Family Time and Birthdays

I am lucky enough to be "yard parking" at my SIL's while I am here in Port Huron. It was a little iffy when I first got here. The driveway, once it goes around the side of the house is grassed over gravel. I knew I would be fine there out of the way but the problem was that there were a couple of wires running from the corner of the house to a pole at the edge of the property. I am not the greatest at guessing distances but I know exactly how tall my 5th wheel is and it definitely looked higher than the wire. Nadine was pretty sure it would be hard enough to drive around the other side of the house across the backyard and onto the grassed gravel. Fortunately, she was right. Now I will just have to worry about having a long enough dry spell before I leave. She also thinks her neighbor can use a pole to lift the lowest wire up which would make it easy to just drive forward past the side of the house and back onto the regular drive. We shall see once it is time to leave. We have just been spending most of our time visiting, watching kids, etc. I have been out to visit with other family members as well and got to see my niece Julie's remodeled. They took their time paying for it as they went but it was definitely worth the wait as it is just beautiful. They had the cabinets in the kitchen and bathrooms all custom built by a cabinet maker and they are fantastic. It was a very small house which is now a nice, comfortable family size home on some acreage in the country. In addition to all the 4-H projects they do every year, they raise rabbits in a large rabbit house, and also have chickens and some cattle.

We also had a birthday party on Thursday. The birthday girl, Skyleigh, was six and very excited about her big day. First there was a pizza party.

Then there was cake with some of the cousins.

My SIL, Nadine, made the cake and it was so cute. Skyleigh wanted a girl monkey on the cake so Nadine bake and frosted the cake and then used one of those edible transfers on top but the only one available was a boy monkey so she changed it to be a very cute little girl monkey with the magic of decorating tips.

Trisha decorated the family room and the kitchen/breakfast room for the party. Waiting on opening those presents was rough but she made it.

I know the hand is blurred but Skyleigh rarely slows down beyond a blur anyway.

It was a great birthday party and everyone had lots of fun and all the adults survived too.

It's kind of hard for me to post while here so I missed posting any pictures of the longdogs traveling. This is what it looks like when we travel.

Willy taking a break from navigating.

Harley holding down the backseat.

Gretchen curled up on the dog bed on the floor.

They weren't missing too much scenery. I wish I had stock in the "orange barrel" company. They are obviously thriving.

I hope to do some more sightseeing in the area this week. Pray the rain stays away. They get a lot of it here. It's pretty cool for Texans too but we shall survive. I put an extra blanket on the bed last night.