The "Saturday" 7

1. We're home from our fabulous anniversary getaway so the Saturday 7 shall henceforth be penned. Although I make no promises that I'll actually make it to 7, since not much happened last week worth writing about. Hence the reason I used up a whole point to tell you that.

2. We made cookies, had a playdate with a couple long-lost friends, and survived a trip with all 3 kids to the beach. It was Lucy's reward for completing the summer AR program at school. She got 30 AR points between June and last week, largely in part to the American Girl books she's started reading. They're worth a lot of points. Last year, I took all 3 to the beach for the AR party immediately following a busy day of VBS and was beyond frazzled. I was thrilled that it didn't fall during VBS week this year, but I was still pretty frazzled . . . Levi is at a hard age for the beach. He loves the water and wants to be in it, but is unsteady on his feet and has zero fear. So I can't take my eyes off him for a second. Lucy is overly confident about her swimming abilities, and Lena wears a life jacket, but can't really swim in it, so if she gets in a situation where she can't touch, she's just going to tip forward on her face. I felt like I had to be constantly watching all 3 of them.

3. Before we even got to the beach part of the party, we had lunch in the gazebo with a bunch of other kids from school. We were seated at the end of a picnic table with Levi in the stroller right next to me. All of a sudden, this girl - who couldn't have been more than 9 or 10 - came out of no where and started pushing on Levi's head until she tipped the whole stroller over! I was so taken aback, it took me a second to respond. And before I even got the stroller fully righted, she did it again! No other adult seemed to notice, and she finally ran away, but my kids and I were all really rattled.

4. I only truly read one book last week - Stepping Heavenward by Elizabeth Prentiss. It was something very different for me, but I actually really liked it. I think you can read my Goodreads review here even if you're not a Goodreads member.

I read three other books while on vacation this weekend, though. Maybe Someday by Colleen Hoover, Love in a Nutshell by Janet Evanovich, and Save the Date by Jenny B. Jones.  Maybe Someday was a little too worldly for me. Lots of swearing and too much sex. But the story itself was intriguing. There's a plot twist at the beginning that I didn't expect and made the story interesting. Love in a Nutshell was fun and sweet. But my favorite was Save the Date. The cover was pretty bad, and I'd never heard of the author (Jenny B. Jones - tell me you don't immediately think of Junie B. Jones when you hear that name), but I actually really enjoyed it! It's Christian fiction without being syrupy or over the top. The humor was awesome and the characters all developed and grew, struggling with something more than "will we fall in love?" throughout the story. I've already ordered a couple more books by Jones from the library. (Those were all affiliate links. So buy those books and make me a few pennies. ;-) )

5. On to our anniversary getaway. We never do much for our anniversary because we're poor and hotels are expensive. So this year we decided to try something different. All we really wanted to do was get away from our usual life, sleep to our heart's content, read books (me), and go fishing (Justin). So I did some sleuthing and found a cottage rental on Craigslist that would rent to us for the weekend during peak season. (Word to the wise - don't get married during peak tourist season in Michigan and expect to stay anywhere on your actual anniversary that doesn't cost big bucks.) I was admittedly nervous about mailing a cashier's check sight unseen, and slightly concerned about being murdered when we arrived, but everything was on the up and up. I'm a terrible traveler, so I knew we didn't want to go too far from home. We ended up about an hour away on a quiet little lake in a quaint little cottage. It was clean and quiet and had cable TV, so it was perfect! I think part of the house was added on later, because some of it was cool-vintage, and some of it was dated-vintage. Haha.

Cool old ceilings, walls, and windows.

Date living area and couch

Awesome vintage floors. An attempt to be awesome with vintage couches and tablecloth?

Back porch.

Cool French doors

Brand new, modern kitchen

The lake from the back window. (And Justin fishing 10 minutes after we arrived.)

Pretty, peaceful lake

We had gorgeous weather all weekend

6. When I wasn't watching Fixer Upper marathons on HGTV, this is what I was what I did all weekend:

Reading lake-side while Justin fished off the dock. (I was wearing shorts. Relax.)

Reading on the back porch with my morning coffee . . . at noon. The room we slept in was so dark that we literally didn't wake up until 11:40 am! Lol. Sleep deprived, much?

Reading while sunning on the dock. I got fried because I'm old now and don't tan like I used to.

We ate at a couple of hole in the wall restaurants, stayed up late just because we could, chatted without interruptions, and even did a little star gazing. It was glorious. But I missed my babies by today.

We are so very fortunate to have an army of family willing to watch our brood. My parents had Levi all weekend and the girls on Friday night. My brother Luke and his wife Esther took the girls Saturday night and spoiled them beyond reason. They went swimming, got ice cream, went to the park, did hair and make-up, slept in a blanket fort, and had donuts for breakfast. Lena was the happiest to see us when we got home. Lucy played it cool, but I could tell she was relieved. And Levi was happy to see me at first - he got excited, waved his hands, and laid his head right down on my shoulder. But then he wanted grandma the rest of the night. Those two are pretty much inseparable. Mostly because she spoils him like crazy. That kid is going to be a butterball if she keeps sneaking him cookies and marshmallows. But I love that he loves her and I never have to worry about him while we're gone.

7. A couple more pictures from this week:

Levi found Grandpa's hat on the floor, put it on by himself, and thought he was pretty hot stuff.

Dress up with Aunt Esther

Ok, these last pictures are from the Inventory List the cottage had in the kitchen. I was dying reading through some of the items. The very first one seems to have been written by the Chinese woman from Mandarin Wok in Sparta:

"You want folk?"

The second one had me cackling . . .

Is that slang for "spatulas?" 

But the third one practically had me rolling on the floor . . .

Hahahahahahaha. Maybe I'm an immature Junior High boy, but seriously. This is why you should double check your work before printing it off and posting it in a public place.