Here's a little run down of what we have been up to.....
We have been busy, in a laid back kind of way, Shane was helping out G.L.A.D. (Great Lakes Assistance Dogs) with some scent boxes that needed to be made, and because he does love to tinker around with tools, he was happy to help. He made six boxes all together, these boxes are used in the training of service dogs, to learn to alert on different smells. He did a great job, of course, on them, and they are getting allot of use!
He has also been busy doing yard work and other small jobs for my Mom, it keeps him busy, i think he is enjoying it.
I have been doing some paper work for G.L.A.D., and hanging out with my friends and family when I can. We have gone down to My Uncles house a few times, he has a large pond that the dogs love to swim in, and a huge pole barn that is made into a party room where we play washers and hang out. This is where Jemma's new best friend lives. She loves to play with their dog R.J. an Australian Shepard, they play non stop, except for when they break to take a dip in the pond, and sometimes they cat nap together.
We went up to my cousins house on Chippewa Lake for the 4th of July, they keep the ATV's and the boats up there. We decided to do a little kayaking in the canal that his house is on first.
It was allot of fun, through the woods, up and down small hills, we sometimes had to make our own trails, then we made it to the Hay Marsh, this is basically just an overflow area, but it was really pretty, and people take small boats out in it.
And we spent some time out on the lake in the pontoon boat, which is always fun!! We would take the boat over to a somewhat sandy area of the lake and float around on tubes. The water was still a bit chilly for my taste though! We cruised the lake listening to the music and having some drinks, and some laughs, and taking in the sights!
We also had our own fire works show, which the dogs were very unhappy about. Jemma got scared and seeked the comfort of the bathtub all on her own, lol, poor thing felt safer in the tub!!
Then we headed home, its always nice to get back to your own bed ;)
Shane and I have gone on a few short hiking trips through some of the parks in my home town of Grand Ledge, one of them being called "The Ledges" this one follows along the Grand River, and has many rock ledges along the way, and an old train trusses.
We also walked around "The Island", its a little park that is built on a small island in the middle of the grand river. This is a popular place for the locals to bring the kids to feed the ducks, the ducks, geese, and Canadian Geese are always in hoards down here.
This is where I found a Blackberry Tree, it had some of the biggest Blackberries on it I had ever seen!!
In his down time, Shane has been working on a few projects of our own, one big one.... our solar set up!! That's right... we now have solar panels on our roof!! We did this to help out when we head out West next year, we will be doing allot of "dry camping" and this will be a great bonus to have to help give us electricity, rather than using a generator all the time.
We are still waiting a few pieces before we can finish this project, but he is very close now!
Shane has also been working on building me a couch. We had our camper delivered without the couch, because we wanted to be able to set up the living room different than what they had, so we needed a custom size couch to fit where we wanted it to. We had looked around at furniture places, but were unable to find anything even close. So we decided we would take a stab at building one ourselves. I went on the Internet and did some searching, and came across a couple good patterns for couches, and all we had to do was tweak the measurements to fit our needs. Shane got the materials, I got the fabric, and we were off... building a couch.
It's perfect!! I LOVE IT!! We used a memory foam mattress topper (4' thick) along with a medium density foam we got from an upholstery shop (2' thick) and it is super comfy! I have extra fabric, so I am going to make some pillows for it next.
Here is another park that we had went to, and hiked a trail that went down the rocky ledges, along the river, and back up again a short distance away. This is a place where people come to learn how to rock climb
And another park where Shane was intrigued by a very old water pump / drinking fountain, and had to play around with it.
We also went with my friend Nikki up to Silver Lake dunes for a couple of days, mostly to get her set up in my moms pop up, but we got to go play around on the dunes, and in the water for a day, it was nice, except for the climbing back up the giant sand hills... PHEW, it was like one step forward, two steps backwards!!
The Dunes were beautiful!! Jemma had a blast in the sand, she just starts tearing around like a mad women, but boy did she need that pool break, she was about spent by the time we got to the lake. After a cool down, she was ready to go crazy again!!
I spent the day yesterday planning out half of our two week trip around the tip of Michigan, yes... only half done, its quite time consuming trying to find campgrounds, let alone big enough for us, but finding an open spot for the times we needed. It was a tough job, that's why I had to take a break!! I will finish it in a couple days, when I have time. I will give you the full break down when I finish the trip out.
Today is Friday July 26th, and Shane's birthday is on the 28th, so right now I am preparing some food for a small get together we are having in honor of his birthday. I am going to make "Chicken Alfredo Lasagna Roll ups', found the recipe on Face book, sounds really good! And I making some smore cupcakes, and garlic bread, and my mom is picking up an ice cream cake, ice cream cake is Shane's favorite!!
Also have to help my brother move into his new apartment tomorrow, so it ought to be fun... Moving, and cooking!!
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