It has been so beautiful Up North (and YES, I'm even talking about the rainy days....we love mucking around in puddles around here!) that I've neglected to do as promised: bring you two great ideas a week for getting your kids outdoors. So we're going to try this again...
Explore Outdoors Idea Two:
Hit a Preserve!
We are so fortunate to have so many dedicated spaces Up North, places where no developers will…
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Posted by Kate on June 12, 2009 at 2:25pm —
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With the
Getting Kids Outdoors initiative well underway here in Emmet County, I thought it might be fun to spend a month focusing on specific ideas-- from planned trips to backyard playdates-- that we use time and again with our own children.
We recently spent a weekend in Ann Arbor with our kids, and spent an afternoon at the U of M Natural History Museum. There is an entire floor dedicated to "Michigan Wildlife." Peering through each glass case…
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Posted by Kate on May 21, 2009 at 9:10pm —
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Full. That's how I'd describe our days as of late, as we rush headlong into summer with every waking moment spent outside playing and exploring and planting and eating and, well, just living. I have to admit, as much as I love the still quiet world of winter, I am humbled by the bursting energy of spring. It makes me realize (again and again) how fantastic our little nook in this world really is....
My top five reasons for loving Up North (today).…
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Posted by Kate on May 8, 2009 at 1:00pm —
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My good friend
Molly is actively involved in this amazing initiative in Emmet County--
Getting Kids Outdoors. Watching her pour so much time and energy into this beautiful, simple, and so needed idea of celebrating and encouraging outdoor play has been a reminder of one of the things I love most about northern Michigan: the mamas I get to raise my children alongside.
Instead of going on and on a…
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Posted by Kate on April 17, 2009 at 4:30pm —
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Having just finished editing photos from the week, I am sitting here wondering if I can write about anything other than the changing of the seasons. It seems like all the words falling from my head to the keyboard lately are about this time of transition. And even as I type this, while I want to write some philosophical, introspective question pondering the "why" of it all, I know that what I'll end up doing is writing about the fact that I spent the entirety of last week moping mud-- in the for…
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Posted by Kate on March 29, 2009 at 3:00pm —
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Yesterday, as I sat on the deck of Nub's Nob, I grieved the passing of the deepest parts of winter. For a moment.
And then the blue sky and sun (yes! The sun!) swallowed me whole and I basked in that feeling we forget, and then remember, every year about this time. Something like rebirth, I suppose. Something that feels like we're waking up to a whole new place to live-- not better than the white, still, elder statesman of a place we've been presiding in for so many months now-- just different.…
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Posted by Kate on March 16, 2009 at 10:00pm —
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Even with my seven days of
manifesto-ing, I thought I was very, very done with winter. Especially when I woke up to double digit negative numbers twice this week.
And then, I stepped out on my front porch yesterday morning and I saw this:
oh. oh. oh.
It happens every year about this time, between thaws and deep freezes. The trees turn to…
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Posted by Kate on March 5, 2009 at 10:30pm —
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As I type, the wind seems to be traveling through our living room. Outside, there are huge drifts of snow that, in the light of the garage, look more like the sand dunes we love to gaze at along Sturgeon Bay all summer. It makes me ever so grateful for taking on this task of appreciating February, because as the heavy snowflakes swirl and the temperature continues to drop, I find myself sighing in admiration for the way white wisps snake across our road like smoke, or the trail of a ghost.
I am…
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Posted by Kate on March 5, 2009 at 9:56pm —
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February Policy #6: Read. A lot.
Perhaps more than anything else that winter brings-- the serene stillness of the woods behind our house, the shush, shush, shush of cross country skis on a freshly cut trail, the red cheeks and snow-covered hats of my children-- I love the space it creates to sit back and read.
Books that pile up in my "to read" list all summer (and fall, for that matter) get dusted off and poured through in this season that calls us to tuck in early, that is cold…
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Posted by Kate on February 19, 2009 at 10:00pm —
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There is nothing better than hot food on a cold day. It's just that simple. While we may not have the blessings and bounty that come with the harvest seasons, there is plenty of culinary magic that can happen in the winter months.
