Weekend to remember

Memorial Day weekend was great. We had a slight change in plans, which was a bummer, but it ended up working out. Turns out DP's cousin found out two weeks ago that he wasn't going to graduate, and he overdosed and tried to kill himself last Wednesday. Needless to say there was no graduation, and we scrambled to figure out what was going to happen since he was in a hospital about 2 hours from the place we were to be staying at--and we were determined to go away.

We rearranged our plans and ended up staying in Sawyer, Michigan near Warren Dunes State Park. Here are some photos from the park . . .

Her parents were already staying there Thursday night before heading to the other location, so they extended their stay and we drove over there. It was about an 11 hour drive both ways for us, for about 1.25 days with her family. Saturday we ended up meeting up with the other cousins and family at their hotel and hanging out. It was good that most everyone could still see each other and support each other. The young lad is doing ok, and it seemed he might be released today to the care of professionals closer to home.

While there, we went on a dune ride which was so totally cool. The driver was fabulous, and had been doing this for like 24 years. You could tell he loved what he did and enjoyed the people. Here are some photos from our ride . . .

This picture was from inside the park as well, and you can see this is a huge tree that a dune has covered up. It was amazing to see, since you thought you were looking at small trees in the sand--until he told you it was a large tree that a dune had encased.

Addie stayed with my parents, and she was sick as a dog. Her intestinal system was all out of whack, and she had runny bottom, and accidents in the house. Good thing my folks love animals, or I think should would have been out on the porch. She still isn't right and has started to vomit as well. We have decided that we will just put her back on the food that she did well with, and abandon the idea that she can eat the raw food kibble. I guess her tummy just can't handle it. The vomiting is new though, and we aren't quite sure what that is about. She has an appointment with the vet on Saturday, and we got the other food today. I just want her to be well. She is such an awesome dog, and it sucks that she has had it so rough.

I think I may have mentioned also that we had a birds nest with three eggs in it. Well, the eggs have hatched, and we saw one baby and wondered what happened to the others. We looked around and didn't see anything. Upon closer inspection today I saw one of the babies dangling from the rose bush--this is where mama has nested. I am not sure what to do about dangling baby bird (which is dead), since I don't want to get that close to the nest, but now that I see it there, I keep thinking of the poor thing. The one that we see that is alive is strangely cute, but that still leaves one missing baby. Mama is very attentive to the nest. Any ideas on what to do with the baby that didn't make it??

***UPDATE*** The neighbor has reported that he sorta kinda ran over a deadish baby bird with the lawn mower tonight. He saw it too late, but it was dead, and now it is recycled back to the earth . . .I guess. He said he noticed yesterday that there were large black birds circling around and squawking. He wondered if they hadn't raided the nest. On a happier note, I looked in there today (carefully avoiding the dangling birdie) and saw the very much alive bird with his head perched on the side of the nest just looking out--it was very cute- (though I secretly hoped that he didn't know his sibling was dangling below, and if he saw, I hoped he thought it was just bungee jumping for fun!)

In other news, the beans are coming up wonderfully, and DP planted the peppers and tomatoes that we got from dad. Seems we also have two stray pumpkin plants coming up . . .

OK, gotta run, puking puppy . . .