It's Autumn!

So the Spouse & I had a lovely few days away from home. 

So it was raining while I was posting last, so the next couple days were chilly, damp & windy.  But that's OK!  We explored random places around the Petoskey / Charlevoix area and spent much needed time together alone. 

The Tunnel of Trees / M119 isn't very impressive when the trees haven't changed colors yet.  

It's a narrow, twisty turny 2 lane highway along the coastline that clearly has a lot of trees.  The scenery was still nice, tho. 

The Spouse humors me and always plans some cemetery explorations when we travel. 

My Halloween display is called the Maple Grove Cemetery and there happens to be 32 real Maple Grove cemeteries in Michigan, so we're eventually going to visit all of them.  We hit #21 & #22 on this trip! 

We also stopped a couple other little cemeteries - this one belonged to the Odawa Indians.

I love visiting cemeteries like this - it was one of the creepier ones that we've been to, tho. 

The main part was actually clear and mowed, but some of the white crosses were out here in the woods. 

We got home Saturday night on the 7th.  

Rare family photo taken at the VFW family picnic. 

We just swore in to the VFW this gentleman who is 99 years old and was at Normandy on D-Day.  

Such an honor to meet him! 

It's officially Spooky Season! 

I put this guy & the sign out first, then I've been gradually adding more here & there. 

Actual set up will happen this weekend (if I can hold out that long!)

I got my Disco Ball Skeleton!  So excited!

Yesterday was Exhumation Day, when we dug the big skeletons out of the garage. 

They hang from the rafters in the back corner and we have to move 1000 boxes & totes to get to them. 

Now my patio is crowded! 

I also have a box of smaller critter skeletons.  The agenda for this week is...

 

1. Take the grandkids to the apple orchard with their daycare on Wednesday.  The Spawn has to work at said daycare so I get to go with them!

2. Get the smaller critter skeletons & fence out of the shed. 

3. Get the blowmolds out of the add-on behind the garage and get them cleaned up and their lights tested. 

4. Have the Spouse help me drag the shack out to the front yard.  He designed it to be easy to store but the darn thing weighs a ton and soon we're going to have to figure out an easier way to transport it other than by hand! 

Anyhooo, that's all the excitement around here. 

I signed up to do the Countdown to Halloween over on my other blog so I'll be concentrating more on that for the foreseeable future.  38 days until Halloween and I already feel behind!

 

I'm on vacation!

I'm currently hanging out in a hotel room in Petoskey, MI!

The Spouse and I have this whole week off but didn't really have any plans.  So we left home yesterday (Wednesday) and will be hanging out here until Saturday.  Just to have some time together and to get away from home. We love the grandkids, but they are a double handful!  

We went and checked out some state parks today, just sat there on the shores of Lake Michigan and listened to the waves for a while and then went to visit one of his buddy's parents and had dinner with them. 

We didn't realize you can see the Mackinac Bridge from Wilderness State Park.

It supposed to be a lot cooler tomorrow, so we'll figure out what we want to do then!

August 11 was Michigan Day at the VFW's National Home in Eaton Rapids, MI. 9 or so of us from my post carpooled out there and got to have lunch and take tours of the facility.   It basically started out 99 years ago as a place for war widows & orphans could stay until they got back on their feet.  

Up until the 1990s, once kids turned 14, they would become part of the fire department!  They even bought their first fire truck using Betty Crocker Box Tops!

Challenge coins

Commander was actually posing here, not actually using the potty.

We all thought it was funny, the president of our auxiliary didn't think so.  Pppth!

In the winter, this is the Cootie plow.

So I mentioned in my last post about the Spouse having a box truck back onto the hood of his car.  

It only took the police dept a month to get his accident report online so he could see it.  Once he got that and dealt with insurance, he was able to car shop!

We drove it up here to Petoskey and it's very nice.

My birthday was the 29th - check out the pretty flowers I was sent at work!

Love those multi-colors!

I got these from my boss at work.  

That red velvet cake was amazing!

Walter my Work Skeleton enjoyed the first nutty pumpkin iced coffee of the season.

Speaking of....

Once we get home, I'll have to start thinking about digging all the skeletons out of the garage and various other things from their hidey-holes.  

The current project is repainting headstones.  The Spawn took it upon herself to repaint the epitaphs. 

I have one more headstone that I need to make and I'm also going to paint the cemetery sign.

I finally got my unicorn!!  

Last year I named my mini pony from Tractor Supply ThumbTac (because my full sized horse is ZipTie and the pony is DucTape)  I think ThumbTac is more appropriate here. 

Of course, there's been plenty of sickness from the kids being at daycare. 

I hurt my knee 2 weeks ago and spent most of Saturday with it elevated and LittleMan wasn't feeling well.  He came to snuggle with me and watch videos on my phone... until he crashed. 

I love how Rusty is squeezed in between us.  

So on Labor Day, we went to the Detroit Zoo.  

It was a gorgeous day, low 70s.

Obligatory photo in front of the fountain. 

