Category Archives: Nature

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ohio, eagles, gymnastics and frickin’ chicken

May 10, 2012 – 10:41 am

Mom, Chloe and I took a trip to Ohio last weekend to visit family and see my cousin Tonya’s daughter, Kyleigh, compete at a gymnastics meet. We headed down after Chloe’s soccer game on Saturday and arrived in the late afternoon. Kirsten (Tonya’s oldest daughter) was at Aunt Pat’s house, so she and Chloe hung out and played on their iPods and rode around the yard in Uncle Tom’s little Ranger. Mom, Aunt Pat and I chatted for a while, then we went out to dinner and over to the cemetery to visit Grandpa and Grandma and Uncle Ron’s graves and take a look at this giant tree there that was struck by lightning or something, cracked in half and collapsed on a bunch of the gravestones. The girls were walking around (and Chloe was doing cartwheels on) Grandpa and Grandma’s grave, so I had them pose for me. I don’t think Chloe gets that you should show a little respect in a cemetery since she hasn’t really been in many in her life, but I told her she could show off her cartwheels to Grandma and Grandpa if she wanted and they were probably looking down from heaven smiling at her. Such a silly girl with so much to learn, but so full of energy and life and spirit.

Afterwards, we drove a few miles down the road past the house where my Grandma grew up. I took a few pictures and have been staring at them, imagining my grandmother as a little girl running around in the yard, playing in the creek, enjoying her childhood. Aunt Pat said Grandma nearly drowned in that creek when she was little. Praise God she didn’t. None of us would be here if she had.

Across from Grandma’s old homestead is a farm where a couple of eagles have built a huge nest. We drove by once and I didn’t have my zoom lens with me, so we went back to the house and got it and drove over again. That was a very cool sight. They weren’t there at first, but we suddenly saw one flying overhead and it landed on a branch high up (photo on the right). We watched that one for a few minutes and then the other eagle flew around, swooped down and came up and landed in its nest (left photo). Then the eagle perched on the branch, swooped down behind some trees down by the creek, so we backed up until I saw it down on a branch by the water (middle photo). It perched there for a bit, suddenly snapped a branch off with its beak and flew away with it.

We stayed the night at my grandparents farm (dad’s parents) and visited with Grandpa for a while. He takes such good care of Grandma. It’s hard to see her in such a weakened condition, especially after spending so much time last week going through old photos of her, so happy and alive with that huge smile on her face.

In the morning, we got up bright and early and headed over to Aunt Pat and Uncle Tom’s to drive down to Dayton for Kyleigh’s meet. On the way, we saw the biggest and most beautiful moon hanging low in the sky. I wish I had just stopped along the road and pulled out my camera because by the time we got to their house, the moon had disappeared behind a bunch of trees and it wasn’t as bright as it had been. It was awesome, though. The night before had been the “Super Moon” everybody had been talking about, so maybe that’s why it was so big and bright in the morning.

Our day was spent at the gymnastics meet, which was so fun to see. Kyleigh is a little powerhouse, for sure. She did awesome in all the events, scoring high in everything. Tonya didn’t tell her we were coming, so at one point when she looked up, she saw Chloe and got a huge smile on her face. :)

Kyleigh got 1st place in every event and 1st place overall. We were so proud of her! She loves gymnastics and has a huge talent for it.

After the meet, we all went to Fricker’s for lunch. They had “Frickin’ chicken” as one of the menu items and Kyleigh suddenly said, “When I’m done eating, can I get the frickin’ cheesecake for dessert?” We all laughed at that.

It was a nice afternoon with family, but after lunch it was time to say goodbye. Until next time.

By Administrator | Also posted in Family, Kids | Comments (0)

a whirlwind trip

October 12, 2011 – 11:01 am


When I tell you how many things we crammed into our two-day getaway to the U.P., you will think we are crazy, but we did it. We left early Saturday morning for a 5-hour drive to the Upper Peninsula. We arrived at Mackinaw City around lunchtime, so we stopped at the park there, had a picnic lunch and took some pictures by the bridge.

