If that plan fails, the back up plan is to bring Michigan -- or at least the part where they live -- to Florida. Superman wasn't mentioned. Ponce de Leon was, but I'm not sure what kind of super or magical powers he had. I believe that whole fountain of youth thing didn't really work out for him.
Their parents were off in search of fun, but I'm betting that they won't have anywhere near as good a time as I did. Happy New Year to "all" of my faithful readers, family and friend(s).
Fishing off our dock requires a salt water fishing license! If you are over 16. 
No fish were harmed (or caught) in the filming of this. The supervising adults have had to duck a few times -- his casting skills need a lot of work.
And found 5 people who looked very familiar.
They drove through a near blizzard to get to the airport. They made the trip safe and sound, and are ready for a week of Florida type weather. I'm looking forward to spending some quality time with them.
There is a story about TJ and this cookie recipe that is one of my favorite TJ stories. The first time we made these cookies together he was 3 or 4, and he took some home with him to share with his Dad. TJ had never seen 'scratch' cookies made before, though he was familiar with the purchased cookie dough variety. (Which are pretty tasty, in reality. And a lot less work.) Anyway, the next time he visited us he asked if we had 'any more of that scratch?' It took a minute to figure out what he was talking about. "What do you mean, TJ?" His answer was, "You know, that scratch stuff. That you use to make cookies." Ever since these particular cookies have been known as Scratch Cookies.
I brought the recipe with me from home, but I do not have a mixer, a rolling pin, or cookie cutters here. So they became a bit more like the refrigerator cookies -- I made the dough, refrigerated it until it was stiff, then shaped it into a log, and sliced the cookies.
The sprinkles are a necessary part of this cookie to me, though they are good with some of that canned chocolate frosting on them, too. (The girl COTU likes them that way.)
They look a little rustic, but they taste just like they always do. Scratch Cookies. Made from scratch. Merry Christmas to the COTU and OSLO. Stay safe.
I took these outside my front door this afternoon.
Enjoy your break from school.
The dining nook is being temporarily converted to extra sleeping space. There's more room there than I thought.
It's been a rainy day here in southern Florida. But there is still no snow.
Lynne gave me a funky tripod for my camera as a belated birthday present, since we don't exchange gifts at Christmas (???), and I took this self portrait. I look a lot more like my Norwegian grandmother than my Swedish grandfather, in truth.
The youngest members of the gene pool had fun opening their gifts, even though they'd helped me pick them out last weekend, and knew exactly what they were getting. A Nintendo DS game for each of them was the favorite, I'm pretty sure.
I bought my daughter some socks. You can see why. The mess is part of the fun, I'm told. OSLO cleaned it up, so I'm good with it. John and Brad managed to be out of camera range, but participated in the fun and the food. The SLO's and I got out for a short walk later in the afternoon, and took the traditional drive through the woods hoods and Idlewood later in the evening to view the Christmas lights. Happy Santa Lucia to those who loyally check in here.
Our snow plow guy doesn't even show up unless we get three inches of snow. Blowing snow, icy roads and below zero wind chills were still unpleasant, so I stayed inside yesterday and baked some banana bread from the over-ripe bananas I had hanging around. It's the same recipe as my three bowl banana-cranberry bread on the other blog, without the cranberries. I recommend it both for taste and ease of preparation.
We went out to the beach this morning to run water and flush toilets and to check to be sure the furnace was still running, and there is a very tall house taking shape where the (not retired) professor used to have a cottage.
She showed me some of her floor plans -- it is an interesting and attractive house.
We thought it would be a good idea to put some truck tracks in the remaining slush so it wouldn't be a smooth sheet of ice when the foot of snow finally arrived and fell on top of it. Jackie's Place is on the south side of Lake Mac, near the Heinz plant, and just recently re-opened following a fire last winter. John had eggs in a nest, I had French toast. (Do they have that in France, GZ?) Several families were there, taking advantage of a day off in the middle of the week, and an apparent spring thaw. It was a cheery place to have breakfast. (They serve pigs.)
