Artprize, Grand Rapids, MI

Any one can enter Artprize, anyone can vote for the winners.  Grand Prize is $250,000, this contest brings so many people to Grand Rapids, a very nice city.

Potato Bread Recipe

When our four girls were growing up on Fancher Street, I always made homemade potato bread for their lunches at Sacred Heart. I recently found the recipe, which made two loaves using a mixer, this was in the olden days,  pre bread machine.   Sunday, I cut the recipe in half and made a loaf in my bread machine.    The texture was different while mixing, I added a little flour and then water, but it would have been fine if I left it alone. 

Potato Bread:

1 small potato peeled and cubed
6 oz. water
1 1/2 teaspoon yeast
3 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2  Tablespoon sugar
1 Tablespoon butter or olive oil
1 teaspoon salt

Cook potato in the water till tender, DO NOT DRAIN.  Cool to 100 degrees. 
Set aside 1/4 cup of potato water.  Mash potato in the rest of the water.  Add reserved water to make 1 cup of mashed potato mix.  Add to bread machine pan.

Add remaining ingredients in the usual manner. 

Random Pics

White Pine just north of Paul's deer blind, he tool these shots.
A Milk snake near our front steps.

Grand Parents Day

We visited Andrea, Ryan and kids last weekend and they gave us a beautiful pot of mums.  How nice, a gift holiday for us!  Who knew about that?

After the Storm - Camping at Lakeport State Park

The beach on Lake Huron is all fresh after two days of storms.

                                             Ed's big diesel pusher rig, 43 feet long plus a tow car.    


           We had a great time camping with Ed and Cheryl, glad we finally got out with them.  The softwear is not letting me add captions to all the photos.  Paul took the one of the lake through the trees, nice job of framing.

South Bend Again

Happy Andrea and Ellie

Charlie and Buzz

We had a great trip to South Bend this last weekend.  Always a pleasure to go there when there is not a home football game. We had kids fun, shopping fun, Moose Club fun and pool fun. 

Charlie is liking kindergarten, Julia is doing well, calmed down a lot, and Ellie is so very happy, she is sitting up alone.

Ryan fixed some vexing problems with my computer.  Andrea is a great shopping buddy.  Really, it hardly can get better.  And good food too,  Chinese this time.

We also had a nice visit and dinner with Steff in Grand Rapids,  Sure hope to get back for the Art Contest!

Lotto Fun and Food

Another dreary rainy day of bar hopping in Port Huron.  We really like Port Huron, nice bars and views.  Big freighter in front of the Moose Club.   We kept watching Ed's numbers, 44 and 60 come up on the Lotto screen.  On Wednesday they came up at least 5 times that we noticed at the Moose, and more at the Eagles, even more won today.  So finally Paul started playing them.  Which slowed down the numbers considerably.  He broke even. 

Party Boat on the St. Clare River,

Ate dinner at the Eagles, and Ken and Kay showed up too.  Lots of fun catching up and finding out who is doing what.  

Lake Huron - Sugar Free

We are camping at Lakeport State Park, north of Port Huron, Michigan.  A lovely park right on the lake.  Just a short stroll  through tall climax forest, beautiful white pine and tamarack trees and hardwoods, to the sandy beach.  There are at least 4 other rigs in this section of the park, and we are here with old friends, Ed and Sheryl.  You expect parks to be uncrowded after Labor Day, but not empty.  But you don't expect 3 days of rain and wind either. 

Yesterday we drove past the spot where the old family cottage was, on Wild Rose Lane, where all my best family memories are centered.  Grandpa Weeks and his sons built it in the early 1950s, cement blocks, two bedrooms, front porch with an old rusty glider.  And a big beautiful beach with wonderful sand and friendly neighbors.  Every holiday and Sunday the whole family would come up for the day, and there was a weekly rotation of families staying, we each got 3 or 4 weeks a year.

It was expecially exciting for me when my lake friend Lisa Schmaucher from St. Louis, Mo was visiting her Nana for vacation.  They were a large strict Catholic family, every morning I could see them all dressed up heading for 6 a.m. mass.  So exotic for a small town Congregational girl.  Church every day!  Lisa's Shafer cousins were all promised to the church, Bob as a priest, Mary as a nun, and Bill. the deaf son, as a brother.  Not sure how that turned out, but their mother became a cloistered sister as soon as the kids were on their own.  All such nice people, sad to have lost touch with them all.  Their cottage is still there, had a small addition.  The Weeks cottage is replaced by a huge red brick McMansion that takes up the whole lot, all the wonderful virgin woods and trees are gone.  My mother's cousins lived across the street, Greenburg's might have been the name.  He invented the building toys, Crazy Ikes, and gave us a kid when we were kids. 

So we did a nostalgic tour of Port Huron, stopped at the Edison Park along the St. Clair River, took pictures in the wind and the rain.  Drove past the old Sperry's store, and the wonderful little restaurant, Diana's, both long closed, but full of wonderful memories.  My mom always told about the time Jerry was two and Dave was four and they were on the second floor of Sperry's, shopping for winter jackets for the boys, someone screamed "There is a little girl out on the window ledge!"  It was Jerry with his long blonde curls.  The stories she told about the boys, hair raising. 

                              Paul, Ed and Sheryl and the Blue Water Bridge to Sarnia, Ontatio

We had a great day with Ed and Sheryl.  Had lunch at a legendary Irish Pub in Lakeport, watching the Tigers game.  Talking to the guys at the next table, we found out where the Moose and Eagel's Clubs were in Port Huron.  Finished watching the game at the very nice Moose Club on the St. Clair River.  Saw many freighters on the river, too dismal and rainy to get a decent picture.  Then we went to the brand new Eagle's Club.  A great afternoon, nothing quite so thrifty as drinking and watching the Tigers in a club. 

                          Lake Huron pouring into the St. Clair River at Port Huron and Sarnia

We had a late dinner at Olive Garden, and my fridge is full of white boxes.  We had as much fun as is humanly possible on a rainy day at the lake.  Which turns out to be quite a lot of fun.

Lake Huron is salt free, shark free and oil free, I am trying to be sugar free.  

I Feel Like A Redneck

Wednesday morning I had to give Paul a push in his little pick up, a manual 3 speed, 4 cylinder, 1985 Ford.  It is so light it just took a little shove, I was wearing my old camo flip flops -  didn't need any traction, and it rolled easily down the road, he popped the clutch and off he went. 

The night before we went to the neighbors for some skeet shooting and was invited to stay for grillin' and sweet corn, zucchini from the garden, etc.  All wonderful, with home grown herbs.  Yum.  Smoked chicken and ribs.  People just kept showing up to eat and shoot, I think they could smell the food for miles,  Priscilla is some cook!  She and Bob live at the farm with the chickens all over.

There are some real good shots in the neighborhood.  Bob is a sharp shooter, and they are all hunters. Charles is a good shot and only 15, he had a nice little gun and a high scatter shot.