Practice...

This past Sunday, Mike and I hosted a graduation party. Now before you start concerning yourself over lost time, this was not a graduation party for any of the Nugent girls. That will happen soon enough, in a short 10 years. This was a graduation party for one of our high school friends at the church, TJ.
TJ and Mike were in charge of most of the planning and we had help from a lot of church friends and TJ's family with the food and set up/take down. The day turned out to be great. I think he had a lot of fun and he had a great turn out with beautiful weather (it started raining just as we took down the tents).

Our girls were enjoying Camp Cousin with grandma and papa Kelbert. They were disappointed that they missed TJ's party, but mom and dad were able to concentrate solely on entertaining.

We ended up with more than enough food.

TJ had a lot of friends supporting him.

Becky Jones graciously made an amazing tasting cake, with an edible picture of TJ on it.

All of the tents and chairs were borrowed from great friends. The decorations turned out perfect. There is a very funny story about me and the balloons at Kroger that involves a very nice employee of the grocery store.

This is the graduate with his friend Alyssa.

Thank you to all of our friends that helped us out with food, tables and chairs, tents and set up and take down. It made for a great party!

Onekama 2009

This 4th of July, we got to return to Onekama for a little family reunion. This is a place on western Michigan that I grew up going to every summer. My mom's grandfather, my great grandpa Workman, had a cabin in Onekama, MI. This is a great place to go for a summer or winter break from the city life here. We got to reconnect with family and have a great time.

Great Grandpa's cabin is now owned by my mom's cousin Gary. My mom's Uncle Tom has a cabin 1/4 mile away, and Gary owns a Lake house on Portage Lake, MI another 1/2 mile away and my mom's other cousin David owns a summer house another 1/2 mile away. It is great to have everyone so close.

We had a great time fishing and boating on Portage Lake, hiking behind the cabins, hanging on the beach of Lake Michigan and just making great memories.

Aunt Jeanine and Uncle Paul met us up North from their adventure from Texas. Thanks so much to Aunt MaryJo and Uncle Tom for hosting all of us. It had been too long since we had seen each other.

I was telling Mike that as kids you really don't know how great you have it sometimes. Returning to Onekama and just seeing what a special place it is and how beautiful it really is made me realize, as an adult, how lucky we were to experience all of this as kids. I loved seeing the beaches again, hiking in the woods again, smelling the cabin smells and remembering my great grandpa and how much fun it used to be there with him.

We fit in a lot for just a day and a half. The girls were just in heaven. The little lake, the big lake, campfires, boats, seeing second and third cousins, smores, dune running and pier walking. This is just the things that draws people back to western Michigan year after year.

Take a look at our pictures below.