A Good Neighbor- Nay, A GREAT Neighbor

First off- I am going to acknowledge the fact that I spelled neighbor without the canadian 'u'. I greatly dislike the additional 'U' that we as Canadians are expected to add into words such as neighbor and color. They serve no purpose and therefore I never add them. Whew- got that off my chest- now I feel better. Maybe I will start evaluating each word individually and deleting unnecessary letters... I'l kep u postd n my prgres.

We have good neighbors. We have been blessed with good neighbors throughout our married life. Except the pot smoking, yelling upstairs neighbors we had when we were first married. But minus those first 6 months we have been blessed with Kade and Sarah for 3 ish years and now for the last 3 years we have had Clark and Jayne. Thanks for being so good to us!!!

I had never sat down to evaluate our 'neighborly goodness level' until recently....

And judging from this picture I would say we rank pretty high.
Anyone care to disagree?

Just to paint the picture for you-
Its 7:30 am.
It is raining like nobody's business.
The hardest rain and wind we have had all year.
It was actually pretty neat to see. It was so warm but a crazy- I would even call it hurricane-like- rain. You know without the actual hurricane.
Our whole household is up- of course- and we hear a honking.
A constant car horn honk. Not intermittent- constant.
We have only ever heard this honk one other time- and it was Clark and Jayne's car about a year and a half ago at 6 am.
At least it was courteous this time and waited until 7:30 am.
But they fixed that- it couldn't be there car again? Right?
And then it stopped.
Phew.
Then it began again.
This time I looked outside.
And there was Clark in his dress pants, shirt, and tie trying to fix his car honk.
I tell Justin.
He rushes down the stairs exclaiming 'I need to help him!'
Quickly (in record time actually) we found an umbrella and a raincoat-ish jacket and Justin braved the elements to help a friend.
What a great guy.
What a great neighbor.
I grabbed our camera- this was something that needed to be documented.
Here they were- dressed for clinic- out in the crazy rain with a simple umbrella to keep them dry.
It didn't really do its job.
I wish I had an after picture of them- but alas, my description will just have to do.
They were dripping.
It was incredible.
Justin had to change every piece of clothing.
We now know what it means to be soaken through and through.
(and by we I mean Justin)
And what it means to be a good neighbor.
Even if it means holding a flimsy umbrella during a torrential downpour while your friend fixes a really annoying car honk.
What will we ever do without Clark and Jayne.
Maybe we will just have to be neighbors for life.
You guys would like that- right?

A Cookie A Day...

My new motto...
A cookie a day-
is a GOOD thing.
At least that is what I tell myself.
I mean I need to use up all my butter and sugar and flour somehow right?
I do move in about a month.
I don't want it all to go to waste.
So I bake.
Well Ruby and I bake.
Noni usually hangs out in the ergo on my back.
His usual place of lodging.
He likes to be in the action- and I like the use of both my hands. Especially when a hot stove, an almost 3 year old and 2 fast spinning metal wisks are involved.
My favorite cookie recipe is one a friend gave me a few years ago.
It is an oatmeal chocolate chip recipe.
The chewy combination of oatmeal, coconut, and milk chocolate chips is too good to pass up.
DELICIOUS.
Ruby my sweet sweet cookie model...

OOOPS. I guess that can happen when you have an almost 3 year old holding a plate of cookies and posing for the camera...They still look good.
Wanna try one??? They're fresh- Five second rule, right?

Mack Attack

 (I love this picture- it just says 'Mackinac Island' to me... Oh, and I want that bike on the right)

We did it- we walked where the Roloff's have walked. We traversed the same trails, saw the same sights and enjoyed the same great scenery. We went to Mackinac Island. And we will do it again- one day. We loved it.
It was a spur of the moment holiday that included a lot of driving- but we were up for the challenge. And, if I do say so myself, we were pretty good at it!
After many hours in the car, a few potty breaks, some crying kids, and a lot of book on tape we made it.
We were greeted by swarms of some unidentifiable bug that has fuzzy antennae.
Well Justin identified them- but I don't really recall the name.

We boarded our ferry

and realized as we started off that we had booked the turbo ferry.  It was the fastest (so the best choice) but also the windiest.  Myers couldn't breath well so we moved down to the lower deck...

Both kids were a little bit happier- and we could actually hear each other.
Ruby kept looking back at the water spray (which was larger than the boat) and calling it a whale-o.
We made it safely to our destination and immediately started our adventure.

We had no time to waste.
Our first stop was the school playground (Ruby's favorite part of the whole trip)
The playground was AMAZING- like nothing I had seen before.
The school was TINY.  Like no modern school I had ever seen before.
After spending some time at the playground it was time to continue on our journey.
SO...
We walked to the grand hotel.

And it was- very grand.
It was magnificent.
The landscaping and view was wonderful.

