The weather was still cloudy and about 55-65 degrees so it was a very comfortable trip to the island. Once again we took the ferry across, although we did not remember the $35 charge to park. This year we stayed on main street and shopped as we felt it was too “buggy” to go into the woods as there were tons of mayflies flying around.

Stopped at Joann Fudge to get some maple fudge for Mom, plus lots of t shirts for the family at monster tee. We noticed the magic shop was gone, replace by what we think was a jewelry store.

We noticed it was just starting to get busy as this was the Friday of Memorial day. We were happy coming up earlier so we missed most of the tourist who came up for the weekend.
Continue reading “Mackinaw Island 2022” →

After our traditional smelt basket dinner at Audi’s, we went shopping at the tourist traps in Mackinaw city. We saw that the haunted house there was open so we decided to give it a whirl. All three of us went into the house and we all had a great time. The haunted house had some great animatronics and even a talking statue (projection) that gave us an introduction to the house.

Lots of scares in this haunted house and I believe this was the first time any of us had gone through this house (the one on Mackinaw Island is much older and we have done that one several times.

For the record, our favorite scene was the last one with the crazy kid animatronic running around. Continue reading “Haunted House – Mackinaw City 2022” →

Our first visit since before the pandemic was a successful one. It was the day before the Memorial day crowd would show up so we had the city pretty much to ourselves. Lots of shopping for goodies and t-shirts. Once again we stayed at the Holiday Inn Express there and they were still doing construction on something in the lobby (when we were there last time, there was also construction of some kind going on).

The breakfast was great and everyone had a great time in the city. We did notice that all the kite shops seemed to have disappeared which is unfortunate. For dinner we had pizza and wings two days in a row. Thats why its a vacation. Continue reading “Macinaw City 2022” →

We arrived at Mackinaw a little early, our check in time at the hotel was 3pm so we decided to head further North, about 50 minutes, to Saulte Ste Marie which is the Northern end of Michigan and also the Northern end of I75 (which actually starts in Florida).

When we arrived at the locks we saw something we had never seen before, a Viking cruise ship going through the locks. We had seen tankers and every other kind of vessel, but never a cruise ship.

We stopped in at the tourist traps across from the locks (the locks are run by the army corp of engineers and the tourist traps are right across the street). There certainly seemed to be alot of big foot stuff, almost like the official mascot of up north.

A great time was had by all and why not, this was the first place we went to for our honeymoon 19 years ago! Continue reading “Soo Locks – Saulte Ste. Marie 2022” →

A beautiful spring day signified the official end of winter this Mothers day. We took Mom out to eat and then spent time putting flowers on the graves at the cemetery. We noticed that they made repairs to some of the graves but a couple more needed some work. We notified them about it and I am sure they will take care of it.

Mom also enjoyed a visit to her favorite antique store, Motor City Antiques – which is also in Flat Rock along with the cemetery.

As the weather changes in the spring, different flowers pop up from the different bulbs that Mom plants, that way the look of the house changes as we go through the year. Usually we visit a few green houses in the spring to get the right hanging baskets to match the plants already in the ground.

Each spring we go through about 3 bags of mulch in the flower beds as mulch does degrade over time.

The first bulbs to come up in the spring are the tulips, and we have been asked by neighbors if they are real of fake flowers. Some of the tulips alongside the house were planted by James’ Grandma decades ago. Continue reading “Early Spring Landscape 2022” →

We had a very fun Easter this year. This will be the last year using the Easter blow molds as we decided to go with Easter lights next year (blow molds take up too much room in the garage). We added a couple Easter eggs as well but after this year we will be converting those eggs into Halloween eggs for our xenomorph face huggers.

What was notable about this year was the snow we got the next day, surely Spring cannot be far off, can it?

Today we took a break from winter and did a little Halloween fun in February!

Believe it or not, this was our second Halloween break since we rang in the New Year, the other happened quite by accident in January. While Dad was getting his car window repaired he walked across the street to Michaels where low and behold, they were unloading a truck load of Halloween props at 80% off. The manager explained they were on the boat for months and just came in so Dad immediately called Mom who went to other Michaels and picked up some great deals of Halloween .. in January. And best of all, since no one knew about it, there was not a Halloween crowd at all and we had our pick of the litter.

James had college today till 11:30, then we picked him up and took him to the Grand Opening of Crypt Keepers on 14 and Van Dyke. The shop was great and we got several cool items including a Cotton Candy Candice Halloween machine and Mom got several t-shirts. We then went 15 minutes down the road to Gratiot and visited Screamers where we got a coffin shaped wine rack for the 2022 Halloween party.

January and February have traditionally been a time for working on repairs and putting together new items that were purchased after Halloween just to make sure they work. After Halloween we are too busy taking down Halloween and putting up Christmas but January and February, with the cold days and sun setting before 6pm, is an ideal time to do the “grunt” work for our Halloween display.

Below are videos of some of the items that we put together after the first of the year including the Cotton Candy Candice prop we just got at Crypt Keepers.

Continue reading “Halloween Store Grand Opening 2022” →

The New Years celebration began with a bit of a disappointment as Michigan lost its playoff game to Georgia, but considering Michigan was not even ranked when the season began and to end up Big Ten champs, in the playoffs, and a #3 final ranking it was a very great season.

After the football game James took a break and put together a Pizza Puzzle just in time to get the real thing delivered to us.

Once again James welcomed in the New Years with his countdown in front of the television, and this year Hoot joined us as it was the kittens first New Years celebration. In the past, most of our pets did not like New Years due to the fireworks and noisemakers but that did not deter Hoot in the least.

Finally after the New Year was properly counted down, we all went outside to watch the New Years celebration and fireworks. Continue reading “HAPPY NEW YEAR 2022” →

We started opening gifts after breakfast around 9am. James had the most gifts and this year he received many clothes for his College career which is in between semesters right now (James got straight A’s the first semester). He also received many Michigan Wolverine gifts due to their awesome performance against Ohio State and in the Big Ten Championship day. Mom even got a Michigan gift as she got a Harbaugh bobble head (supposedly collectible).

Other fun gifts were a Skull incense burner for Dad that we plan to try out later, along with an awesome Halloween animatronic. We also got a family portrait Southpark style to go with our portrait last year Simpson style. Mom got a talking Tina doll, along with a pair a sun glasses that doubles as headphones as it has awesome speakers built into it. Everyone got lots of clothes so we should be looking sharp for 2022.

Continue reading “Opening Christmas Gifts 2021” →