Weekend Away

Chris and I finally had a chance to get away for a couple of days.

We both took Friday off from work. Well, that was the plan.

Chris ended up finishing a drawing so that he wouldn't be thinking about it all weekend. That took the morning.

And since he got to do work on his day off, I decided we could also clean the house so that it was nice when we got home.

So by the time all of our "work" was done, we left around 4pm. But then we had to stop at Bekins in Grand Haven so Chris could drop off the previously mentioned drawing so that the audio/video guys would know where outdoor speakers would go. Usually "drop-off" should mean no more than 5 minutes. I think we were there about an hour. I had fun watching Kung Fu Panda on one of their big screens and looking at kitchen gadgets.

Once we hit the road we headed up to Big Star Lake near Baldwin.

Chris grilled steaks for dinner. We forgot to grab a bottle of wine and there was none at the cottage! So... steaks and beers it was!

Saturday was a glorious day to sleep in. Then we finally rolled out of bed for breakfast. And then I slept some more on the sofa while Chris read a book.

The afternoon we spent out on the boat, tooling around the lake. Then we anchored near an empty portion of beach and swam around. The water was really warm. It was a great day to be on the lake.

Sunday we packed up and headed over to Major Farm to hang out with Chris' dad and grandma. His mom is currently in Connecticut with her sister, Gail. Gail is very quickly losing her battle against cancer. Please pray for her and her family, as well as Chris' mom.

While Chris' mom is gone, it's just his dad at home, taking care of Grandma, so we made him lunch and cleaned up the dishes so that he at least had one meal he didn't have to deal with.

Then Sunday night we headed to my parents and dropped off some cottage stuff to them and went over plans for the next two weeks. They'll be leaving for a motorcycle trip to the Badlands and we'll be dog-sitting.

Eventually we made it home to our nice, clean house!

And now I'm back at work... using my lunch hour to blog.

Strawberry Pie

Today our church had it's first "Summer Round Up". There was a chili cook-off and a pie contest. I was excited to have an excuse to make a pie, so I decided to make one.

I have a recipe from a friend (Janna) for a Blueberry Cream Pie. It's absolutely fantastic. Last year we used the recipe to make a blueberry pie and also tried it as a peach pie.

Now that strawberries are perfect in Michigan, I decided to try out the recipe with strawberries.

Last night I baked a pie crust. It was the prettiest one I've every made (which doesn't take much)! Wasn't perfect, but was waaay better than pie crusts I've done before.

Well, the church thing was tonight, so during my lunch break I went to the Farmer's Market, got some Visser Farms freshly picked strawberries, booked it home, ate a quick lunch and then prepared my pie filling. It didn't really have time to cool completely, but I finished it, filled the pie and booked it back to work.

Once I got done with work and booked it back home. I didn't have time to put the topping on the pie, so I gathered up what I needed and headed to church.

Once at church I topped the pie and added some little mint leaves for decoration to make it pretty. The mint leaves freaked a few people out since they made it into their slices of pie... Oh well.

Anyway, long story short, the pies were being judged. I didn't really expect much because our church BREEDS pie makers. I swear. They are all amazing in the kitchen, especially in the pie arena of food-dom.

Well... Apparently the judges were craving some fresh fruit, because they (and a lot of other people) loved my pie!

It was great hearing all of their compliments. Chris is excellent in the kitchen, but I tend to be a little bit more...still learning. I think I fit well into the baking, whereas Chris fits well into the cooking. A nice complement of each other. Anyway, I'm used to Chris getting compliments for what he makes, so it was really exciting for me to have made something that everyone seemed to love so much.

So thanks, North Holland church members!

I didn't have my camera with me, so these are from my cell phone:

Hiatus

Okay, okay, it's been far too long since I posted ANYTHING.

Pretty much about the time we were moving into our new house, my work hours got crazy for a few weeks. Then I got back to normal at work for a short period and then this past month has been largely overwhelming. Most days I would feel like people didn't realize that I was only one person, but I've made it through most of my list! Now my position is transitioning and hopefully in the next few weeks I can ease into a better groove.

The one unfortunate thing about my job is I spend a LOT of time in front of a computer (the entire day), so when I get home and the weather is nice, it's hard to sit down in front of my computer some more. I'd say that's pretty healthy to want to be outside, but I know y'all miss me. All two of you.

I have yet to take real pictures of the house (we finally have it pretty well furnished, now it just comes down to getting stuff on the walls, moving the piano in and maybe a few side tables and file cabinets here and there), but hope to soon.

In other news, the garden is planted, our back porch is always rotating with new potted plants (Chris brings them home from his parents greenhouse for clients, so they sit on our porch until he installs them), we have a lawn mower so I can be more pro-active about mowing, we've met the neighbors on three sides of the house (need to do a grill out to meet the rest, I think), um... Yeah. Basically we've been keeping busy!

I will do my best to actually get some pictures up here soon. The camera memory card I'm sure is filling up anyway, so I'll have to empty it here!

Closing Next Week!

The family who currently owns our new home found a house and have set a closing date with us!

Next week Thursday (the 25th) we'll be signing mounds of paper and making the first of many payments. The current homeowners will most likely be out by Saturday and then the moving begins!

We don't really have much to pack, because most of our stuff is in boxes other than the stuff we use everyday. So...not sure if moving will go smoothly or will be chaos. It doesn't matter...we're excited to move in!

Back to Savings

Since we currently live with my folks, I've kept my Savings Angel account, but most often just give my mom money to help pay for groceries and she does the coupon thing.

However, since Chris and I will soon be moving, we are trying to take advantage of some sales before we move in so that our pantries are not completely bare.

So today we went shopping! Got a few basics... drugs for the medicine cabinet (those can get expensive, so we stocked up on some good deals!), oatmeal for lots of breakfasts, kleenex, womanly products, shampoo, laundry detergent, etc.

Looking at my receipts, I think we did a good job. I had a little bit of a hard time figuring out my totals with the Rite Aid receipt - they don't break it down with the instore savings like everyone else does. But, here's my best calculations on what we did:

SPENT: $107.89
SAVED: $86.68


Good job us!