September 30 The Comets Win!!

Saturday: I have a ton of pictures to post from the football game today: Olivet University vs Alfred State College (located somewhere in New York), a home game for Christopher (defense). This is the first college game I have attended at Olivet and I am so glad we were able to get tickets and that Jesse drove us there and back. It was a super nice time--the weather was much warmer than I had anticipated, but beautiful. 

Chris played during the third quarter and felt good about it. Olivet won the game--it wasn't even close--40 to 20.

Pictures to follow ...

The players taking the field:

Chris is #31 and plays DEFENSE:

All of these "sideline" pictures are of Chris's back. I have a few of him when Kaity and I screamed his name so that he would turn around--but the sun was right in his eyes when he turned and those pictures are not worth posting! Pictures of his back turned out just fine!

I enjoyed watching Chris interact with teammates. I'm so glad he has these friendships.

COMETS marching band took the field during Half Time with a tribute to George Gershwin, one of my very favorite American composers!

The game was dominated by Olivet ... they always were in the lead; and for the most part, it wasn't even close.

I hadn't planned on it being so HOT out in that sun on the stands ... I decided to take a walk and look around the area a little bit--and wouldn't you know it? Chris played during the 3rd quarter and I missed seeing him IN the game. So typical of me! Yikes. 

I tried to find some shade, but there wasn't any in view of the game.

I finally returned to the stands for the fourth quarter. It was a good game! It's nice to WIN!

The final score was 40 Olivet and 20 Alfred State. Although when I looked up the game on-line afterwards, they have the score 40/19 for some reason.

Post-game photos follow ...

September 29 We Visit ArtPrize23

Friday:  Ruthanne, Terry and I went downtown this morning to view some of ArtPrize23. This is the last weekend of the exhibits--in fact, they are announcing the ArtPrize winner tonight! 

In order to really experience ArtPrize you have to be able to walk quite a distance--the entries are spread all over downtown in various venues. I decided that it would be best if we could take in as many entries in one location as possible--so it was the DeVos Place Convention Center that we went to. I looked up parking on the internet and found a lot off of Lyon that was supposed to be available and went right under the Center--but we never did find that address and ended up parking at an Ellis lot up the street a bit. 

I didn't take many pictures--it was just too crowded to do a good job with photography. No one wanted to move out of the way ... and who wants pictures of art with strangers pressed up against them? Not I!

The convention center is HUGE. It was fun just to walk around and look at all of the art--some very cool stuff! A few of the "finalists" were here too. Ruthanne and I have similar art tastes. We're not crazy about random sculptures that we can't understand, and abstract paintings are not our favorite either. But there were some very interesting pieces of work that we did see. This little giraffe was beautiful made and sparkled. I couldn't get close enough to read about the artist or what it was made from.

The pictures below is made of SAND !!

We were specifically looking for this entry (below). A woman was baptized at Calvary Church last Sunday morning--with such a wonderful testimony of God's grace in her life--she mentioned being thankful that one of her paintings was accepted into ArtPrize this year! We found it! She does something called "flow painting". This particular painting is of scenery in and around Painted Rocks in the U.P. Her use of color is very beautiful, isn't it?

This entry (below) was actually a series of portraits, perhaps 7 or 8 of them all in a row. If you were close to them, all you could see was squares, like pixels; but as you backed away, the face became more clear. I don't know how people create stuff like this and I admire it.

This exhibit made it into the finals. I didn't get to photograph my favorite one of Stonehenge. You could look inside of it and see the light gradually cast its shadow--just like the real place in England. I thought these were very impressive pieces.

We wound our way through the connecting "bridges" from building to building and finally ended up at the old Pantlind Hotel (now part of the Amway Grand). I wanted to show Ruthanne these gorgeous chandeliers. There were ArtPrize entries in the lobby, but I didn't photograph any of them. Again, it was just too crowded. Lots and lots of school children from elementary age through high school doing assignments based on the art they viewed. 

Outside of the hotel, we walked on Pearl Street to the river. We were going to cross over and see what was going on at the Gerald Ford Museum, but the wind had increased and we were too chilly. We had eaten a very enjoyable lunch at Ucello's and just wondered if we could find more art concentrated at one location.

In the past, there have even been works of art IN THE RIVER--really cool stuff--but we did not see anything today. We took the long walk back to the parking garage and went home! I'm glad we did see at least a little bit of ArtPrize. It's really fun to see what people can create with the gifts God has given them. Some of it is truly weird and I can't figure out what the artist was thinking ... but still ... it's always interesting to try!

September 27 Erin's Antics

Wednesday:  Cal and I "landed" back at his house just before 4:00 this afternoon with him soundly asleep in the back seat after having read a book and listened to pretty music.

Once there, I let him continue to sleep for about 30 minutes out in the car but then carried him inside and tried to wake him up--not as easy as it sounds! Erin helped me and we finally succeeded and then all went down to their basement to play.

