The Fast and the Dexterous

What a great, exciting, adventurous, and always on our toes (thanks to Landon being athletic and Eliza being two and very curious) week did the Owens have this last week.

We spent the morning of Memorial Day Monday on the island before hitting the road for home. 

This year we followed the Lake Huron shoreline, taking US Highway 23 from Mackinaw City through Cheboygan, Alpena, Oscoda, Tawas City, and Au Gres before heading inland and catching up with I-75 outside of Standish. We passed through some mighty beautiful territory and watched early spring blooms transform into more mature spring foliage as we made our way south. As we did not get started on the road in earnest from Mackinac until after noon, we still had at least a couple of hours to go by the time we hit major traffic (road construction) near Saginaw.

We opted to stay the night in Birch Run at a Best Western that turns out to have a bit of local history, located as it is where the I-75 ended in the 1960s. We had been blessed with sunny weather through the weekend into Monday afternoon, but we started getting rained on just as we unloaded the car. We stayed in a unique family suite with bunk beds, and the kids (almost) managed to stay the night in their own beds before migrating into ours. Landon appreciated that the hotel had a kids’ play area complete with a kitchen playset and lots of books.

Nice courtyard, too! 

After a hearty breakfast Tuesday morning, we made a quick stop in Frankenmuth to run a couple of errands we didn’t get to on the way up, and then we braved the rain on the way home. The storm let up as we got to the house, so unpacking went OK. Then it was back to work for Mike and back to play for the kids.

Landon has taken to making these creative geometric forms out of colored pencils. 

It was back to work for Mom too on Wednesday. It was a pretty routine day. She took Eliza to speech in the morning, then Landon to gymnastics in the afternoon. Mike and both kids rode to Landon’s early evening baseball game. Landon’s focus tends to wander as the day wears on. Good thing he also has Saturday morning games!

On Thursday, Hallie and Janel took Audrey, Eliza, and Landon up to Westview Orchards for a Moms Club activity. They learned about bees and plants. The weather was warm, but the breeze made the humidity much more bearable.  

These plants would become infamous by the evening. 

They must have really gotten into taking care of their plants, because they spent the afternoon watering their potted geraniums. Unfortunately, a two-year-old watering her plant unsupervised in the bathroom sink meant that all the soil went down the drain and plugged the sink. Dad spent the evening trying to clear it out using both mechanical and chemical means. Finally, he had to just let things set overnight and hope for the best.

Fortunately, the drain did clear out by Friday morning, so Mike did not need to resort to taking the undersink pipes apart or calling a plumber.  While Hallie worked, Mike and the kids spent a little morning time building LEGO airplanes before making a run down to the Honeybee Market and over to Belle Isle to see the Indy cars warm up in preparation for the Chevrolet Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix.

We live close enough to Belle Isle that we can hear the roar of the engines as the cars race, so we were excited to get a closer look. Dad forgot to take his camera phone with him from the car, but what we saw looked a lot like this:

After everyone got home, Hallie caught wind of some yard sales that some friends were hosting near us, and she and Landon headed on over. Boy, did she make quite the haul! We love our friends in the neighborhood who help keep our kids dressed so well.

Hallie had Eliza model a new dress in the afternoon.

We spent a fairly busy Saturday morning first with a baseball game that then a trip up to the St. Clair Shores Junefest, followed by soccer and a return to the Junefest for lunch. The threat of rain and thunderstorms held off, and we had a wonderful time out.  

Mike did some yard work in the afternoon while the kids shot arrows.   

On Sunday we ended up splitting our time. Hallie took the kids to Landon’s first gymnastics recital while Mike attended church. Landon spent a lot of his time sitting in between feats of amazing tumbling. On the ring apparatus, Landon flipped up and around to the oohs and aahs of the crowd. 

Eliza tried to be patient. 

However, Hallie also saw that Landon spent a lot of time sitting. She mentioned that for the next recital, rather than going on a Sunday, Landon might just be able to do the routines one-on-one on a weekday or Saturday with his coach. We want to encourage Landon’s talents, and we wish we had better choices than Sunday sport activities. As it is, Landon doesn’t attend Sunday baseball practice. We appreciate the faith-based leagues, such as Upward Basketball, that encourage Saturday play.  Landon is so proud of his medal that he got Hallie to make him brownies to celebrate when we got home.

The day turned out so pleasant that we took a long walk to cap off the day.