Other people drunk dial, I succomb to sick shopping. Chalk it up to not having enough energy to escape from the silly websites.
(I bought this shirt for the whole family. Admittedly, it looks cutest on my little mad scientist!)
If you want one too, you can get it off the neatorama website…
I took the Glitter Glue Princess and her bff to Splash Universe in Shipshewana, IN this weekend. It is a giant indoor water park with 2 water slides, a lazy river, a 500 gallon bucket that drops water on kid’s heads, and my personal favorite, an adults only hot tub. This was her birthday trip – her choice instead of going to American Girl Place this year.
After doing our usual tour in Shipshewana – the cheese factory and quilting fabric store – we checked in and went straight to the water park. The girls loved it. My knees started aching almost immediately, so I was pretty much spent by dinner time. We went to an Amish restaurant, and skipped the christmas tree lighting parade going on to go back to the hotel. Girls continued to play. I continued to soak in the hot tub. Then the girls found the arcade and promptly spent $20 between the two of them.
I tried getting the girls to bed at 10, just to keep some semblance of a schedule so I wouldn’t regret it the next night… The powers that be were simply not going to allow it. There were children RACING and screaming down our hall till 11 pm, despite my best efforts to stop it. Even the manager was out there telling them to get back to their rooms. Yelling didn’t work. Begging was out of the question. I understand that it was a party type of place, but this was ridiculous.
My question was where were these kid’s parents when they were trouping through the halls? There were children as young as 5 out there. Is it common to set your kids loose at the beginning of night? Did they lock their kids out of the room for some “private time” – what the heck was going on with this? I’ve never experienced anything like this. It still sounded like a thunderous herd in our room at 11 pm when I simply gave up from exhaustion.
The next day, we had a breakfast buffet, more arcade time, and then a couple of hours more in the water park before driving home.
The girls enjoyed it, but I think we may have to try some other place if we do a water park again.
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On a separate note -
I’m feeling a severe sewing deficiency going on. Must…get….SEWING!!!!!!!
I need to get Glitter Glue Princess some fleece pants made for her snow pants (she didn’t want some to match her coat this year – too old – but she still wants some to wear when we snow blow the drive). Also on the list are some pajama pants, a fleece jacket for me, and some tube tops to wear under our shirts to keep our backs and tummies covered from the cold breezes. For Christmas I need to get a “Slanket” knockoff made for the Glitter Glue Princess as well (*sigh* THIS is why children shouldn’t be allowed to watch infomercials!). I found this link if anyone else is working on the same thing…
O.k. So I lied about the next post being costumes – I just had to share the view of my back yard from the early morning today…. THIS is why I like Michigan – we actually have 4 seasons here.
And…. Just for those of you who live south of Oklahoma, a view of what is to come here in the near future (taken last winter…). Actually, it was snowing by now a couple years back, so I just consider us fortunate for a bit.
I have a *teeny, tiny* addiction to Randal Spangler art… I have more than 25 pieces of his art in my closet, and even have a couple of little sculptures from his Christmas series. I became a fan from his early appearances at the Kansas City Renaissance Festival when we were first married, and S has basically got himself a guaranteed wonderful Christmas gift ever since…. His work is whimsical, and I love it.
This is the print that resides in my hallway, called Flights of Imagination:
Well, I found an artisan at the Michigan Renaissance Festival who was selling Spangler – of course, I had to have one. It wasn’t framed, and I will send it back to Mr. Spangler for matching framework, but it is lovely, nonetheless. It is called Night Watch:
It is vaguely reminiscent of a few other cat based works I own, like Something Fishy Going On, which I haven’t hung for a while, and We Three Kings, that is still hanging in my living room even though it is not Christmas.
*Sigh*… I always miss him when he is up here, which is not too often, but I’m glad to have found another piece to add to my collection.
Glitter Glue Princess and I trekked to Grand Rapids for the Fulton Street Artisans Market – many, many Etsy-ans were there. It was sweltering hot, and if you didn’t have a tarp or umbrella, you basically cooked.
There was a tiedye guy there, and we had a long discussion about supply and tying technique – very nice. You can see from the following pics that we had ours on yesterday.
She and I met Boogerelli - her stuff is totally adorable. She gave the Glitter Glue Princess a pin and a sticker – aren’t these the cutest (sorry for the fuzzy pic – camera is acting up-or bad operator, I don’t know):
We bought a couple of lovely necklaces from a lady whose name I didn’t get. If you are she, please comment and I will fix this grievous error… Perhaps you will recognize the shirts, since we did discuss them…
The red flowers in this exactly match a skirt we bought from Macy’s the day before at the half off sale.
We also bought a couple of lovelies from The Empty Nest:
We’ll definitely go again…
A little daunting for me…
Everyone I knew in town was at the community picnic, but I did it anyway! I worried about taking them for days and publicly humiliating myself, but I still did it! Guess I’m getting the guts I never had a kid.
But you know, there is something about hula hooping, that is just… magnetic. It makes me feel good about myself, it gets people smiling (and not laughing at me)…
All of Glitter Glue Princess’s friends who were there came over and tried them. They ended up smiling too. No other adults came over, but that’s o.k. I bet they were daunted by them too, and had the same feelings of potential embarrassment that I felt.
I’d do it again… 
Coming up-a little etsy love from the Fulton Street Artisan’s Market…
Over the past few weeks, the female members of my household (myself and the Glitter Glue Princess) have taken up hula hooping. Not just any old wimpy hula hoop from the store will do, mind you, but heavy duty, hand designed hoops are needed for this new craze. Somehow, we found something to combine crafting and exercise – who would have figured, huh? We’ve been hooping for at least a half hour daily since we started this, getting better and better at it…
There are many websites out there that tell you how to make the hoops. We made the hoops out of tubing from Lowe’s and ordered a plethora of tapes online.
Glitter glue princess could not wait for the funky tapes to arrive in the mail, and created one of her hoops using electrical tape only. After the tapes did arrive, she was a wee bit afraid of working with the glitter tapes, due to them being metal (she was afraid of cutting herself). We found that fabric gaffer tape is great as it makes the hoop “cling” to you more – it provides a bit of drag to help keep the hoop up longer.
Here are a few shots of the hoops thus far, no action shots just yet…. One with the multicolor sections was Glitter Glue Princess’s first tape job.
My only worry about this new craze is where we will do this when the weather gets cold – I don’t think Michigan winters are conducive to this exercise trend.
If there’s interest, let me know and I’ll post a mountain of links on this…
So S and I went to Blissfest last month, as was pictured in the earlier posts.
What I didn’t tell you was that I lost my drivers license on that trip. I went and spent a few hours at the Secretary of State getting a replacement, never expecting to see it again.
Fast forward to three weeks later…. Guess what shows up in the mail today???? A letter from Blissfest, containing my license! I honestly had written it off as gone. My entire family is in awe of your power!
If this post gets to Blissfest organizers, I want to offer my sincere thanks in their efforts. They really do give “happy bliss”, even AFTER the festivities are over. Quite frankly, no other michigan music festival can compete! You guys really are THE best.
Moon, that is….
