Tag Archives: Michigan

We’re Moving to Michigan!

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clam chowder on the wharf

The sun is already beating down on Morgan while he’s out mowing Mom-in-laws lawn and the trees already look depressed after their nightly reprieve of cooler air. After today, the central valley temps dip below 100* so that’s something to look forward to. Also we ran some errands and found a thrift store where I found a baskety thing. Last Friday Morgan and I took a date afternoon and drove to Monterey for clam chowder bread bowls. That was literally the whole reason for the trip, those delicious bowls of chowder washed down with fresh calamari. We breathed that yum salty air and fended off seagulls while we ate looking out over Monterey Bay. It was sunshine with a cool breeze and 57* which was insane because when we’d left Mom’s in Winton it had been 105*. I regretted leaving my hoodie at home.

pier fishing at Frankfort

My mom and I left one Sunday a few weeks ago for Michigan and Morgan flew there a week later. We had a lovely time with Dillon’s, Madison, and Mom all being together. July 17 was the 10-year mark of our Dad Andy being gone from us so we did a couple special things in remembrance. One evening we all went up to Frankfort and fished on the pier till the wee hours, then slept the rest of the night in our vehicles just like Dad used to haul us to do when we were kids. Ahh, the feeling of waking up in a stuffy vehicle with your neck in an awkward position and yet, I wouldn’t trade those memories for anything. The next morning at 5 we went out on the boat with our favorite captain, Brian Murphy, for a morning of fishing. Dillon’s and Mom threw a big BBQ charcuterie evening with a crowd of friends (including Andrew&Bridget who we’d last been with while visiting Dillon’s in Mozambique); and we all took a trip up north to Traverse City and spent night at the Great Wolf Lodge with lots of time spent in the water park with Max and Brett. Then we stopped at Cherry Republic in Glen Arbor for cherry ice cream and boomchunka cookies. Truly.such.a.fun.time.

Another interesting thing that happened while we were in Michigan, hence, the title of this post. We had no idea something like this would open up there and it really is an open door for our life currently so after some days of prayer Morgan has agreed to teach Grades 7&8 at Countryside Christian School, Ithaca, Michigan. We even have a house we are going to be renting which is like the coolest thing because although we love our bus life, we are going on 3 years living in it and it will be so fun to be able to have company and also a house for me to fill with my thrift store finds. yay. We will be leaving here mid-August and driving the bus out to Michigan and in the meantime we are soaking up California and our friends and the sunshine. We were excited to be back at Winton and had been looking for a place to rent here for the time being, but with just one teacher’s marriage announcement our “life plan” changed again and now we have a different plan. It brings back the memory of laying on Dad&Mom’s bed talking with them in our Z Road house at Copeland and them telling me that sometimes you had clear direction and sometimes you didn’t as much but if you were following Him, He would bless the decision you made because sometimes there wasn’t an exact answer. I have often thought of that and how moldable we need to sometimes be to follow His will because if we have it all figured out all the time and know exactly what we want and don’t want, how can He lead us to serve Him in unexpected ways?

Ramble, ramble, I know. I went through and organized a couple of my old keepsake boxes yesterday afternoon. Some things I found: a pillowcase covered with painted memories from a sleepover at Joanie’s house probably 15 years ago; a book Madison gave me for my wedding full of letters from my special people that I cried as I re-read; a smashbook of my trips and good times in the youth with friends like Lonetta, Abby, Trudy, Laura, Taryn, Joanie, Cassie; my Edmonton unit scrapbook; two of my Dad’s shirts that were my favorites; a coffee mug from when I got open-water scuba certified in Roatan. I don’t go through things like that very much but it’s always so fun to see what you find every so often.