After lunch, we drove across the bridge. This was the kids first time there. We went to our hotel to check in, but we were there too early, so we went on our way north. Of course, we had to stop at Castle Rock just north of St. Ignace. We climbed to the top and thought we might have heart attacks on the way up. It’s pretty steep and there are a ton of stairs to climb. But the view was lovely and it was worth the climb.


We drove northward to Whitefish Point, took a look at the lighthouse and buildings, ventured out to the beach to see Lake Superior, and picked up some rocks.


Then it was south toward Paradise and a visit to Tahquamenon Falls. The falls are always so cool to see. We went to the lower falls first, walked the boardwalk to get a closer look, and took some pictures. The wind was so nice there and it was blowing mist from the waterfall in our faces, which felt nice since it was such a warm day.

We got some ice cream and the kids played checkers before we headed over to the upper falls.

Every time I’ve been to the upper falls with Jen, the river has been pretty low. One year, it was so shallow that the falls were split and dry in the middle and people climbed out on top of them. But this time, the river was flowing fast and deep and I got to see them in all their glory.


After a beautiful fall day, we spent the evening at our hotel swimming in the pool. I fell asleep almost the second my head hit the pillow. It was a ton of driving in one day.

Day two would be filled with even more driving than the day before. We stopped at Java Joe’s for morning coffee and Joe asked where we were going and after informing him we were headed to Kitch-iti-kipi, he suggested when we were done there, we should head a little further west and south on the Garden Peninsula to Fayette State Park to the ghost town. And that’s exactly what we did!

We went to Kitch-iti-kipi first. The kids really liked it there. I knew they would. I’m so glad Jen and I discovered it this summer. Chloe even got to make the raft move across the spring. It’s so cool there. It stays at a constant 45 degrees, so it never freezes over. I can just imagine how awesome it would be in the winter.


Then it was off to Fayette. I think this was my favorite place of the weekend. I love every place we went, but there’s just something about walking in a deserted town, where people used to work and live, seeing where they lived and the beauty of the location of this old iron town with the cliffs and water surrounding it. It was the coolest place. Very peaceful, too. With the fall colors, it just felt like the perfect time of year to visit there. Thanks, Java Joe! We loved it!









We headed home in the late afternoon and drove two hours back to St. Ignace then another five hours home. It was a crazy amount of driving and a thousand miles added to the odometer, but completely worth it.

I love the U.P. and I’m so thankful that mom took us on this trip and let me share some of my favorite places with my family.

By Kris | Also posted in Family, History, Kids, Michigan, Travel | Comments (1)

welcome to october

October 4, 2011 – 11:00 am


Happy October!

Well, it seems this has turned into a once a week blog. There’s been a lot of the above going on lately. Our life right now is soccer five days a week. We enjoy it, but I will be very ready when the end of the month arrives and games are over until next Spring.

- Chloe is now showing an interest in taking some dance classes, so that might be the next thing we get involved in. Also, thinking about signing her up for some piano lessons. She won’t listen when mom tries to teach her. ;)

- Jake went to Austin, TX the week before last for a business trip. He really enjoyed it and got to visit the Capitol building and eat at some great restaurants and see the millions of bats that fly out at dusk each night from under a bridge downtown (creepy!).

- We went to my high school’s homecoming game this year. I haven’t been back for a game since I graduated 20 years ago (yes, that’s right. 20!). It was fun to be there again and see familiar faces and root our team on. They didn’t win (boohoo!), but it was a fun time anyway. My brother Rick came along and we reminisced about our high school days.

- I got to hang out with my childhood BFF, Karleen, on Friday. Her daughter was on the homecoming court for Hastings and I tagged along to the homecoming assembly and took a bunch of pictures of her being announced on the court and performing a routine with the cheerleading squad. It was a lot of fun.

- Too much sad news the past two weeks. A couple of my friends had family members involved in serious car accidents. My heart just ached so much for them as they said goodbye to a sister and a father-in-law. If you would, please pray for the Miller family and the Haidle family.

- Jake’s dad went to the hospital last week with some pain in his lungs and trouble breathing. They found some blood clots in the lungs and one in his leg. Please pray for healing for him. He stayed there for several days and was put on blood thinners, and now he is home. We’re praying the clots go away and never come back.

