Friday Night Photos #124

It has been a whirlwind couple of days up north! I have a ton of pictures, but I'll wait to post some more later so it's not complete overload. These pictures are only from the last couple of days...

The ride to Jeanie and Shawn's is 9-10 hours, so we were in for a long car ride. Jerry and I listened to a good 90's playlist and some podcasts...

...meanwhile, in the backseats, the teens (Noah, Eli, and Eli's girlfriend Ava) slept pretty much the entire way ;)

 

This is the Mackinac Bridge that connects the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan. It's actually five miles long! This is a little past the halfway point to Jeanie's.

Almost as soon as we arrived, Noah wanted to set up a hammock he'd just bought. His hammock is as easy to set up as mine, but his also has a mosquito net and a weather canopy. I was totally unfamiliar with those, but we worked on it. (Can I just say that I despise that some companies don't include instructions now, and only a link to a YouTube video?!)

This is what it looked like when we were done. He slept in it that night and said it was super comfy.

While we did that, Eli and Ava played corn hole.

Joey was SO excited to see us! We all missed him, but it's very clear how much fun he's been having. Jeanie's dogs are happy to have him visit, too. Jeanie and Shawn offered to let him stay longer, but I think we're going to bring him home with us. Hopefully he'll want to come! ;)

I took this picture of Noah because it made me laugh that he looked like an old man. Early in the morning (on his 19th birthday), he was sitting on the porch in a rocker, reading a book and drinking coffee in his pajamas.

I don't know why I got so emotional about his birthday (maybe because it's the first one since he graduated high school?) but I love this picture that Jerry took of us. Definitely more than Noah does, hahaha.

Since Noah loves Shrek, and he saw the picture I posted of him wearing the Shrek hat I made for him ages ago, I decided I wanted to knit him another one. Being in the middle of nowhere, Jerry and I drove an hour to a Walmart to get the ingredients for his cake as well as some green yarn. I had luck with the ingredients, but they didn't have a good green yarn for his hat (the shades were very off).

By some crazy miracle, on the way back to Jeanie's, we saw a sign that said, "Yarn Store, turn right and two blocks ahead." A yarn store in the middle of nowhere? It was perfect. I wanted vegan yarn (I won't buy wool) and the store owner (who definitely wasn't happy that I wanted "fake" yarn) said she only had one skein of that color that wasn't wool. So, I bought it and started knitting his hat while the boys were fishing.

Noah asked for that *amazing* chocolate cake that I'd baked and reviewed (you can find that here) for his birthday dessert. I was worried about messing it up and then Jeanie and Shawn might be turned off to vegan cake, but it turned out perfectly. So much so that Shawn requested I make another before I leave! I think Jeanie and I are going to do that tonight.

We forgot to buy birthday candles, so we used what Jeanie had--a 1 and a 2, plus 7 stick candles to add to the 2. So, 19 candles for 19 years. Or something like that.

Today, we went tubing down a river (I usually don't go with everyone when they do that, because I really don't like the water). I haven't bought a bathing suit in about a decade, so I didn't have one. Jeanie started laughing and told me that she had a disposable one! HAHAHA, I'd never heard of such a thing.

When she brought it out and I tried it on, I was cracking up. I may post the picture if I'm feeling brave next week; I don't even like to see *myself* in a bathing suit, let alone post a photo of it on the internet! But Shawn and I have talked a lot about stepping out of our comfort zones, so I'll try. Going tubing was a big step today.

Anyway, I'll write about it soon--right now, I think Jeanie and I are going to bake a cake ;)