October Phot Ops

We (erm, Karen, that means) took some nice pictures of the kids.  And then a visit from baby Audrey, which always makes a big splash on the cuteness meter.

Prepared for the mess.

And who are these guys? 

It's enough to make you start singing Time in a Bottle or the Cat's in the Cradle.  Or...

Must be October

 We know it must be October because we've seen the Dynamic Duo.

And their nemesis, the Craw.

Batman escaped a death trap due to a timely batarang.















Ysabela and Miss Nataly took Lady for a blessing of the animals in honor of St. Francis.


The hydrangea has had a good year.  Lots of blooms, the butterfly incident, and now this mysterious arrangement where all but one of the blooms has changed color.


Today's big adventure was the Pumpkin Roll in Montague. 

The central event of the festival is the eponymous roll.  It begins with wave after wave of 3 year olds.


The kids patiently (sorta) waited their turn.  An hour in, it was finally time!














Bela was very enthusiastic but Xavi got the ribbon.

Even the dad rolled.  With form like that, is it even a question that we won more than one ribbon?

The prize pumpkin this year was 480 pounds.  The farmer who grew it was beaming.   There was general agreement that we'd like to see it rolled, though.

Afterwards, we skipped the festival snacks for Mia and Grace.  We discovered that Bela is known there as hot dog girl and that one of her hot dog art pieces is up in the kitchen.  See, she only orders the hotdog, and always draws one while she is waiting.  So please call her Hot Dog Girl the next time you talk to her.

If you have not been to Mia and Grace, please go!

School Days

Like many families around the northern hemisphere, we've been consumed with the start of the school year.  We got the traditional shots of off to school:












Bela left while still darkish - on the first day!  She's on her way by 7:30 am, and her back-breaking pack is heavy stuff.  She seems to think the only benefit to the early start is being home for an hour before Xavi.  Read about middle school exploits on her blog.  There should be some good stuff from her team building overnight camp experience at Camp Pendalouan, I would hope.

Xavier is seen here sporting the current superhero backpack, Iron Man, which is a little counter to the Batman phase.  But he has plenty of Marvel shirts to go with it, so no worries.  He has Bela's teacher from last year, so it's nice to know a bit of what to expect.

In other news, parents continue to get older.  The good news is that it sometimes comes with swag, like two copies of the Elspeth vs Tezzerret decks.  Nice!

So far looks like Tezzeret takes Elspeth in a fair fight, but loses to Xavi's souped up Garruk deck.

There have been requests for shots of Ysabela's purse, made under the guidance of Aunt Jill.  Shown here with her favorite complementary dress, the purse features alternating squares of day and night with a moon button clasp.  As always, click on the picture for full size.

Allergy Free Recipes

Karen just put some our favorite allergy friendly recipes together for friends with newly found allergies.  Thought I'd share them here.  They are all egg-dairy-soy-nut free or have her notes for making them so.

Lard makes some of this possible, and we've already posted all of our rendering secrets.

Of course, like most of Karen's stuff, these things aren't just good -ifyouhaveallergiesandcan'thavetherealthing; they're just good.







Egg Dairy Nut Soy Free

Butterflies and Broken Boards

Happy September!  John is back to school and the kids are just around the corner from it.  Ysabela in middle school (!) and Xavier in his last year of elementary.  Zoinks.

There was a weird happening a few days ago when suddenly a crowd of at least 25 monarch butterflies showed up in the ysabela tree (actually a hydrangea).  I have a new appreciation for those butterfly photos you see because it was really hard to try to capture it.

While I was out there trying to shoot the butterflies, I met the daughter of the mayor who brought the Coast Guard to Grand Haven.  She grew up in the big house up the hill when there were no little houses down below on Slayton.  Pretty neat local history.

More relevant and exciting was Xavier's belt test.  After all our conflicts and miscues, he tested for his Blue Belt.  Did a great job on the form, is ahead of the game on his Korean, and broke a thick board on the first try with a spinning back kick.  Wow!  Nearly as tough to capture as butterfly action.

More Old Photos

When Mary Pat came through she brought a bevy of old photos, and there was some interesting stuff.  Mackinac, Monroe and McNally/Golden family history.  As always, click on the photos for full size.

Mary Ann McNally's 1908 graduation.  She went onto University of Michigan and by the time she died was the 2nd oldest woman graduate of the school.  (She was a bit suspicious when I told her I was going to what she called "an agricultural school" for science.) When she came back for Catherine's graduation was supposedly when she met Oliver Golden, Sr., who was quite involved with the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) as their lawyer.





Ice cutting, 1913, probably for Michael McNally's ice house, which used to be next to the meat market, now the bicycle rental next to Shepler's.










Pictures of Margaret McNally are pretty rare.  This one is from her time at the Chicago Normal School in 1914 where she took a teaching certificate, before she began her work traveling with the nutritionist, educating housewives about how to make healthy meals for their families.

One of the biggest events of the 20th century in Monroe was the burning of St. Mary's Academy, June 3rd, 1929.  Pretty amazing photo.

 The Algomah II coming to Mackinac in winter.

Stan Bielecky painting in front of McNally Cottage with an interesting note on the back of the photo.  Stan was a friend of the family's, especially Aunt Jean, and was quite well known for his ink and watercolor paintings of Mackinac and the French Quarter.

One of the most famous family stories (and rightly so!).  "Gen and her guest attended a dance that night at the Grand Hotel."

At right is an amazing picture of dad (Oliver Jr.) with Patsy.  And then a picture of him a bit closer to the time of the story.























A somewhat rare picture of Oliver Sr.  He's on the right here.  I know I should know the fellow to left, he was a great friend of the family... but I just can't remember!

On the right is a great picture of Gram (Mary Ann Golden nee' McNally) biking on the Island.

 A picture of Oliver Jr from his brief stint in the army.  Just after he got his teaching certificate from the Univ. of Toledo.  He wound up down south teaching English classes rather than being sent to Korea.

He spoke fondly of his travels during those and the college years, often by hitching.

A couple of pictures of Gram from her traveling days, from which I never saw many pictures.  She was proud of having gone around the world twice, once by steamer and once in those new-fangled aeroplanes.  She often cited transportation as the biggest change of her lifetime, 1889-1982.

I think the picture on the left might have been on the ferry to Mackinac.  The one on the right is definitely on the shore road.  Is she with Mary Ann Cameron?





A couple of classic Mackinac shots.  On the right, McNally Cottage before the Loonfeather was built.  On the left, a classic view from the fort shot, before the marina was built.

A picture of Oliver III from fall 1964. 

And one of the famous Pfundstein pyramids that I was lucky enough to join.  The Christmases they drove in were amazing.

Good picture of dad where he could be often be found during the years that Carmen managed McNally Cottage.  Greeting guests and telling them tales of Mackinac That Was.