I snapped these few pictures of Erin jumping off their slide apparatus:

I took these with my phone. I'm obviously as bad at action photography on my I-phone as I am with my camera. Erin really badly wanted me to catch her mid-air, but I kept missing!

We did have a good time laughing at these "bloopers" though!

Erin was in a very silly mood today. I loved being with her. She is a lot of fun. We talked about her school day, but mostly she wanted to rough-house around; so we did that too.

September 27 Cal is surprised

Wednesday:  I was greeted at pre-school this morning with a jumping-up-and-down little person calling out my name: "Gamma! Gamma!" What a nice way to greet me, dear!

Little Cal sure was surprised with all of the changes at my little house this week. He's such a dear little one and I was unsure how he would react ... but he was a trooper, and took to the whole thing very happily.

The lighthouse quilts didn't come until later in the day, so Cal hasn't seen those yet--but he really enjoyed playing in the spare room. We got out a few toys at a time and had so much fun. Cal really liked how soft the rug is. I told him it was supposed to remind us of water--at which he looked rather skeptical (!!).

Cal also liked the new window seats in my "dining room". I got out his favorite cars and lined the window sill with those ...

Cal invited Babies Bonnie and Jesus to lunch again today. He was super pleased that they had new baby bottles, especially the orange juice ones.

Cal played quite a bit with the train layout today. He makes cute sound effects (just like Brendan used to do) with the trains "chugging" ... he crashes trains a LOT more than Brendan ever did--but every child is different! Cal is actually delighted in huge train wrecks.

But he can play seriously and orderly too when he chooses. I love to watch him play.

This little face! Look at those kissable cheeks. So thankful Cal still enjoys a good cuddle. He's so soft and warm.

We also played with a few of my dinosaur magnets today. Cal decided we should fly the Pterodactyl and Pteranodon all over the house. "Come on, Gamma! You take the Pteranodon and I'll take the Gar-a-gac-til!" Okay, Cal. Anything you want ... and we DID! I had a tiny bit of trouble getting Cal to leave my house today ... he said it was NOT time yet and insisted that we stay. I finally hefted him into my arms and out we went!

September 26 Finished Spare Room!

Monday through Wednesday:  Finally!!! When I moved into my little Beach House back in 2012, I never really used the "spare room" as a second bedroom. Why? Well ... I didn't have any extra beds to put in it ... AND I had too many toys! I figured I would just use it as a TOY ROOM until I figured out what to do with it. 

Years went by and I never really changed anything in that little room. It remained a toy room and it was handy to have it ... but it never felt like a REAL room. I stored extra "stuff" in the closets back there, etc. and it was just a catch-all kind of room.

I had wanted to make it a nice room when Emma moved in--to make it more "homey" for her; but she didn't seem to want me to do that. She had her double bed in there and I cleared out a few drawers in the dresser that was in there for her use, and I emptied out (as much as possible) one of the closets so that she could use it for storage. But ... it wasn't pretty. Besides, Belle's litter box had to be in that room so that the little kids wouldn't "get into it" and also I didn't want to deal with it in any way, shape or form (the litter box). 

But Emma moved out a few weeks ago now. I miss her. I hope she is doing well. I hope she makes good decisions with buying a house and who she will share the house with, etc. I love her very much.

I decided to make the second bedroom into a SECOND BEDROOM (duh!). Why not put bunk beds back there? How would I decorate it? Like a little kid's place, or ... why not continue the nautical theme I love so much? So, my brain got to working on the possibilities and I want to show you how it turned out. 

I was super pleased that the bunk beds arrived exactly when they said! Wayfair shipped them in ONE box, and it arrived Monday afternoon. The box weighed close to 100 pounds, so Terry came over and we tried to lift it into the house together. The delivery man had placed the box on the side of my porch stairway. After an initial attempt to lift it, Terry had the great idea to open the box and take separate parts of the bed inside instead of lifting the entire thing in one box. So, that's what we did! Oh my! I should have taken a picture of all of the parts strewn across the main room of my little house!

On Tuesday, Ruthanne and Terry came over at about 10:30 in the morning and we all worked on assembling the beds. Most of the work was accomplished by Terry. Ruthanne and I simply handed pieces or held things in place as they were being attached. The instructions/directions were not the best--thankfully, Terry is an engineer and understands picture directions far easier than either Ruthanne or I do.

The lighthouse quilts arrived Tuesday afternoon! They hadn't promised them until Friday, at the earliest, and even said it might be as late as mid-October before they would show up. I LOVE them!

These pictures did not post in the correct order (obviously). Some were taken BEFORE the beds were put together, and some afterwards ... but no matter. 

The beds were packaged amazingly, as well as the mattresses! It was crazy getting it all put together, and I never would have accomplished this in any way, shape, or form without Ruthanne and Terry.

Here is the finished product: Aren't the quilts SO beautiful?!?!?!?

The room reminds me of the inside of a ship. I love ships! I love anything to do with boats and lighthouses and waves and water ...

I organized all of the toys ... Cal is going to flip out when he sees this!