Keeping promises

I have a very solid rule I try to make everybody keep in this family: don't make a promise you cannot keep. This has brought me into a few tricky situations over the years. Such as when Luca was a toddler and I said "I promise we will buy a giant pumpkin for carving as soon as we see one". Fast forward to Henriette in the local mall with 3 kids an extra kid, Luca sitting in one of those horrible folding strollers and I am carrying shopping bags already. Lo and behold: GIANT pumpkins and 4 pairs of eyes staring at me: "but you always say we have to keep promises!" It was a loooong walk home that day with shopping bags, a pumpkin in a stroller, and Luca running free.......

3 1/2 years ago this young man had his Confirmation in Denmark:

and we gave him the choice of either "big party big present" or " small party travel". He chose small party and a trip to Japan.

And then we moved to Michigan.....

And killed our savings in the process......

And have not had a chance to give him that trip with a constant cloud of bad conscience hanging over our heads because in our family "you do not make promises you cannot keep".

But finally it seems to happen. The other night we got the tickets booked. Ulrik and Kristian will go over spring break in late March. Just in time for cherry flowers. And since Ulrik won't have any nasty tests coming up immediate after spring break this school year (thank you US school system.....), and since Kristian will have 15 days of vacation next year, it will actually work out quite well.

And since this blogpost is about promises! - here comes another one I had to keep this week. Hint: if you promise you daughter she can get her nostril pierced..... well. This is where you end up.... (and yes, piercing store owners are quite skilled at photo bombing apparently)

Back to work......

but not to school quite yet. Sigh.

When we returned from camping I somehow thought there was only 2 weeks left until the kids started school, but I was wrong. 3 weeks to go. We had not signed Luca up for any more summer camps and Teresa had agreed to look after him for a couple of weeks. The deal is that they have 200$ to spend every week and so far they have been eating icecream, gone to Pinball Pete's, made slime at the library, baked cake, and watched movies.

In the meantime Kristian and I get to go to work and fight over who gets to bring the last -ehm - delicious microwave lunch from the freezer..... I won this tasty meal🤢. Beat that Kristian!

And when we get home we let the teens drive:

Kristian is super calm while I am confined to hyperventilating in the backseat. I am still not too fond of driving myself and it takes a lot for me to be in a car with teens in the drivers seat. But even I will eventually get used to it. I guess😳

We try to get as much from these late summer afternoons and nights. Luca has become quite the fishing addict. Here he is fishing from the dock in Bandemeer park:

And here are some recent sky pics:

I just never get tired of the sky in this state (unless it is January and it is super cloudy and grey every freakin' single day).

Homebound

We are heading back south with muddy wet tents packed up. It rained during the night and the sun never really broke the clouds this morning leaving no chance for our stuff to dry. It is amazing how much more dirty everything gets and how much longer it takes.

But we had another good day yesterday where we did not have to go far to find a trail by the river. Some of us walked and walked and walked:

While others went fishing:

And Bailey got even more brave and went in the water (almost) voluntarily until he was knee deep in the water:

But I am SO done camping and ready to go home. Once there is no more clean underwear, you crave real coffee, and there is wet sand in the tent, then it is time to go back.

We are on the road as I type after a pit stop at Michigans best donut store: Cops and donuts.

134 miles to go.

Over and out

More camping (and lavender farms and thunder storms)

We are still camping. And we are still enjoying it - to the point where I have started to maybe some day consider to get a camper......

We have had a "do nothing day" that turned into "go kayaking day", "flip upside down in the hammock day":

And "make Luca clean the bowl he dropped on the ground day" (yes, that can easily extend into a looooooong task when you are 11 years old and think it is super unfair)

We also went spying on Teresa's friends, as many of them are right next door on a local band camp with kids from her high school only:

And after having heard them practice the same part over and over and over and over and........ again, we were quite happy that we stay on the other side of this campground.

Thursday we drove north. And made a stop at my all time favorite store: the Gunzviller's Spirit of the Woods taxidermy store and museum. How can one NOT love this place:

We drove ALL the way to Petoskey and did not stop until we reached Cindy's northern craft store. Where they have yarn that my sister has never seen before😱 And where we made her buy her own birthday present. And where we spent an eternity waiting for her to pet all the skeins in the store - sigh😉

On the way back we took a detour to a lavender farm. We saw the sign on the side of the road and it was amazing:

They had a shop selling everything imaginable with lavender such as lavender soda/dog shampoo/mosquito repellant/tea/honey etc etc. I am not too fond of lavender aroma - especially not in my food, but I did give in and had Luca cut a bundle for soap making:

On the way back the clouds started to look dark and a rather big thunder storm came out way during dinner. The poor dog was terrified and we got to spend quite some time in the car waiting for the storm to pass:

Luckily our tents made it through without leaking, but I have had enough of thunder storms for a while!