Month: May 2015
Past Tense Country Store 2015
We actually found out about this place in a Halloween Forum because they sell Halloween year round. Its located in Lapeer MI and is a little over an hour drive from where we live. Its called “Past Tense” and consists of an Antique and Craft store, a Cider Mill Restaurant, and a General Store that is huge. The General Store has several sections including Christmas, Halloween, Floral, Greenhouse, and just about everything else that you can think of. Mom enjoyed the crafts and antiques, James enjoyed the Christmas and Halloween, and Dad enjoyed everything. A great outing on a rainy Saturday and a real fun place to visit just off US 24 in Lapeer.
Memorial Day 2015
What has slowly become a tradition for us on Memorial Day is the visit to the cemetery. On the surface that might not sound that exciting but on Pennsylvania and Middlebelt there is a big Flea Market that we stop off at that is right on the way. After the Flea Market we go to the cemetery and if we were unable to put flowers up on Mothers day we do it on Memorial Day. However since we did get flowers on the graves for Mothers day we just made sure the flags were present. Last year they missed Uncle Raymond who died in WW2 and we called and this year he got a big flag (James brought a little flag just in case). Uncle Raymonds grave has not yet been raised and we had to clean it off again, hopefully they will take care of it sinking soon. James’ Grandfather Kleiber did not have a flag on his grave because he does not have his rank on the grave, in hindsight we probably should have put the flag brought for Raymond on his site, we’ll make a note of that next year to bring more flags, they are inexpensive.
The Flea Market had something for everyone, James found a 1924 National Geographic that he did not have (He keeps an inventory at http://www.thekleibers.com/inventory.html so he can check what he has when away from home), Mom found several paintings that she liked, and Dad found a “monster” made out of metal that holds Halloween candy.
The rest of the weekend was spent barbecuing and swimming. Lots of fun.
James Swimming Pool 2015
We are all set for summer now, its official – the pool is up! Last year we had to wait until James finished school to see if he would get his swimming pool or not. This year he already had it so we put it back up and James (with a little sunscreen) was relaxing in his pool in no time.
Prior to getting the pool up we tried leveling the ground beneath it with 18 bags of soil and we have the water level from the highest point to the lowest point at about 1 inch which is better than last year. James worked very hard leveling the dirt and did a real fine job.
It seems each year we are adding dirt to the backyard, must be gravity at work.
Mothers Day 2015
The day started off by getting Aunt Peg’s phone working which got us off to a little late start but we managed to catch up and have a lot of fun. First stop on this sunny Sunday was Memorial cemetery where we put flowers on the family graves in honor of Mothers day. James did the water pouring and Mom did the flowers while Dad took pictures. Of special note were the flowers we put into Loretta Kleibers vase (James grandmother on his fathers side) because these flowers were actually planted by Loretta years ago. There is one spot in the backyard where these flowers she planted still come up every spring and so we thought we would give her flowers she planted from her own garden. Uncle Raymond’s grave once again had to have some upkeep, we hope to call the cemetery Monday to remind them to give Uncle Raymond a flag since they missed it last year.
After the visit to the cemetery we went to Mary’s favorite place, an antique shop in Flat Rock where Jame’s met a 200 year old cabinet he liked. Finally lunch time rolled around and we went to Red Lobster in Monroe then finished the afternoon shopping at Christmas Tree Shop and Walmart.
