A great day for football as Michigan beat Penn State (at Penn State) and Michigan State beat Ohio State (at Ohio State). Next week the opponents switch and MSU will play Penn State (at home) and Michigan will play Ohio State (at home). If MSU wins they are the Big Ten East Champs but if they lose the winner of the Michigan/Ohio game will be Champs. Pretty much the whole day it was raining and snowing and the next morning we were left with a pretty nice site with everything having a white outline to it as only Mother Nature can do. The only concern is the weight on some of the power lines but so far the lines have been holding up pretty well. These pics were taken the next morning.
Category: Neighborhood
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First Snowfall of the Season on Big Football Saturday 2015
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Best Decorated Halloween Homes 2015
We do this every few years and take pics of some of our favorite Halloween homes. All of these are a few blocks from James and all are unique in one way or another. There are many many more decorated homes but we only have space to put up a few of our favorites. These homes look very good in the daylight so you have to assume they look great at night. The neighborhood we live in has always been very active in decorating for every Holiday, guess we are just lucky. One of our favorites is the skeleton tree where all the skeletons are made out of gallon milk jugs. -
Snow Day 2015
The midwest got clobbered on Super Sunday (also known as Feb 1st) with about 17″ of snow in one of the largest one day snow falls in our history. James and Dad both shoveled snow multiple times while waiting for the game to come on. We were notified that Jame’s school was closed around 5pm so we had no problem letting James stay up for the entire game, although he was disappointed in the outcome.We started shoveling snow a little after 7am Monday and were surprised to see the streets already plowed. By noon most of the streets were clear and it was business as usual. Hopefully James will not have too many more snow days this year, but it was ground hog day and the ground hog saw its shadow so it certainly does look like six more weeks of winter.
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First Snow of 2015
The first snowfall of the year came during the Lions playoff game against the Dallas Cowboys. Unfortunately the Lions lost despite leading until about 2 minutes to go, but we finally got to see how our snowmen display looks before being put away for the season. James helped with the snow and shoveled about half of the sidewalk while Dad took these pictures. It’s suppose to snow a few more times this week but hopefully they will be light like it was today (everyone still remembers the harshness of last winter). While it wasn’t a white Christmas we can’t say we didn’t get any snow this Holiday season.Unfortunately it was the Lions out of the playoffs that signified the end of the Christmas/New Year Holiday (24-20), its back to school for James and back to work for everyone else.
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Lunar Eclipse 2014
The family enjoyed the lunar eclipse which was very well publicized and easy to see due to the nice clear weather in October. It was visible from North America, parts of Australia, China and Japan. Parts of South Asia, and Eastern Europe saw a partial eclipse.Taking pictures of this was not easy as you can tell, but we tried. James also has a telescope that came in handy during this time period, but does not have the capability of allowing us to photograph the images.
All in all a very fun experience that the whole family enjoyed. Anything having to do with the moon in October has to be enjoyed by this family.
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Great Flood of 2014
James kept telling us a big storm was coming and boy was he right. After one of the most brutal winters in history no one expected to see a summer storm which would dump the most water on us in one 24 hour period in the last 100 years (1925 is the record).The rain started late morning and continued for about 8-10 hours straight. Twice dad had to go out and clear gutters on the house during the down pour.
When it was all over, over 4000 cars were stuck in flood waters and billions of dollars in flood damage occurred. Fortunately for us, we did ok, although the water got almost up to the sidewalk on our street before subsiding. A day or two later the Governor flew over the area and declared us a disaster area. While we did ok, many of our neighbors lost much in the flood as many basements (and some houses) were under several feet of water. We hope the insurance companies do their best to help our neighbors in their time of need.
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Full Rainbow Over The House
James wants to be a weather man when he gets older so naturally he is fascinated with weather, both good and bad weather. Jame’s favorite weather is a rainbow and it is rare that he see’s a full rainbow (a rainbow that goes 180 degrees across the horizon, most only go 90 degrees) and its even rarer that he see’s a full rainbow right smack dab over his own house.James was “johnny on the spot” as soon as he spotted it hovering over the garage in the back yard. According to our calculations there should be a pot of gold on Pardee and/or Vassar as that appeared to be where the rainbow started and ended.
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Bad Omen on Happy Meal Day 2014
James still likes McDonald’s Happy Meals. He still gets the smallest one they have since they are probably not that healthy, but they usually are Happy! James enjoys the nuggets and dips them in ranch dressing.Not a whole lot can go wrong while you are waiting at the drive thru at McDonalds, but things got scary when we realized the customer ahead of us was driving a hearse.
Actually the hearse was a promotional vehicle for a Halloween event and the owners were just taking it out for a summer spin to keep it in running shape.
Despite that, the initial reaction of seeing a hearse in front of you at the drive thru is still an unsettling experience for most, but James took it in stride and wanted to know why we didn’t drive around in a hearse.
At least James got his Happy meal ok
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Garage Sale 2014
We decided to try our hands at another garage sale. Jame’s had outgrown a bunch of toys and mom and dad needed to make some room in the house. We did not have a garage sale for two years so we were due.While the garage sale did ok, the gist of this post has to do with who visited the garage sale. The first day, Dynamo the Clown stopped by and bought a few things on the way to a show on Pelham street. We thought that took the cake, but the very next day a family showed up in a golf cart.
All in all, the garage sale was a success and we are thinking about possibly having another one in mid to late September to help us make room for Halloween, if needed. I can’t wait to see who will visit us then.
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Finally, The Official End Of Winter 2014
The winter of 2014 was record setting not only for snow fall but also for the extreme cold brought about by the new buzz word – Polar Vortex. This has to be as close to living inside a freezer as possible. From a driving perspective we have seen every type of driving hazard (white out, snow, sleet, freezing rain, etc) sometimes on the same day, we have gone weeks without dipping above freezing (temperature in the 30’s is a heat wave) and for the first time in my life I noticed frost on the inside windows one extremely cold day in January.I think everyone is disappointed with the intensity of this winter and trying to make the best of it. Warm days are ahead and I don’t think you will hear any complaints from the people of Michigan once the hot weather hits.
I am posting these pictures so that I never complain about the heat or humidity during the summer months again.