This tiger was napping like a typical cat right in front of the glass!

Tuesday morning we met my Mom & brother for breakfast, (at a place called Biscuits & Gravy! so we had to try some)  then we made sure to hit the grocery store to make sure there were enough fruit snacks to last the little fruit snack monsters for the few days we'll be gone. 

We found Jesus while at Meijers!

Titles are tough!

For some reason I've always had troubles with blog titles!  

I guess it's because I have too many topics in each post.  

I worked from home on July 5 - the WFH supervisor was much more attentive to me than she is with the Spouse.  And of course I made sure to lock my keyboard whenever I got up and the one time I didn't is when she decided to get onto the keyboard and curl up into a kitty loaf.  It's like she knows!

And she's managed to unmute a zoom meeting before, too.

My SAR team was called out on a search recently to find a missing 9 year old non-verbal, autistic boy.  It was a slow law enforcement day, since the Macomb County Sheriff was there along with the county dive team, Oakland County sent over their helicopter,  Michigan State Police had a few troopers there, nearby town of Metamora sent over their drone team and then easily 12 of my team eventually ended up there.   

One of our K9s found the boy, safe & sound.  

So professional!

I ran home after work to change and then get to the scene as quick as I could.  I literally was just signing in at our staging area when I heard the call come in over the radio that he'd been found.  Go figure!  But I got to see the mom's reaction as she ran down the driveway and got to hear both her and the Sheriff say a few words of appreciation. 

We were invited to a county Board of Commissioners meeting to be recognized. 

The family had only moved to the area about 2 months prior and they were so appreciative to everyone who had volunteered time and resources to help look for their little boy. 

July 8 was mine & the Spouse's 18th wedding anniversary!

We look forward to going to get his & hers pedicures every year.

We're going to go again in the fall.  We like getting happy feets! 

He's so funny that he always gets me a "traditional" gift.  For 18, its actually porcelain, but looking deeper, the traditional gem is Tiger's Eye. 

He got me a Tiger's Eye skull - 

Because he knows me so well! 

He also always sends me flowers at work - the appropriate number of carnations (my favorites) and one red rose. 

In super good news - the Spawn is currently looking for a place of her own!  

It's really tough nowadays to find a place to live!  She's looking at mobile homes so the kids are less likely to bother neighbors - and just about any place around here costs $1400 per month to rent.  She could get away with a 2 bedroom right now but will need a 3 bedroom soon.  The kids are 4 1/2 & almost 3.  I went with her last weekend to look at a couple and the guy in the trailer park office asked her if she'd considered buying a place?  It brings the price down to well in her price range so that's a definite consideration, as long as she doesn't need a co-signer.  We have a couple more parks to go check out next weekend.  

Send thoughts & prayers & good wishes that everything works out! 

Mine & the Spouse's sanity depends on it! 

Speaking of the Spouse's sanity - last weekend he was leaving to go to Arkansas and some idiot in a box truck making a delivery missed their stop and instead of turning around like a smart person would - the idiot decided to stop and BACK UP down a main road!!!   Thankfully he was OK.   He limped his poor car home and got a rental.  This is a similar to the way I got a new car last year (except I was rear-ended and pushed into another vehicle), so we really didn't want to do this again!!  

LittleMan didn't even notice that this blanket on my bed was moving, until a paw stuck out! 

OMG, 100 days until Halloween! 

I seriously need intervention. 

I pre-ordered a 3' tall disco ball skeleton from Party City.

I also pre-ordered a racoon and unicorn skeleton from Oriental Trading- they're all due in the first week of August or so. 

I ordered Larry (below - on the right, now buddies with Chuck) from JoAnn Fabric's - which I was happy to find out that they offer a military discount!  So that + sale + coupon made him very reasonably priced (don't get me started on JoAnn's prices - they're insane!!)

I went to pick Larry up and of course had to look at the rest of their H'ween stuff. 

OMG - DONKEY!

Grab.

Then I saw on FB that Target had their H'ween stuff live.  

Such a quality packing job! 

I ordered this guy before I saw Larry at JoAnn's.  

He's only 2' tall. 

But they have penguins!!!!

The Spouse likes penguins so I don't feel guilty about ordering 3 (even if one got decapitated in the box)

And then I got a FB message from a cousin who I don't talk to very often - usually when I get random messages like that, it'll be something cheesy that I've seen 100 times already.  Not this time! 

Oooooooooo Tractor Supply!

I posted last year on my other blog about My Cow Quest and that was posted August 9.  So TSC is starting a lot earlier this year! 

I've already seen where they have a 6' tall chicken skeleton - and I already have a small flock of 1' chickens - I may have said "oh my!!" when I saw they have 2 different 3' chickens!

^ ^  This is a definite possibility. ^ ^ 

Anyhoo. I need to control myself since I've commented to myself the last couple years that I need to ease back on the skeletons since my cemetery is getting rather full.  Then I go buy more! 

At least I didn't get the otter from Target, too!