Friday Favorites #44

Yay for Friday! I haven’t posted in a few weeks! How are you? Did you have a good week? This was our first full week of school since before spring break. We actually had a lot going on this week which I have highlighted below.

Last weekend started very unexpectedly with Lucas cracking his chin open! Ryan took him to the ER, and they stitched him right up. He was very brave and is healing well. It was definitely bound to happen when you have three rowdy boys!

As for the weekend ahead, I think it will mostly consist of a house project we started last weekend: building a new back deck and stairs. Hopefully things go smoothly with that. Thankfully, I have a pretty handy husband who works in construction and knows what he’s doing;)

Keep scrolling for this week’s roundup of Friday Favorites and have a fantastic weekend!

Family in Town

My sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and two nieces made a trip up north and we were able to meet up with them a few times. On Sunday, we met at Hop Lot. My boys mostly ran around with new friends (always seems to happen at Hop Lot haha). We hung out by the fire with some drinks and yummy food.

On Tuesday, we met them for dinner again at Nittolo’s Seafood and Pizza. We shared pizza and all the kids were great! I was able to hold baby Adelaide for quite some time and Owen just swooned over her. It was so precious.

Eclipse

Even though we didn’t have totality in Traverse City, the whole eclipse experience was pretty cool. I was able to snag a few glasses from the school. Ryan and I watched from his jobsite on the roof. It was nice to have a few minutes of time together looking at something pretty neat! The moon made the sun look crescent shaped. The boys got to watch at school and were excited about it too.

Busy Beavers

In the spring, The Grand Traverse Conservation District offers a weekly nature class (Peepers Program) for children ages 3-5. I signed up Owen for this week’s class, “Busy Beavers”, because beavers are his favorite animal! He even brought the stuffed one he received for his birthday🙂 Owen was excited to feel real beaver fur and really enjoyed the hike that led to a beaver dam. It was a beautiful morning! I love hearing the birds chirp this time of year and seeing all the new growth starting. We also spent some time at The Boardman River Nature Center playing in their “Nature Playscape”. It was our first time there surprisingly and Owen loved it!

Virtual Cooking Class

First, can I just say that I love our school! They make such an awesome effort to connect with families with unique events and experiences. This week it was a virtual family cooking class! A friend of ours who is a chef (his kiddos attend the school too) taught us how to make a delicious Mediterranean grain bowl. The school supplied all the ingredients needed which was awesome. They also included a child knife so the boys could learn how to chop vegetables! It was a little chaotic having all three in my small kitchen haha, but a great reminder of how capable and helpful kids can be.

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

I recently finished The Forest of Vanishing Stars, a historical fiction novel set during WWII. I feel any book centered around the Holocaust can be difficult to read and this one definitely was. It was very good and a page turner, but also made be very anxious and broke my heart more than once.

With that being said, I probably should have opted for a lighter read right after but that was not the case. I checked out Homegoing a while ago and decided to dive in. This is also historical fiction centered around another terrible occurrence in our world: slavery. Like books about the Holocaust, books about slavery are very difficult and intense. While I am not finished (about 60%) this novel is just gutting me. But in a good way. I honestly am struggling to find the words to describe this book, it has just stunned me! Even with the multiple story lines in the book, you are captivated and invested in every single character.

The writing is impeccable, and this is one of those books that will stay with you and should probably be on everyone’s TBR list. It’s by no means easy to read but incredibly moving and such an important story to tell, both educational and personal to the heart. Even though I am not finished, I highly recommend!