Friday Favorites #45

Hello! Friday is here, yay! I am spending the afternoon volunteering at the school for an Earth Day event. I am helping with the planting station so should be fun!

We have no big plans this weekend, but the boys do have their first soccer game! Ryan is coaching again, and we have many of the same players from last year. Looking forward to the season! The start of spring soccer is actually one of my favorites this week:)

Enjoy your weekend and keep reading for this week’s list of favorite things. As always, thank you for stopping by today!

Ryan’s Birthday!

Our favorite guy turned 38 on Monday! We made sure to celebrate after work and school. Ryan is in the “Mug Club” at Hop Lot (recently voted the #2 beer garden in the US!) which means a free beer on his birthday. After Hop Lot, we drove down the street to VI Grill for dinner. Their burgers are very yummy! Ryan also got a free dessert and decided on a chocolate lava cake. It was served warm and tasted as good as it looked! Ryan isn’t very big on birthdays but hopefully he felt extra loved on Monday:)

Beginning of Soccer Season

It is definitely feeling like spring up here especially now that soccer has officially started. Like I said above, Ryan is coaching again, and we’re excited for a fun season. All three boys play for the Leelanau Soccer Club and we really enjoy the league. Hoping for a W tomorrow to kick the season off!

Bugs and Beetles

Last week, I mentioned “Busy Beavers” as a Friday Favorite, and this week it was “Bugs and Beetles”! Owen and I headed to the Boardman River Nature Center again on another beautiful spring morning. Owen’s favorite activity was making a bug house out of sticks and leaves against a tree trunk. He found a worm, roly poly, and millipede to put inside. Owen also found a salamander which caught all the other kids’ attention! There were so many kids gathered around him, that I wasn’t able to snap a pic. After all the other kids left the woods, Owen wanted to stay and keep working on his bug house. He is my nature boy and could spend all day in the woods if I let him. It breaks my heart a little to know he’ll be in school all day everyday next year without as much opportunity for nature exploration:(

Owen also caught his first frog of the season at Veronica Valley! It hopped out of his net before I could snap a pic and he’s been begging to go back and catch more! Salamanders too!

We ended up making it back to Veronica Valley on Thursday evening while Drew and Lucas had soccer practice. This time we didn’t find any frogs, but Owen did find two salamanders! He LOVES finding them and named one Sally. He made a little house for it too just like he did with the bugs. He even put pine needles on top of the lil guy for a blanket. It was pretty darn cute.

Amazon Earrings

I keep it very simple when it comes to jewelry but have been wearing the same huggie earrings in my second ear hole forever. I wanted something a little different that would still work for everyday wear. I found these cute star huggie earrings on Amazon and love them! I’ve been wearing them all the time.

“Buffaloed” Geocache

***If you want to find this geocache stop reading because spoilers ahead haha!***

There is a popular geocache in the area called “Buffaloed at the Y”. Ryan, the boys, and I have attempted to find it twice searching for quite some time. After our nature class on Tuesday, I knew we would be driving right by, so I told Owen today we were going to find it. I navigated us to the spot yet again and there is nothing there but a post with a faucet. I knew it had to be somewhere in that faucet. I told Owen let’s try unscrewing it and see. Well, what do you know we found a little container inside! Owen was so excited!

HOWEVER, when we opened the container, it contained a very small note…

“You’ve been buffaloed. This isn’t the cache. You’re close keeping looking.”

At this point, I was determined haha! Ryan and I are currently building a new deck and have discussed plastic sleeves that go right over the wooden posts. I noticed this post had one, so I tried to lift it and what do you know?! There was the geocache sitting right on top!!

3rd time is a charm, I guess! We signed our names on the log. Owen wanted to take a little trinket out, so we left a quarter in its place. Definitely the most challenging, clever geocache we have found so far!