Boondocks Babes

UPDATE NOTE: Hope and Kenz actually added their own written rendition of this pictorial tour below. Scroll down and Enjoy!

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Okay…..so this past weekend our daughter turned 19. So she flew home from Charlotte, NC (thank you to a generous donor who insisted on paying for her ticket!) and once her feet hit Michigan soil, it was a non-stop reconnecting party with family, friends and favorite foods.

To top it all off, she brought her friend Hope with her. She is the daughter of friend and Proverbs 31 president Lysa. We had great plans for her that I told you about here.

Well, since I have myself some serious catching up to do from being off-line for five days and hosting several parties, shin-digs and assorted impromptu get togethers at all hours of the night, I’ll simply give you some snapshots of our weekend and be back tomorrow for Weight Loss Wednesday.

Here we go!

Painting toenails during an Atlanta layover.
See....Kenz has already taught her a bad habit....
Hope getting in on the act.

A little welcome at the Ehman Bed & Breakfast.
Here is a close up for you curious types!
Our three kiddos all together!
The gang before going to a midnight movie opening. Hope was going some weird pop thing with her knee.
So to not make her stick out among us boondocks people, we retook the picture and all did the weird pop thing.
Then Kenz's birthday party wouldn't be complete without a raspberry white-chocolate cheesecake made by Aunt Thais.
Or some fun party activities. Here are Kenz and her great Aunt Patty sporting their new butterfly tatoos!
On Saturday Hope got to see a real dirt road. The only other one she'd ever seen was in Africa!
Then it was off to a wedding where Kenz did the bridal party's hair and the redneck groomsmen wore camouflage vests. Seriously. They'd have taken a pic, but the guns the guys were toting may have scared them away!
Being silly on the back deck. (Hey, who is that hunk of a man weed-wacking in the background? I am like TOTALLY diggin' on his sexy, white, middle-aged legs!)
Off to an open house at the Feldpausch Farm for Andrew (child # 8 of 11!) They got to hang out with hundreds of friends and a few cows!
And Hope may just have found her first set of wheels now that she is 16. What do you say Mr. Art & Miss Lysa?
You gotta admit, our sunsets here are sure awful purty :-)
My favorite shot of the weekend!

See ya tomorrow. Go enjoy your kiddos. They’ll be grown and gone before you know it!!!!!

We love you Kenna!!!!!!!!!

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Okay, now it is the girls’ turn. Hope is in green. Kenz is in blue:

“Come on, come on, keep it moving, I’m going to be late.” These were the words of the lady who stood just outside our gate as my sweet southern friend Hope and I exited our plane. It was my birthday and I had decided to bring my good friend back to Michigan so she could see my old stomping grounds and meet all my amazing friends.

You can imagine her surprise when she, who is used to sweet southern hospitality, was all of the sudden being yelled at by a grumpy northern lady who didn’t even work for the airline. Right then I knew this was going to be a culture shock for her.

No seriously guys, she was yelling at me! I only get yelled at when my parents are ticked off the wall at my immature decisions. Not that I make them or anything. After that my thoughts were racing inside of me with wonders of how I would survive northern territory. Michigan to be exact.

All of those worries went away when I got to pick a restaurant that reminded me of home. Good ole’ Fudruckers. Yes, that is the name. (No, Mrs. Ehman I am not cussing.)  After the affirmation of not cussing was dealt with, our sleepless trip began.

The trip was going great including an all-nighter going to see, “Robin Hood”. I didn’t know northern guys liked totally  love movies more than action. As we left the theater, all of us girls were in the thrill of loving the movie. The guys on the other hand moped around with not liking it. I guess that’s a big difference in guys from north or south.

The next day I saw what became the talk of our trip, and yes I was even mocked for this next move in church Sunday morning.

I saw dirt roads!

I honestly had to keep glancing to see if my eyes were adjusting funny. But to my dismay I saw nothing but dirt! Now I’m not talking about a little driveway that leads up to a cute country house. But an actual, legit road people! Do you understand that I have only seen another dirt road in Africa! I’m not kidding NO ONE would let that go.

The whole trip these random northerners from who knows where came up asking how I “liked them dirt roads.” I guess word spreads fast in a city of only 7,000 people. In Charlotte word like that would take years with all 700,000 people. Well, maybe not if people found out about real dirt roads!

Y’all,  I think she is freaking out now. You should of seen here then. She made me STOP the car and not only that but TAKE PICTURES!

I was so embarrassed when a man from our church drove by and asked if we also wanted him to get the horse out, in case she hadn’t seen one of those before either.  Oh Hopie! What else can we introduce her to?

How about some CRAZY relatives!?!?!?! That right we all have them but I am sure by now you have heard form my mom  that we have some of the most…shall we say… unique family members ever.

For instance my wonderful sweet Grandma who wants to document every single thing that goes on, had brought her little disposable camera that could and she was taking pictures of everything and everyone in sight. I left Hope’s side for literally one minute to speak to some other family members and when I came back I saw my Grandma about 6 inches away from her face saying “SMILE SWEETIE”

I’m pretty sure that picture is not only blurry but captured Hope sporting a very hesitant look. I saved her and we had a smooth rest of the day. My Grandma on the other side even got her a little goody bag and treated her as one of the Patterson grandchildren. It was great!

