first time for all the kids to be at MIS and they want to go back. We told them that hopefully in the next few years we would take them to an actual Nascar Sprint Race. It's not cheap! The kids got in free (Kyle and I were $15 each) for the Arca Race and we took our own food and pop in so it was a pretty inexpensive day. I look forward to going back next year.

Field Day at James and Hannah's School

Last Friday was Field Day at James and Hannah's school. They have so much fun with this. It is all day long and their classes go from event to event all day. They really love the water events. I missed seeing them do those and Hannah was very bummed when her class ran out of time and did not get to do the Water Limbo! I remember our Track and Field Day when I was in school, it was always so much fun, but I think they do so much more and a lot of cool events that we did not have. Gosh that was over 20 years ago when I was in Elementary school! Wow, time sure does fly by. I can't believe it's already time for summer break!

Jumping over the disk! That looked like a lot of fun!

Working together as a team to keep the balloon from hitting the floor!

In this game they split the class up into 2 teams and one team had to pick up the cones and the other team had to knock them down. When the time was up they counted the cones to see what team did the best!

Celebrating! His team won!

Memorial Weekend Camping Trip

We spent our Memorial Weekend up north in Grayling camping with some friends. We left Friday afternoon and came home Monday afternoon. The weather was beautiful, a little chilly at night but you just threw on a extra blanket. Of course we had all kinds of yummy food over the campfire. Jesse and Kyle did some fishing and Kyle did some fly fishing for trout two evenings. Sally and I and the girls spend an afternoon in Grayling checking out all the cute little shops. We had raccoon visitors that took some fresh baked cinnamon muffins. They actually dragged the pans with the lids on them into the woods. All that was left was some wrappers! The only bad thing that happened was I had a major gall bladder attack on Saturday night. It started around 9pm and I finally gave in around 4am and had Kyle take me to the ER in Grayling. Of course by the time I was checked in the pain was going away. They took some blood and did an ultrasound. I have a gallstone that is in the opening of my gallbladder and is distended. The doctor was surprised that I was not in pain. He said once an attack goes past about 6 hours it usually does not end and you have to have surgery. They did say I need my gallbladder out and were going to call in a surgeon, but I decided to come home and have it done locally. I have had a few attacks since I was pregnant for Emily. The first one being at about 8 months pregnant with Emily. I can only say that the pain is a lot like a contraction during labor except that it does not stop or go away. It was 6 straight hours of pain. The last few months has been rough though with almost daily heartburn, gas pressure and pain in the upper abdomen and chest area. I have changed my diet, eating habits, etc and it is not getting better. So I am actually relieved that have had this happen so I could get diagnosed and get it removed. So hopefully in the next week or 2 that will happen. I was told if I have more pain or another attack to go to the ER immediately because it will have to be removed then. The ER Staff in Grayling were great! Anyways I am feeling better now, not eating to much and staying away from fatty and greasy food. The best thing out of all of this is that I have lost about 20 pounds since February! I gained back a new wardrobe of summer clothes too! Nothing better than getting into old shorts and jeans. So even with that happening we had a lot of fun. It was nice to relax in nature. Emily loved being outdoors and was so good all weekend. I can't wait to go again. Next time we plan on taking all the kids. James and Hannah were with their Dad and Brayden spent the weekend with his mom. I love being in Grayling. Kyle and I would love to some day move up there on the river. We snowmobile in the winter and love to fish and kayak in the summer.

I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day Weekend too!

Our busy day outside

Yesterday Kyle had a day off from work and the weather was beautiful so we decided it was a great day to work on some outdoor projects.

First Kyle borrowed his Uncle's backhoe so we could dig up some old bushes in front of our house. After he dug them out we racked and cleaned up the mess! The house had to be cleaned. We then went to an old rock pile on his family's property and picked out big rocks to make our rock border for the new flower bed. It is looking good. We need a few more rocks and will be getting some dirt. We need about 4 yards to make it look good. I can't wait to put some plants and flowers in. I will be moving some perennials that I already have into it too. Eventually we will be removing the old cement front porch and build a little deck off the front. We also need to repaint all the windowsills this summer.

We also planted the 2 trees that Kyle got me for Mother's day. He took me to The Flower Garden on Sunday and I picked out 2 of the Robinson Crab apple trees. They flower a deep pinkish purple flower in the Spring. We also started our garden. We planted the onion sets and our red potato's. We will wait a little while longer until we plant the rest, due to the worry that it will still frost.

So we had a great day outside. We all got a little sun and very dirty. Emily had to have 2 baths yesterday! I am so glad winter is over and we can be outside. We are also planning on building a large deck off the back of our house this summer! I will post more pics of the new flower bed when it is complete.

Flowers for Mama

Emily loves to pick dandelions out of our yard! I am the luckiest mama, because she is always bringing them to me, like she is in this picture. Gotta love a bouquet of dandelions.

Wordless Wednesday: Enjoying the outdoors!

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Can't get this picture to flip around!!