The Real Fall Getaway

Thanks for your patience in getting this post ready...it is a pain to post via the ipad because my fingers end up cramping up.
Last Thursday I went with Mom and Dad up to Grandma Chocolate's house to get some boxes ready for donation and do a last look over to see if there was anything else we wanted. We came back here for lunch - reheats from Wednesday night. Ellie had a game on Thursday night. They won 3/4 games they played. Ellie had another string of repeat points. Rob took the kids to Dengeo's for dinner afterwards and I went to school for Nick's conference. I knew some interesting things before I got there...Nick came off the bus with the news that Mrs. Berkowitz would be returning something of his to me...his pocket knife. Yup, it magically slipped into his pocket and he took it to school, he also handed it over to the supervisor at lunch. His conference went well and the pocket knife was less of an issue than I thought.
Friday was a long day. It was homecoming at Niles North. After the kids got home from school we quickly got ready for the parade and game. The parade was cute but suprememly shortened route (around the school and onto the track). The game sort of stunk...we lost. There were fireworks after the game which sort of lessened the blow. Rob was part of the unveiling of the new spirit stick and pulled something in his leg...he can't walk real well.
Saturday morning we were up and out early. We drove to Dearborn, Michigan for a weekend getaway. We stopped for lunch in Kalamazoo and were able to get to the hotel and checked in by 4PM. We had evening plans at Greenfield Village. They had a special Halloween event. We all dressed up and trick or treated around the village. It was magical, there were over 1,000 pumpkins that made a path around the park. Nick had another tooth that was hanging by a string and actively gushing blood. He didn't want to eat anything and it was annoying him but he was nervous about the tooth fairy finding us in Michigan.
Sunday morning after breakfast Nick pulled his tooth out. Although it did bleed a bit, he was at least able to eat again. We did some thrifting on our way to the Village. Found a great thrift chain up there and some real good bargains. We got to the village a bit before lunchtime. We split up, boys and girls. Ellie and I went and walked around the park while Nick and Rob took the train around the village and stayed at the roundhouse. Ellie got to be the apprentice at the print shop again. We went to Mexicantown after we left. I had read there were some good restaurants there. We went to the Panederia for some sweets and then across the street for a late lunch. It was delicious food and they were decorated for Dia de los Muertos. Ellie and I walked around the area and went into a couple of the shops after. We went back to the hotel and went swimming for a bit. We got the kids to sleep early since we had a few late nights.
Monday we traveled from Detroit to the cottage. We stopped in East Lansing to treat ourselves to some ince cream from the MSU Dairy. It was delicious. They had the Big Ten flavors...Ohio Buckeye was a favorite of most. It was very tasty and I would highly recommend it if you are near there. We took the scenic back roads to the cottage...took us double the time but it was beautiful fall foliage. We stopped off at Crane's and picked apples. There trees were still loaded and the apples were so sweet. It was pretty cool, we were able to drive our car right to the row we wanted to pick from. We got to the cottage in the late afternoon. We got the heaters on and then went into town to do our final recycling haul. We got back just in time to see the last sunset of the season. I think there were only about 6 families in the whole park. I made a mistake of not saving my wine for right before bed and when I finally went upstairs it took about 3 hours to fall asleep.
We all slept in this morning. Ellie and I were making pancakes when I went to wash my hands and realized the water was not flowing. I guess when they say the water is turned off on the 15th, it means the first thing in the morning. Rob was able to get a couple pails of water from the pump out front to finish dishes and flush the toilets. We cleaned up and got the car packed and headed out. We stopped off for an ice cream treat but needed to got to Bubble's because Oink's was closed. We got home in time for me to pack up my ebay items that sold over the weekend and for Sandra to pick them up. We set up our indoor Halloween and I made tacos for dinner. We have all showered and are clean and warm.
I have a handful of friends and family that need some positive thoughts right now. Visualizing my healthy and continually healing body and the new normal, Tree