Second Attempt (plus one)

Last summer, my oldest Grand-daughter and I made our first attempt at creating our North Woods fairy houses. It was truly a magical experience. This summer, we again made our plans to create a little woodsy fairy village and her younger sister joined us in the creation - she's the "plus one."

We have established simple rules for making our fairy houses:

1. We use only forest findings - pine cones, tree bark, moss, sticks, ec.

2. Rocks from the lake are acceptable to use.

3. You work on your place, I work on mine.

4. Connecting paths are encouraged and we work on them together!

This year a new rule was added based upon finding these at a local thrift store:

5. You can add thrift store embellishment provided they are removed upon cabin departure!

Seriously, aren't these tacky??? But they are all metal and the flowers were easily removed with a wire cutter - and perfect for fairy house gardening. The girls absolutely loved them!

This is Miss E's place festooned with flowers and the blue bow.

This is Miss M's with birch bark houses and moss roofing which she dubbed the Mommy and Daddy

and Baby houses.

My house had sticks woven together with twine (oops - rule breaker!)  and the pink bow.

Our village was created around the base of a tree; it circled the whole tree.

The girls could have kept at it a lot longer, but the mosquitoes were in high party mode. They came inside and wrote notes to the fairies instead. And waited patiently for a response.

What a surprise that overnight the fairies answered with this heart!!!!!

And flowers attached to their notes!!

Long live fairies in the forest!  

(And the magic of young imaginations not on an electronic device to get to those fairies!!)

The Grown-Ups Birthday Celebration

Look at these five birthday celebrants---all have their big days within about a three week time span!

Cumulatively their years on the planet total one hundred ninety-three years. Meaning this oddball non-summer birthday host (me) has to put together an out-of-this-world party! Though I love Pinterest, I was determined to do this without that app.

Each year I try to think up a fun theme for the party and this year my inspiration came from a "find" at TJMaxx - a clearance robot party pack complete with 3D glasses, invitations and blank thank you cards. A matching robot with stationery (inside its body) was purchased to use as a table decoration.

This sure made decorating a snap!  With the blank thank you cards I used Target's sticker burlap letters to make a "Happy Birthday" swag.

But most fun of all?  Using recycled boxes, bottle caps and more I put together a robot to house little gifts for the birthday celebrants (note the letters on the robot bodies to indicate which robot goes to which birthday person):

Food was simple, too - Lou Malnati's pizza and salad.  The cake was a silent auction chocolate cheesecake from Forrest and John C. (Soooo decadent and yummy; thanks, guys!!!)

It was decorated with Dollar Tree robot stickers.

Thanks to the robot vest from IKEA, pot holders and red bowl from Dollar Tree, and Vera's grabber, the guests were greeted by the birthday robot!

It was a scorcher of a day, thankfully we could all be outside. I filled up a big planter with water and let the Grands go at it before our pizza was delivered.

Thanks, Becky for the special delivery of Gilbert's backyard toys!!

Following our pizza and cake, it was time for some backyard relay games!

And, yes, I made them all participate!!!

It was (hopefully) fun for everyone from one to sixty-two.

Happy Birthday, John, Jed, Kari, Anne and Wes!!

 

Geezermoon - Springfield

Goodbye, Gateway and Hello Land of Lincoln!  Though we had one more city to 

lodge in for the next two nights (Indianapolis), we headed to Springfield, IL on the way for one reason and one reason alone: The Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum.

Since it opened in 2005, we had put this destination our bucket list of places to visit. We heard so many reports of how excellent this museum was and wanted to verify this for ourselves.

And we did: it is a museum not to be missed!  Interactive exhibits, a lifesize version of Lincoln's boyhood home, a White House replica, the Presidential Box at the Ford Theatre, the coffin lying in state, two theatres with informative shows ("Lincoln's Eyes" and "Ghosts in the Library"), and a fun/fabulous children's area were all memorable.

Boyhood home

Mary Todd Lincoln dress

Lincoln's law office with two wild sons wreaking havoc 

Ford Theatre box

Dollhouse of the Lincoln home - a toy for active play in "Mrs. Lincoln's Attic" 

Once again, photography was limited so I could only take limited shots. But I did get one of a dress I might like to wear myself to a political event in which neither  Donald or Hillary are participants!

From Springfield we went to Indianapolis.

My first post of our Geezermoon actually started here where we finished.  This concludes the Geezermoon series. Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to tell you about our 40th anniversary trip! On to forty ONE!

Geezermoon - St. Louis

Following our time in Mansfield, MO we drove on several more hours to St. Louis.

We lucked out with an online deal to stay at a "boutique" hotel near the Arch - the lovely Magnolia Hotel. Apparently, Cary Grant stayed here back in the day.

It was a pleasure to lodge here for two nights while we explored this city. Our explorations included:

The St. Louis Botanical Garden

with several Chihuly pieces such as the one above in the Visitor's Center - I love the glass work of Dale Chihuly!

Picturing Wes with a full head of yellow hair tickled my funny bone, too.

Yes, the flowers were lovely, too.  But we had to move on to

The Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis 

for a docent-guided tour of this breath-taking cathedral completed in 1914. It's known for its mosaics and stained glass.

But wait...there's more!  On to the 

Missouri History Museum 

for a look at the Little Black Dress: from Mourning to Night.

So good!

By this time we were running out of juice but squeezed in about 45 minutes at the

St. Louis Zoo.

These geezers were spent!

With a great barbecue restaurant near our hotel we ate a fab meal and called it a day!!

Packing up the next morning and fortified by the complimentary breakfast at our hotel, we headed off to yet another fun city!

See ya later, Gateway to the West!