Princess Parades (picture heavy post...)

So this last Monday I got into a mood of wanting to deep clean some rooms in my house and just after I had finished cleaning up 2 rooms, my daughter, Ellie came up to me carrying a dress that I had put into a drawer for dressing up. She wanted me to put it on her. Well this is the first time either of my girls has wanted to "dress up". I was pretty happy about this. So I decided I could take a break and take some pictures of my girls and have a little fun watching them dress up.

First Ellie was a bit grumpy even though she is the one who wanted to get dressed in the dress... It was nap time when she brought me the dress... but I figured we could have a little fun until she had to go down for her nap. So she was grumpy for a little while and even pulling out the camera she just was grumpy and crying. But I think I still got some cute pics of her. And Audrey! So for your viewing pleasure...

 Ellie and QQ the cat...

 I just thought this was a fun action :)

What on earth is this stuff covering my hands!?!

 Audrey wanted to join in on the fun...

 Ellie is still not sure this is fun...

 And here she realized that this was an activity she likes to do...

 Now smiling for the camera!

 Time for the fun to begin!

 Audrey got her "Princess" dress on

 Parading around the table

 

 Ellie is the Princess Superhero!!!

 

 Some how we tricked her into coming into her bedroom...

And then we ended where we began with tears and nap time... 

I love my girls they bring me so much joy :)

And yes I still had plenty of time to clean and I got everything done that I really wanted to get done :)

Michigan Adventures part 3

This next video is going to be a long one. It is, however, a condensed version of the drive from Aunt Karlene's to Howse's Candy Haus in Harbor Springs. We didn't have any deadlines this day so we meandered around and stopped to see a few things. Thought about genealogy, even tried to do some, though that didn't end up working. We did a little sight seeing, and a lot of reminiscing. I caught Grandpa being a tease from time to time. I suppose you could say this video here is a good view of how the trip went for us in the car. We teased, we chatted, we just watched, and we kept driving... :) (sorry if I seem to be rambling, my head seems to be fuzzy from the allergies I have right at this moment...) I hope you enjoy this next video. :)

Michigan Adventures Part 1 extended...

Okay so this is the video and most of the pictures I took on the drive before we arrived at Aunt Karlene's before the camera batteries died. So it is an extension of the Part 1 blog post.

It should be pretty self explanatory. Enjoy!

Michigan Adventures part 2

After a wonderful night's sleep and a fairly good snow storm... I think there was like 6-8 inches on my car in the morning. We decided that we wanted to go walk out on the ice of lake Michigan and look for ice caves. Sounds like a wonderful plan, right? Well at least for us it sounded pretty awesome. And I wasn't about to not take this adventure... I live in Utah, how many chances will I get to walk on the ice of one of the Great Lakes? Besides I have always kind of wanted to do something like this. :)

If Stu can fix the noise of the wind then I will change the video... I suppose you could say it is still in the editing phase. Anyway, I think that video kind of speaks for itself. This next video is from on the way back to the house. In it you can see the woods that they live in and how much snow was dropped by the snowstorm, after we stopped for the night. Also it has quite a bit of background noise as Uncle Denny was fixing his snow blower.

Michigan adventures part 1

Here is a video of our first day in Michigan this last February... I did tell you more was to come :) During the drive in Michigan down by the Illinois border it started raining. As we drove north the rain started to freeze, the roads progressively got slushier, and finally turned very snowy. It got cold fast and got snowy fast... we only slid, kind of, off the road once thanks to my Grandpa driving. He has much more experience driving in Michigan snow than I do. We counted a total of 10 cars (I believe) off the road a few tipped over and 1 flipped all the way over. All this while the snow melted and then froze to our windshield. We had to pull over a few times and scrape the ice off of the windshield.(When we got to Harbor Springs we were informed that there had been a 50 car pile up on the road we had been driving on, I think it was probably behind us.) In any case we stopped at my Grandpa's Sister's house (Aunt Karlene), and she and her husband were gracious enough to let us stay the night and wait out the storm.

I had never met my Aunt Karlene and I instantly felt comfortable with her. When I first walked in to her house and saw her I felt like I was looking at my Great Grandma (her mom). She told us that she knows that she looks like her mom. So I don't feel to bad saying that. But anyway, I felt like she could have been my Grandma. She and her husband were both very friendly. And it was wonderful to stay in their home. I can't even explain how instantly at ease I felt in their house and how completely comfortable I felt there as well. I can only hope that I can make my own home as comfortable, calm, and inviting as their home was to me. Their house is tucked back into the woods in Northern Michigan and right across the street from their driveway is an entrance to the beach and Lake Michigan. I will leave you here and post more videos later.

:)