BRRRRR Frosty Cold Weekend at High Cliff State Park

Temps are due to dip down into the 20's.....  we put my hanging flower basket into the Tracker to keep it from freezing. Maybe we can get a few more weeks of blooms out of it if we are careful.  I have had it since Mother's Day and hope to keep it a bit longer. Heard there is 1-5 inches of snow forecast for the U.P. of Michigan this weekend.  Brrrrrrrrr

I drove Steve over to the maintenance shop this morning, (that long 1.6 mile commute)  and kept the Tracker for the day.  Our kids Heather and Jesse are celebrating their anniversary this weekend, so we offered to take little Jameson down to High Cliff State Park.

I scooped him up, along with his winter coat, hat and mittens for his weekend attire at the campground.  On the way to the park, we stopped at a roadside stand to get some pumpkins!

He picked out three of the best ones, and we loaded them into the Tracker.  He will help me decorate them with black foam cutouts and a glue gun.  That way I can bake them later into pies.  All of the campers here in the park are gearing up for the Halloween season already with decorations and lights are adorning almost every camper.  So we also stopped at a dollar store and stocked up on decorations.  We will wait to put them out once the winds die down, as tonight they are in the 20-30 mph range.

I tried to get Jameson to nap in the afternoon, but that only developed into a "Monkey Jumping On The Bed" routine.  So we played around outside and walked the dogs for a bit.  He was collecting the hickory nuts and acorns, just like a little squirrel!  

Park Ranger Amanda also gave Jameson a "ranger badge" sticker for his High Cliff sweatshirt.  Now he said that he can arrest Granfaddah for speeding, and he said Granmuddah ALWAYS stops at the Stop Signs, so I don't get a ticket!  LOL

When Granfaddah was done with work, we drove over to his workshop to pick him up, and then headed back to the motorhome to make supper.  Jameson helped arrange these little pizzas (Pillsbury Grands flaky biscuit dough split in half and squished out flat, then pizza sauce, pepperonis and cheese)  

What a treat!  That little guy gobbled up two of them and the rest of my second one! 

Before it got dark, we headed out for the playground and shuffled in all the leaves along the way.  It was delightfully crisp and cool, and the winds were dying down as evening fell over the campground.   The dogs enjoyed getting out and about too.

We walked around the loops, admiring all of the decorations and efforts to bring Halloween into the season all month long. Crunching our way through the leaves, making rhythms and beats with our feet, I recalled a time on my way to Brownies when I was crunching through the leaves.  I was 8 or 9 maybe and remembered wanting to keep crunching and rustling the leaves under my feet instead of going to the meeting!   I told Jameson about that, and he just looked at me with that secret smile of a child.  He knew the feeling....

We had such a fun time at the playground....

Imagine his surprise when Granfaddah came down the slide after him!

Before bedtime, we decided to heat up the motorhome a bit with some baking!  All my grandtots learn to bake chocolate chip cookies.  Plus our secret touch of adding extra chips to the top of each glob of dough, for extra full chocolate gooey goodness.   Excess chips go IN the mouth....

 (pssst friend Paula Pfaff--- please note the towel clipped around Jameson as an apron)

Finally it was time for BED!   Jumping into Jammies, then teeth brushing, and a final hug and kiss... and crawling into his Blues Clues Sleeping Bag.   Granfaddah kept a dutiful eye on him (well... on the laptop next to him)  till the wee man was asleep.  And yes, he fell asleep in about 6 minutes.. no kidding!

And now we are ready for bed, too! 

Grandtots and Camping... what a great combination

It's been kinda crazy the last few days, so I have not had time to do a good blog post.   We finished up Labor Day with our friends Sharon and Fred, who came for the afternoon and a nice grilled out meal of shish-ka-bobs.  We waited for all the holiday traffic to clear before venturing out onto the highway before we moved from the Oconto City Park Campground late on Monday evening.  We spent a very hot and humid night at the Walmart in Darboy, and then drove into the park as quietly as we could on Tuesday morning at 7:30 am.   It's hard to be quiet in a diesel motorohome, but we got backed into our reserved site, shut it down, and I delivered Steve to his workshop by 8 a.m.

Sorry about the blog yesterday being mostly photos, but I was worn out and just wanted to get out all of those cute adorable shots of the grandtots who came to visit.   We missed having Allegra and Mason join us, but we will see them sometime soon.  I am going to rotate swiping each one of the grandtots to give them each a night with us, once a week.

We have tried to take all the grandtots camping with us every summer, and now that we are living in the rig full-time, it will be easier to take them along and form a good camping foundation for each of them.

Last night was Jameson's turn.  I ran up to Green Bay in the morning to pick him up and bring him back to the park. He got to visit Granfaddah in his office, and then rode around the park to see all the fun stuff.  He sure is a lucky little guy to have a Granfaddah who is in maintenance at a park... he has access to all this FUN STUFF!  

Now I know this is a lot of photos, but there were just so many "Big Boy Toys" to take pictures of!

(You can click on any photo to make it larger)

Talk about a little guy being in HEAVEN!!!!

We finished up the evening with Some-Mores around the campfire.... what a great treat for a good boy who was very well-behaved for his Grandparents!

Today we have a "garbage picker" device and are going to walk on the trails in the park to pick up trash.  Jameson practiced and practiced last night on how to pick up a can, so he is all set to use it on the trails.  After our load of laundry is done here, and we run around the with vac cleaner, I think it's time to hit the trail!