- Spent our Sunday morning at the fairgrounds for TVC’s (Thornapple Valley Church) Celebration service. TVC has three services in Hastings and two in Middleville. All the services combined for one big service in the grandstand. It was a lot of fun having everyone together, praising God outside while the early morning sun warmed our faces (our toes were another story since it was like 40 degrees out), we sang choruses, and a few horses at a farm next door pranced across the field. It was a beautiful sight. Afterwards, there were all sorts of fun things for the families to do: lunch (pulled pork served in the swine barn. hahaha!), inflatable bounce houses and slides, face painting, hay rides, and lots of snacks. It was a fun time.

- Went to my parents farm in the afternoon. The guys all worked to help Dad get one of the barns prepped to become a garage. Mom made a delicious roast and some pies for dessert. It was a very nice day!

- The trees are starting to change color here now. There are little pops of color here and there. I LOVE fall.

- I’m still keeping up with our weekly Project Life photo album. I have a text file on my computer desktop that I open at the end of each day and type out a brief summary of what we did that day. It’s really helping me when it comes to writing in the album and it’s also become a little mini journal. It’s fun to read back through some of our days from earlier in the year, and it’s such a quick and easy thing to do. I literally spend five to ten minutes on it each day, just enough time to type the events of the day and anything else I want to remember to record in the album.

- With this colder weather arriving, I’m feeling the urge to knit again. Time to pull out those needles and decide what to make.

By Kris | Also posted in Faith, Family, Friends, Kids, Knitting, making stuff | Comments (0)

camping 2011 | day two and three

August 12, 2011 – 4:42 pm


love this picture of Jen looking for rocks on the beach in Manistique

On Saturday, we headed over to the Manistique area to visit Kitch-iti-kipi (aka Big Spring). It is a huge fresh water spring that stays at a constant 45〫all year round. The blue/green color was amazing. The water is totally clear and the algae and minerals make the beautiful colors. We boarded the little self-propelled raft and slowly moved out over the spring. The raft has an open area in the middle for people to see the bottom. It was awesome to see the water bubbling up from the ground. Kind of mesmerizing. The bottom of the spring is constantly changing from the sand shifting. It looked like moon craters down there in some places. Totally worth driving two hours from St. Ignace. I think it would be really cool to go there in the winter with the snow all around and see what it’s like.

After the raft returned to the dock, we went and had a little picnic lunch and then checked out the gift shop there before heading back.

We stopped at the lighthouse in Manistique and while Jen went exploring on the beach (she found some cool driftwood), I walked down the boardwalk and took some pictures. It was a beautiful day for a walk.

When we reached the Cut River Bridge, we stopped to check it out. I loved the cool arches and walkway under the bridge. Great place for pictures.

About 15-20 minutes outside of St Ignace, we stopped along the road by this long stretch of beach that was just perfect for swimming. We hung out there for a little bit and then headed back to camp. That night we had pizza hobo pies over the fire, then hung out and roasted marshmallows and sat by the fire talking until it burned down.

It rained in the morning, so I didn’t take any pictures because most of our time was spent drying things off and packing up. We did sit by one last morning campfire and talk and sip coffee (tea in Jen’s case) and Jen read some verses out of Proverbs. Our own little Sunday camp church. :D

This was our 7th trip together. We figured out that our first trip to St. Ignace was back in 2005. We kept trying to find things that tied in with the number 7. Like, our trip ended on August 7th and we looked up the verse that reads “A friend loves at all times”, which is Proverbs 17:17. haha! Yes, we were grasping, but it did have 7′s in it.

It was a very happy 7th trip! Can’t wait for the 8th!

By Kris | Also posted in Friends, Michigan, Travel | Comments (1)

camping 2011 | day one

August 12, 2011 – 12:11 am


My camping trip with Jen last weekend was just what I needed. We had a great time together, as usual, and took some time to just relax, too, which was perfect.

We camped in the U.P. (Upper Peninsula of Michigan for those who don’t know) at Straits State Park, which is just to the east after you cross the bridge. And THIS was our view of the Mackinac Bridge. Not too shabby. Way to go, Jen, for getting us such a cool campsite.