From perfecting hot cocoa concoctions
(the secret is in the marshmallows)
to baking gingerbread cookies with the kids...Okay, the cookies aren't nearly as fun as the fact that the dough looks…
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Posted by Kate on February 18, 2009 at 9:32pm —
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Sometimes getting away is the best way to beat the winter blahs-- but no one ever said you actually have to
leave to do that...
My boys are professional snow fort makers. Um, okay, their dad is a professional snowfort maker (he has even figured out how to blow all the snow from our driveway strategically for tower-building usages). I mean, just look at this thing:…
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Posted by Kate on February 18, 2009 at 9:28pm —
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February Policy #3: Get out your camera and go
The days are getting longer. Blue sky days bring warmer suns and chirping birds;
the returning snows, reminders of the groundhog's shadow, line trees like powdered sugar.
Winter may not have the bright hues and…
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Posted by Kate on February 16, 2009 at 10:30pm —
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February Policy # 2-- Embrace the Silence
A ruby throated hummingbird beats its wings 55 times in a second. In many ways, life Up North during the summer months is that way; it is a continual forward motion of activity, a flurry of faces, a time when we work and play harder. Our children run until they fall asleep in beds riddled with grains of sand. They smell of water and wind and days that slip by too quickly. And we love every second of it.
But still. There is something to be…
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Posted by Kate on February 15, 2009 at 9:00pm —
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*February Manifesto: Day Two can be found here and Day Three is right here while Day Four is
here. Day Five? That's right
here… Continue
Posted by Kate on February 14, 2009 at 7:30am —
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Let me start by saying this: if you are anything like high school students, the one thing that you will probably remember about this blog is that I once held a job as Chuck E. Cheese. Yes, as in, the giant mouse in the
horror-filled,
horrendous, er, extremely stimulating children’s pizzeria, that happens to serve more beer to adults than it does pizza to children.
I tell you this because I was recently in…
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Posted by Kate on January 30, 2009 at 3:30pm —
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In a sweet and drawling voice, I am recounting the famous gingerbread man’s words—except substituting said cookie for a cup of hot cocoa—as Max and I trudge up the last snow piled hill before we’ll reach our back door.
“Come try and get me,” I tease in the voice I assume hot chocolate would have should it learn to speak. “Run, run as faaaaaassssst as you can, you won’t drink me ‘cause I’m the cocoa woman (we go for gende…
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Posted by Kate on January 19, 2009 at 2:50pm —
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I was going to write about my exciting Up North New Year’s Resolutions. I was going to talk about the very
Rabbit Hillish way we are befriending the four-legged critters that live around our house. I was also going to tell you about our friends, the Spencer’s, and how they are bringing us farm fresh produce (like Spinach…yes!) all winter long thanks to a new hoop house at
Pond Hill Farm.
But instead, you are getting a ple…
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Posted by Kate on January 7, 2009 at 1:30pm —
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I am making a pot of stew when I hear them; their faded laughter slipping in through closed windows as it carries along on the winter wind. Looking outside, I see my boys, one nine, one four, in the middle of our backyard, falling back into the heavy piles of just-fallen snow.
On their backs, they flap their arms and legs up and down at a frenetic pace. The way boys make snow angels. I watch in silence, memorizing the wa…
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Posted by Kate on December 16, 2008 at 8:00pm —
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Max was sitting on the potty, yelling in that half-asleep moan that reminded us why there is an old adage that says to never wake a sleeping baby—or overly exhausted four year old. The snow was falling steadily outside. Lizzie was squirming and yelping with an obvious desire to match her brother’s screams decibel-for-decibel as I stuffed her back into her fleece bunting (for the fourth time that day).
By all accounts,…
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Posted by Kate on December 2, 2008 at 5:00pm —
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In my mudroom right now, we are having an overflow problem with shoes. Flip flops, hikers, galoshes, and snow boots line the narrow strip of floor between our benches. It is a testament to the recent weather, as three seasons seemed to collide within a week’s time.
It is also cause for me to lean against the door jam and smile.
To the left of my mudroom, in our kitchen, a handmade fabric banner is stretched across the sliding door. It reads, “Give thanks.” Looking at this pile of shoes—some ca…
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Posted by Kate on November 16, 2008 at 2:49pm —
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