Ruby couldn't get enough of the flowers...
We loved it.
Too bad we couldn't have afforded the $700 a night- or we would have stayed there...
But alas- it was time to move on.
SO...
We then made our way over to the Fort.
Where we learned all about cannons.

Oh, the innocence of a child...
We spent a bit of time there enjoying the demonstrations and the sites.
We picked up a cute little doll souvenir for Ruby.

Then headed off to arch rock and skull cave.
Arch rock- totally worth it.

Skull cave- not so much.
But fun nonetheless.
This is when we all started to feel the fatigue.
Justin and I were both sick and we were feeling it.
But like I said before- we had no time to waste.

Did I mention that we did A LOT of walking on this trip.  No motorized vehicles allowed...
Noni made sure he got comfortable..

This is when we headed to main street to get some of their famous fudge.
*Interesting side note here- When we were crossing the border at Port Huron our crossing guard happened to be from Mackinac.  Now- this was quite the coincidence since only 5 or so people actually live on the island.-ok slight under-exaggeration- but the fact still remains- quite the coincidence.  He was the one who told us that we needed to get some fudge there.*
We stopped at a couple of sites on the way-

And took a gander at the governor's house where a few of the President's of the Unites States have stayed.
We then took the time to eat.
And shop of course.
We couldn't leave Mackinac Island without some sort of souvenier.
And poor Ruby's doll souvenir had an irreparable accident....

 So we headed out and bought everyone their very own Mackinac Island shirt and Ruby a new STUFFED horsie...

She was happy.  Note to self- no more porcelain head dolls... not worth the heartache.
By that time it was time for out weary bones to catch the last ferry of the night back to the main land.
We quickly had some potty breaks and bought some delicious chocolate and boarded our ferry.

Happy and content.
Mackinac Island is true magic.
We want to live there.


The next day in memory of our great trip to Mackinac- we all wore our tourist shirts- did some short exploring and took the time to cross the Mackinac Bridge.

It spans from Mackinaw City to St. Ignace and is the third longest suspension bridge in the WORLD.
The total length of the bridge is 26,372 feet.
It was quite the site to see and a great way to end our trip and head home.
We, of course, stopped and ate at Fuddruckers on the way home and stayed in Rochester Michigan so we could enjoy the shopping and the memories there one last time...

FLO-RIDA

I have kept you all in anticipation long enough- here is the much awaited florida post.
Florida was everything we could have ever wished it would be- it was wonderful! Warm, sunny, disney-esk, and fun. I want to go back- today. If only we had endless money and no other commitments....
Since it has been so long I figured the best way to remember Florida would be through a picture montage. So here you are! Enjoy!

We ate ice cream and every possible dessert from a kitchen sink!

Luckily Clark and Jayne and Ainsley were there to help us- we couldn't have done it without you.


We swam... In the hugest pool I have ever seen. It was wonderful!
Noni didn't swim- too sunny for a 3 month old without sunscreen- plus we tried at the other pool and he just wasn't that into it. He would rather sleep.
So Justin and I took turns. When I wasn't swimming I got to hang out with this guy...
We went to Disney World- of course. You know me- I wouldn't miss the Disney Magic. Despite what you may think- there is a Myers under that hat!
We hung out with our good friend Walt...
We attempted the impossible. I thought for sure Jayne would do it- she is the strongest of us all. Look at those pipes! Plus she has the strength of an adult and a little baby. She did her best- we can't deny that.
We played.


We carried. It is hard to tell but I am carrying both Ruby and Noni. Justin had to get Shandelle a GPS that she forgot in our van- and Ruby got scared while he was gone... You know Disney a lot of oversized cartoon characters- it can be a scary place for a 2.5 yr old... So in return my arms were put to the test. We survived.

We played with friends. Just a shout out to Shandelle- thanks for coming and getting us cheap tickets!! Those two guys in the back- not part of our group... Noni is there- I promise- he`s just asleep in the stroller.

And we met the celebs-
Introducing Belle...
And CinderellaSnowhite...

Pocahontas- Not Ruby's favorite- as you can see Penguin got the brunt of it.
Mickey and Minnie were the worst meeting we had. Not the actual minnie and mickey they were great, but- Ruby was scared and Noni was crying and Justin was returning a GPS so he wasn't there. It was NOT a good combo. But I managed to smile through it. Can you see the pure terror in Ruby's body language? It could have been because Mickey insisted on touching her. Not to self- Ruby does not like large mice.
But all was well with Ruby and her favorite princess Aurora....Noni didn't get to see the sun very much... We took this picture to prove that he was actually there...
We made some great memories with friends...
Noni slept through most of the experience...
We tried on the hats...

And we kept cool and looked cool doing it!

It was SO FUN. There isn't much more I can say- I want to go back NOW. I love it there.