By the time we returned home, most of the rest of the slush had thawed, so I shoveled the walk to the front door. Slush is heavy. I needed no GPS for any of this, apparently, as I found my way back indoors and settled in to watch the noon weather reports. Blizzard warnings went into effect at 1 pm, they said. There were only a few flurries still when TOPWLH and I decided, about 4:30 or so, to get some gas for the car and have supper out before the real snow started. Soon, surely? Madison got 14 inches, Kalamazoo was having problems with icy roads -- but it is still 36 degrees in Holland. I don't know what happened, but the system snow missed us. It snowed north, south, east and west of here. But not here yet. Lake effect snow bands are now predicted to pick up several inches of snow overnight locally. It seems likely that it will happen eventually, and the blizzard warning is in effect until 4 pm tomorrow. Still, it has been amusing to watch all of our local TV meteorologists try to explain why much of this area didn't get any snow. I hasten to add, YET.
First up -- or actually, first down -- was the dead elm tree along the driveway, a victim of Dutch Elm disease. And yes, it was snowing lightly all morning long. It didn't seem to phase the tree guys.
Next was a thorough pruning of the crab apple trees between our driveway and our next door neighbor's. We own the trees, and our neighbor had complained about them looking unhealthy and scratching their cars. The tree guy proclaimed them healthy, except for a case of apple scab, common among ornamental crabs. This is a good time of year to prune and shape apple trees, apparently. Spraying for apple scab is done during the growing season. And is expensive. Though not as expensive as treating the ash trees for emerald ash borers. Which he recommends. Highly. Sigh.
Last was one of the maple trees next to the house that had a limb that was rubbing on the shingles on our roof. This guy is a full two stories up in the air, plus some, trimming away with his chain saw. It was nearly noon before the driveway was clear and I could get to the post office, where it appeared everyone in town was trying to beat the storm and get their packages mailed. 40 minutes standing in line. Not fun. There was no waiting at the township offices to pay my property taxes, however. Now it is time to hunker down and watch the weather channel for a while.
The Pine Creek Trail runs from Ottawa Beach Road to Lakewood Avenue through the wetlands along the creek bed. It's pretty buggy during the summer, but Old Man Winter has taken care of that problem rather nicely. The trail starts with a loop around a small pond. There's a little ice, but not much yet.
There are several bridges over the marshiest spots, and over the creek as it winds back and forth. There was a mini-rapids underneath this one. Footing was mostly okay, with some slippery spots here and there. Mostly on the bridges and the parking lot. I managed to stay upright without much problem.
I saw some wildlife, but no beavers. I did see a few ducks, but they blended into the brown water and dried vegetation -- there are at least a couple (maybe six) in this photo. It was snowing lightly while I was there, and you can see the 'lake effect' in this shot.
I was the only person on the trail while I was there, but there were lots of footprints -- and paw prints, as well. There are a few benches scattered along the trail, but no one had disturbed the snow on any of them. At 25 degrees, it was probably best to keep moving. Although, I must say that it is a lot easier to dress for a walk at that temperature than it would be for a bike ride. No balaclava, for example. I mostly only wore one glove, so I could use my camera, and it was fine. I brought my sunglasses, out of habit, but without any sun..... Eye protection seems unnecessary at that rate of speed. Good shoes, a good warm jacket with a hood, and decent gloves. That's a pretty short gear list. No wonder this walking thing has never really caught on. The gear is half the fun.
Yesterday was the transition day -- drizzle, falling temperatures, and eventually snow. Unlike this lake , Pine Creek Bay has not yet started to freeze over.
The heaviest snow band was just a little bit north of us last night. Holland got about 2 1/2 inches, but Allendale got 9 1/2. Allendale is about 15 or 20 miles from here, between Grand Haven and Grand Rapids. The Grand Haven Area Public Schools are closed today. Their first snow day of the year. More 'lake effect' is forecast for today. I believe that bicycling season is over here, too.
What I should have been doing is restoring my house to normal after two days of new carpet installation. The entire main floor of the house has had all of the carpet removed.
Yesterday the family room and the 'breakfast nook' carpet and pad were replaced. Today they replaced the dining room and living room carpeting. (This is just the pad -- not some funky choice of carpeting.)
We are slowly restoring some order to the house. The computers are back up and running, which was the most important part.
This is what I meant when I said I had a lot of other stuff to do today. I took a bike ride instead.
