What a busy busy winter it has been. It has been a very unusual one weather wise for Michigan. Very little snow for us this year. We have actually only had two good storms the first around Thanksgiving time and the second one this week. This one was after a week end of 60 degree weather.
These were from the November storm. We were to get just 3-5 inches and ended up with 12 inches.
Here is today.
We have 8 inches out there. Enough that the dogs have to leap to go out side. It gave me a snow day and a long week end from work. Sunday we are to have 50 degrees so am sure that come Monday if it freezes over night we will have some very icy back roads here.
The Christmas Holiday was celebrated altogether in the new family room in the basement. It was far enough along that I put up a tree and we all ate as a family in the big family room. It was so nice to not be scattered in three small rooms to eat.
We had the walls up, bar built, lights put in, bathroom done. Drywall was finished and primed. Just did not get the painting nor the ceiling done. We did come up to the living room to do gifts.
A few pictures of the progress in the basement.
Top picture is utility sink in the corner of the large bathroom we put in. We have poodles and it is way to hard to bath them in the bath tub so George had mentioned putting in a sink in the storage room for the dogs. My comment was the bathroom would be great being we have decided we do not want to put another tub or shower in being there are two full baths upstairs. Works great and I loved that it came built into a nice cabinet.
The picture window and slider are in the family room area. Middle picture is the doorway into the kitchen and bar area.
This is how it looked two weeks ago while putting up the ceiling.
We now have the ceiling finished , trim is all painted. My new drapes are hung and next week the carpet will be laid. At least the family room area will be pretty much done. George is now putting locking vinyl tile flooring in the entrance way coming in from the garage, and carrying it to the bathroom wall and into the bathroom. We still have ceiling to do in the kitchen and his man-cave room which now sports a pool table for the grandsons to enjoy..
He has about worn his knees out with all the ladder climbing and bending to put tile down. I keep trying to get him to take it easy for a few days but he wants it done before camping season. I love the two foot square ceiling tiles. We added three evenly space 2 foot square LED lights and boy it is like day light at all times in the room.
I have enjoyed decorating for the holidays. Loved going from my fall things over to Christmas and did put up several trees for the season.
We bought 3 new large Christmas trees so had a total of 4 large ones up along with several of my small ones.
My kitchen tree was new and we went from a 4 foot tree to a 7 foot. Loved having a kitchen large enough to have a bigger tree. It was a slim lined and I had always wanted a frosted tree so thought it would be great for my gingerbread men and candy tree.
The new kitten we brought home from the campground the end of August loved sleeping under this tree. She was really quite well behaved as far as the trees. I figured she would be climbing them but she never did. Batted at a few ornaments but never did any damage.
This is Miss Precious the day we brought her home. Her mama was a feral cat and for some reason had a litter of very friendly kittens. She tugged at my heart strings and it did not take too much talking to get George to agree to giving her a home. The owners of the campground feed the feral cats there and in the winter he has insulated totes fixed up for them to sleep in. There is also a huge dog house made over for the kitties . He even heats that for them.
This is one of her favorite pastimes. Watching from my sewing room window all the birds in the tree outside. At night when I sit down she has to be on my lap.
I had a slim lined tree I also bought to use as my angel tree. 7 1/2 foot and it worked wonderful for my angels. That was a hard tree for me to put up as I had brought all mom and dads angel ornaments home as neither of my sisters wanted them. Mom always wrapped each angel so carefully and as I would unwrap one I would end up crying. So many brought back many memories of Christmas' past. It took me three days to get it up. All of mom and dads angels went so well with my collection and the tree turned out to be my favorite one this year.
I then did my main tree all in red, green and gold. This was another of the three trees we bought this year. Perfect place was by the slider going out to the upper deck.
A few days before Christmas I managed to get out the 8 foot tree and do my winter tree in front of the picture window in the basement. I was sure I had taken pictures of the tree but they are no where to be found.
I did do four foot tree in my computer room on my craft and sewing table and also did the black tree with silver and white in our master bedroom. The two guest bedrooms each had just a small one foot tinsel tree one a gold and one a silver tree.
I ran out of time for getting any of my other trees up other than the Christmas Tree at our Adrian Senior Center. I used all my hand made ornaments on that tree . They had so many wonderful compliments on the ornaments. I am excited to think that next year I will be able to add another tree to the basement and have all my exchange ornaments on it.
February arrived and I decided it was time to haul up a tree and decorate for Valentines Day. Here is that tree.
And here it is almost spring even if we have 8 inches of snow on the ground right now.
This is my tree now done for Saint Patrick's Day.
I am thinking more and more about retiring fully this year. I figure that at my age I really do need to take time for myself and my family. I want to travel to New York this summer at some point and spend time with our Great Grandson born last June. We have just seen him for a week in July last summer and I so miss seeing him growing up. I am so thankful that our Granddaughter and her husband post so many pictures and videos of him but it is not like being able to see him a few times each year. I hate being a long distance Grandma.
We will be celebrating a wedding again this year with a Grandson being married in September. My Grandchildren and Great Grandchildren are growing way too fast and this Grandma here really wants to be available at all times not just certain hours and certain days for not only them but for my daughters.
Retiring will also let me spend more time enjoying the new house and the lake which we have not even been on as of yet. Pontoon boat all bought and will be arriving here in early May. So ready for warm weather and relaxing on the water.
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