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I just enjoyed a lovely week in downstate Michigan with my parents.

Dad steadies the ladder to hang the new hummingbird feeder

This is the childhood home where my two brothers and I grew up in Yale, Michigan.  Yale lies about twenty-one miles from blue Lake Huron with its freighters blowing lonely fog horns in dark nights.

We celebrated my brother Scot’s birthday last Sunday just after I arrived.  I won’t tell you how old he is, except he’s four years younger than me, so he’s just a baby.  *grin*

I try to help.

Two of his daughters, Keely and Tianna (and Tianna’s boyfriend, Josh) arrived to eat my mom’s delicious dinner, as well as cake and ice cream.

Mom’s “courtyard”

I’ve eaten so well this week it’s impossible to get on the scales.  Simply impossible.  The jeans are starting to feel way too tight.

Lovely geraniums

The weather here in Yale has proved bi-polar.  The first few days it felt like mid-summer with temps around 88 degrees.  Then the temperature dropped thirty degrees.  We’ve had frost here the last two mornings, although, thank all the stars, it didn’t damage my mom’s flowers.

Hey, there’s my mom! (She doesn’t like getting her picture taken so one has to be quick & sly to succeed)

Barry said I haven’t missed anything exciting back in the Upper Peninsula.  He says it was a miserably cold week.  It’s promising to improve–everywhere in Michigan–within the upcoming days.

Shining green leaves

I still think it looks like summer down here compared to the U.P.

Cute little paver

One day had the neatest homecoming experience.  Walked into the grocery store to help my mom and found her talking with her friend, Ann.  Ann is a very special person from my childhood and we hugged tightly.  Then, in walked Barbie who cut the cake in our wedding when she was nine years old, and who now runs the local newspaper with her brother, whose husband won the Bologna King at the Bologna Festival last summer.  (No, kidding, my little hometown has a Bologna Fest every July.)  We hugged even harder.  Then in walked in ANOTHER friend of my mother’s–another Ann–and it felt like one of those magical homecoming moments.

Sometimes I can spend days here in Yale and not see anyone I remember.

Pink geraniums

What else have we done?  Besides eat?

We attended two of Taylor’s t-ball games.  Taylor is my brother Tim’s grandson.

Across the street–my brother Scot’s house

I drove over to London, Ontario, to meet with an Internet friend.  Another childhood friend came a’visiting.  More about that later!

My mom and dad in their beautiful new sun room

I walked and walked and walked through the town.

Here’s a couple of pics of my niece, Jillian, modeling in Detroit’s Style Line magazine

Traveled to the mall and shopped for jeans, unsuccessfully.  It is challenging buying jeans these days!  Don’t even get me started about jeans and classic fits and low-riding fits.  Won’t even ruin a good homecoming post by thinking about jeans.

Newly planted Impatiens plants

We bought more flowers and Mom planted them.  She basically wouldn’t let me help, saying she has her own spacing requirements.

We read books.

We ate more delicious meals.

Love some of my mom’s decorating touches

And today it’s time to travel those 550 miles back Up North.  I’m only traveling half way today so will check in here later to see if any of you have commented.  Then I’ll stop in a coffee shop tomorrow and check again.

Love these long solo road trips…  Thank you for reading!

See you later, dear home!