More miles were ridden by me this November than in any other November on record -- in fact, it was typical mileage for October at a bit over 300 miles. I rode 18 times this month, for an average ride length of 17.11 miles, down from an average of 21 miles per ride in July, but still high for November. I've ridden 212 times this year, about 3 out of 5 days, on average. My year-to-date mileage stands at 3,603, or about 17 miles per ride. 3,650 would be a fun number to hit, for an average of 10 miles per day for every day of the year. That would require December miles, and I won't count those yet. I have a couple of busy days coming up -- new carpet will be installed here -- and we expect enough snow to shovel by Thursday. November is over -- I won't be checking in here on theme day tomorrow. There's been a lot of blogging this month, and I held up my end of it, but it is time for a few days off -- at least. And thus endeth NaBloPoMo for me.
We won't be around them during the upcoming holidays, so they got their gifts early.
This approach gave their grandfather time to get updates and anti-virus software installed, and for their grandmother to help them get individual email accounts set up. Good rainy day activities. No complaints, it could be snow. 
Around noon I stepped outside of the garage and got hit in the face with ice crystals, so I went back inside and took a nap. If I'd waited, or toughed it out, I think I could have ridden. But the nap seemed to be more necessary. November wanes. Three more days to go.
COTU/N and DC played some chess, and DC ate some pumpkin pie.
COTU/TJ was very fond of the fudge.
OSLO served her GF (good friend) too big a piece of blueberry pie. So she helped eat it.
OSLO's GF's father, along with his father's good friend, also joined us. There were nine of us around the dining room table today. I think you can tell from the photos that there was plenty of food, and there also was football, comfortable conversation and laughter. And some napping. It was a pretty traditional Thanksgiving. For which I am thankful.
Then TOPWLH requested fudge for the holiday, and he was seconded by OSLO and DC. This is the same version that was made by my mother-in-law Margery, back in the days when she did most of the holiday cooking. It's good fudge -- but it is strictly a Christmas tradition. As you can see, I made the fudge, caving to the family pressure.
I also made a jello salad today, cooked up some wild rice for Barbara's recipe stuffing, and am baking a few pies. There is a fresh 13 pound turkey in the refrigerator. OSLO is making a few of the standards -- green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole and corn. COTU/N will make crescent rolls, and COTU/TJ will put together some cheese and olive appetizers. TOPWLH will make his famous gravy to go with a mountain of mashed potatoes. If it sounds like Christmas dinner, well maybe it is.
I thought that TT, formerly known as TTT, might enjoy this one. No ride today -- the Tuesday before Thanksgiving is officially known as 'buy your turkey NOW day.'
Novembers are typically low mileage months, so a new November mileage record isn't a huge accomplishment, but today's ride to (a closed) Quincy Park gave me a new PR for November miles. It took 16 rides this years, as compared to 18 rides in November of 2007, the month it replaced. Obviously, my average ride length is greater this November than it was then. My average ride length has dropped from 2 hours this summer to 1.5 hours this month, as the weather has gotten colder, and as my fitness level has dropped. But apparently not as far as it did two years ago. So I'm pleased with that. 
With the wind from the south, a ride under the bridge and along the other side of Lake Mac sounded good. On a Sunday afternoon the streets of Holland are pretty empty, and the usual traffic hassles of riding through the downtown area are gone.
A few people were out walking and jogging, but mostly I had Kollen Park and the south shore of Lake Mac to myself. The sun is low enough in the sky, even in the middle of the day, that every photo has interesting shadows in it. These benches are tucked in behind the BoatWerks Restaurant -- they are new since the last time I explored that area. 
I rode the waterfront walkway behind the Heinz Pickle factory again, on both the outbound trip and on my way back. The smell wasn't unpleasant, exactly, but it was pretty strong. The view from the walkway was easily worth the assault on my sense of smell, in my opinion.
I rode further west and further south than on my last ride out that way. The turnaround spot this time was the DeGraaf Nature Center -- closed on Sundays. The COTU have been there on field trips for school, but this is as close as I've come to an actual visit to the place, though I've ridden past it any number of times. I made the entire round trip without any significant complaints from my back. So that's progress.