That night we stayed up way too late, as always, and had to wake way too early the next morning to make it to my friend’s wedding. I was doing hair for the wedding and that went well. They all looked great and the only bump, in my book, was the fact that I left my phone 2 hours away from home and was phoneless for the weekend.

However, I think it was just what I needed. Now, Hope’s interpretation was a BIT different. So why don’t we let her, the girl who has her WHOLE wedding planned out down to “How many inches she is going to walk form the car to the chapel” fill you in on her thoughts about this small town wedding:

Let me just start out by saying my wedding will be a bit different than this one. Kenzi was asked to do hair for the bridesmaids. We arrive and everything is very chill. Even down to the fact that the grandma of the bride forgot to slip pants on!

After doing hair we ask when the best time would be for Kenz and I to slip out and get lunch. Not thinking we would stop WITH THE BRIDE on the way to her own wedding in a college girl’s gallopy instead of a limo!

Even running late, the bride was chill. I was shocked. My wedding will be well thought out all the way to … well… I think Kenz already stated it.

Anyways, we arrive with bride and since it was an outside wedding in a shooting range there was nowhere she could wait and hide. So we drive Kenz’s friend Laura’s car as far up as we could without showing the bride off to everyone. We then left the bride there hiding and waiting to walk down the isle and marry the man of her dreams.

That very man was wearing camo along with his groomsmen. After watching the oh so long 10 minute long ceremony we were off. Off to search for Kenzi’s lost phone. What should have taken an hour took 3! We drove EVERYWHERE looking for this dang phone. Even stopped by Zondervan Publishers to give a shout out. No one was there. After no luck, we headed back to the reception where some very…. lets just say “happy” people were dancing. This was our cue to leave.

I could see that this was something that was a little out of the box for my curly headed friend. So I decided why not go all out? We headed to a friend of our’s farm, yes farm,. There was an open house going on and so we hung out a bit there. Did all the usual farm activities; saw the cows, got pictures with the cows, and even the tractors.

Then we headed with all my close friends to the good ol’ Wheel, a local 24 hour diner where you can get anything you want at any hour of the day. Everyone ordered and when I kindly asked the server if she could come back for my order she threw the menu down in front of me and proceeded to tell me that “Everyone else’s order was already in.”

Hope’s jaw Dropped. She no longer says I am the rudest person she has ever meet. Nope, I just meet someone ruder! :-)

The next morning was church and shopping!

We had a blast with my mom and brother. We went to thrift stores and found some amazing things. We also had to do some splurging and Hope bought a Coach purse, and I got my long awaited Douche and Gobana summer bag! (At a deep discount store of course!)

Then back home for my birthday party with friends. We ate food, opened presents, took pictures, and had a bon fire. What sweet memories I have!

Once again we stayed up way too late and the Monday morning proved to be rougher than we thought considering that between Tuesday to Monday we got a combined total of 15 hours of sleep. Not quite enough but some how we managed.

We got up early and packed our stuff in my new luggage I received for my birthday from grandparents. Then headed to the airport, and of course had to stop for coffee on the way.

We arrived at the airport feeling as thought we were just there being yelled at to get off the plane not too long ago. Now we were getting on the plane. However, due to good ol’ Michigan weather we were delayed and missed our connecting flight.

We sat in the airport waiting to catch the next flight only to find out it was delayed. We FINALLY boarded the plane an hour AFTER we were supposed to be home.

Well, we were not out of the woods yet. Due to weather in Charlotte we sat on the run way for over an hour looking at nothing but walls considering we were in the last row of the plane and didn’t even have a window.

Eventually we were airborne and then landed, we waited for about 30 minutes for my luggage and then hopped on a shuttle to take us to the parking lot. Now, if only I could remember what lot it was?….

No worries, I remembered!

Well I remembered that it was lot one.

Now what letter was it?

We had to figure it out fast. The shuttle driver was already annoyed at our huge luggage taking up the whole shuttle sitting in the aisle. I just kindly pointed to some random letter and he let us right off.

Completely off. We were stuck. Now we had to find our stinkin’ car.

Not to mention it was POURING rain with every drop soaking an inch of our new purses, luggage, laptops, and most importantly us!

After clicking the emergency button a hundred times on the car keys, and walking a mile… WE FOUND IT!  Off to home we went.

And boy at this time we were happy.

Airplanes won’t be in our radar anytime soon.

13 Comments

  1. This is my first visit to your page. I enjoyed the devotional and would like to be entered in the drawing for the Bible.

  2. Thank you for that this morning. You woman are my inspiration to keep on going and never give up when it comes to our sweet Jesus. To always choose his ways and not ours. Not to let our emotions lead us away from him and his ways but to always run to him when we feel like giving up.

  3. Sounds like a blast!! I’m from Alabama and everywhere I travel (business) people try to talk like me and say ‘where you from’? I always say Michigan or Pennsylvania…just to see their expression!!

  4. Aren’t teens fun? We have three teenage girls right now, just a step behind these two, and we love it. Thanks for giving them your space for the day! It was great to see and read!

  5. Love the pics, Karen. Glad to hear that Hope enjoyed her trip to MI, and that you had a wonderful visit with your daughter. :)

  6. I cannot even imagine what my child at 19 will feel like…my only one is almost 14 months old. I love that boy!!

    Blessings to you and your lovely children!

    You are such a blessing to me.

  7. I was talking to Melanie the other day, and she was really bragging on how amazing McKenzie is. Happy birthday to your wonderful girl!

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