The next few weeks will be full I’m sure. Jerica is flying out to visit on the 8th and her and I are going to spend a couple days on the coast while Morgan and Levi go kayaking. Kandis and the kids arrive the 10th so that will be a full house and lots of niece and nephew time. Morgan is working for Uncle Marshall for a couple weeks and then the week before we leave he is going to be working on the bus. Madison flies in the 19th and will leave with us the 20th. She is going to drive our Jeep out to Michigan while we drive the bus so we will get to spend a couple days with her on the road before she cruises home a couple days ahead of us. I think we will stop and see Mom at GardenView on our way and hopefully we’ll be in Michigan in time for cousin Zanna’s wedding the 27th.

Have a good weekend..xo

days 12-24

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Murphys Law, Frankfort, MI

I was rereading my last post which was awhile ago and no, we did not get booted off the Home Depot lot during the night. In the morning we stopped in South Haven at a little farm market where we had bad coffees, bought produce, and gave a tour of the bus to a couple that was waiting next to it when we got back. We arrived to Dillon’s late in the afternoon the 17th, a fitting day since it was the 8th anniversary of Dad being gone.

We have been cooking good food, mowing, having garage sale, spoiling cute little Max Anthony, eating supper at Ross&Nats, and camping, among other things. We all went camping last weekend up north aways. We found a little campground on a lake so we fished and swam and kayaked. We took the bus and Dillon’s, Mom, and Madison were in tents or hammocks. One day it rained most of daylight hours so the bus got well used since we seven were inside, cooking and hanging out. It was such a relaxing weekend. Mom, Madison, and Dilly’s left for home Sunday evening, while Morgan and I drove the bus up over the Mackinac Bridge and into the U.P. to attend our first ever skoolie “festival”.

Black Lake, Michigan

The fest was held at a specially reserved campground so we arrived there Sunday evening and got set up. When we arrive somewhere we have a 20 minute period where Morgan plugs in the bus, gets the bikes down, sets up the grey tank, and other little stuff. When we are driving, I use our kitchen sink to put all the things in that move around from our counters so when we arrive somewhere, I put our books back on the shelf, set out my plants, lay out our outdoor rug, and so on. After we’d set up, we took a bike ride out on a path surrounded by forests. Later we met our neighbors, a sweet family of four in a beautiful 40 foot bus next to ours, and then made spaghetti for supper and relaxed outside until the plague of mosquitoes drove us in. Monday we spent a good part of the day meeting new people from all over the country and getting to know them and occasionally touring their buses. We met some awesome people families and were impressed with the genius ideas we saw in other people’s bus builds. In the afternoon we rode bike to a lake somewhere out in the boonies that was quiet and sandy and warm.

view of skoolie u.p. 2021

We left the fest (sadly since it was going on all week) on Tuesday morning after a community breakfast and drove to St. Ignace where we stopped for coffees (we rated them 8.7/10, which is pretty high for us haha) and ended up meeting a really cool young couple who live on a boat off Florida somewhere most of the time. I hope all of you talk to strangers and meet new people because it’s so interesting.

We got home and promptly turned around and drove to Lansing with Dillon where we met the rest for supper and shopped Horrocks which is basically my only goal in life ever. Whilst eating, we found out via Randy that there were three spots available to go fishing in Frankfort so Morgan, Madison, and I snapped the spots up and as soon as we were home from Lansing, packed up an ice chest and drove up to Frankfort. We slept an hour in the vehicle and were on the dock at 5 am where we met Randy (MI) and Taylor and Greg (MS). We went with our favorite boat and captain and friend, Brian Murphy. He and Dad got to be close friends and we would consider him and his wife Christine, our family. They are wonderful people. We caught our limit of lake trout by 10 and stopped to say hello to Christine at their store, Frankfort Tackle Box, before we left town. We had a really great time with the guys! Also I got to see Joanie (wife of Taylor) who was my friend before basically everyone except Jerica, so that is also making me happy currently.

Last night we went to Ty&Alyssa for pizza, and today Morgan and I went to Grand Rapids to get taco meat and fixings for the MapleView Benefit that is this Saturday evening here in Michigan. We are doing street tacos and I hear there will be catfish, desserts, wings, etc. also so we think it will be a fun evening seeing people from here and away.