Once we got campfire wood and our tent and site all set up …

… we sat and relaxed under this big beautiful tree.

It’s sort of become our tradition to cook teriyaki marinated chicken and little tin foil packs of veggies over the fire on our first night of camp. Here’s my veggies before and after. Nothing beats food cooked over an open fire.

We relaxed all evening by our fire. I ate like half a bag of marshmallows – nice and toasted. yum! I took some crazy video of our campfire antics. I may share a video or two here, but I’m not promising anything. ;)

The bridge looked so cool as the sun went down. I took a bazillion pictures of it, but I really liked this one taken at night. Not too bad for not having a tripod with me.

For some reason, whenever we’re camping, I wake up around 6 a.m. Don’t know why. I just usually can’t sleep in. On this particular morning, The sound of birds squawking at each other was my alarm clock. Totally annoying. But I was able to enjoy the nice morning light and take a few pictures.

Good morning, St Ignace!

Good morning, Mackinac Bridge!

On Day Two, we headed to Manistique. Those pictures are up next. This would actually be the better day to share video of because we got to see one of the coolest little natural wonders in Michigan.

Happy Friday everyone!

By Kris | Also posted in Friends, Michigan, Travel | Comments (1)

memorial day 2011

May 31, 2011 – 1:00 pm


We had a wonderful holiday weekend. It was way too short. I guess it was just a little prelude to summer vacation. Hot summer days, here we come!

Our weekend was spent here at home, at Jake’s mom’s and at my parents’ farm. It was filled with a little of this …


… some of this …


… and this.

Sunday night, some storms blew through while we were at Mom+Dad O’s. We saw lots of lightning and a ton of heavy rain. About 10 miles south of their house, Battle Creek was hit with a lot of damaging winds that pulled trees out by the roots, knocked power lines down, and much more. Thankful we didn’t get hit with anything serious.

We had a blast at the farm on Memorial Day, running around outside, despite the heat. We were smart and wore our sunscreen and drank lots of water all afternoon. And we took some breaks in the air conditioning, too. It was a fun weekend!

Love Mom’s snowball bush. So pretty. Reminds me of my Grandma.

Only seven full days and two half days left of school. At this point, we’re starting to count down the days! Can’t believe this school year is almost over. Trying to remind myself daily to slow down and take it all in. It will all be a thing of the past before I know it. :(

By Kris | Also posted in Family, Home, weather | Comments (0)

a walk in May

July 26, 2010 – 9:28 pm


Looking through some pictures tonight that I took back in May. These were taken during a “week in the life” project I was working on. I plan to organize all the pictures from that week into a photobook eventually, but thought I’d share a few favorites here. On that Monday evening, we went for a drive with my mom to take something to my dad in the field and we took a nice walk in the woods together.

LOVE that Zach took the flower he picked (above) and gave it to his Grandma (below). Such a sweetie. (This was obviously taken before a haircut.) ;)


May have to frame the one of Chloe (above left) and the one below. It looks like they’re running through some kind of magical forest or something. Love it!

By Kris | Also posted in Family, Kids | Comments (2)

camp olczak

June 27, 2010 – 11:04 pm


Camp Olczak! That’s what we’re calling it anyway. We spent Saturday night camping at Mom + Dad O’s backyard in their 5th wheel. It was a lot of fun! Nick brought along cousin Ashley’s daughter, Jaimee, too. She and Chloe had so much fun together! They spent the whole day running around, giggling, playing their own little games, fawning over the kitties, bickering and bossing each other around (chloe), and becoming friends for life.

The girls pretty much ran around together all day. They kept each other occupied. Zach got so bored without anyone his age to play with that someone let him go in the house and play video games for a while. Poor kid. Jake was with Dad O in the shop for a while. The handle on our push mower came off that morning, so he brought it over to see if it could be welded. So they were working on that. The rest of us were hanging out and chatting. I sat outside in the camp chair for a long time relaxing, watching, taking pictures, chatting, thinking. It’s so peaceful there. I love it. It was a really nice day.

The forecast threatened us with rain, but it never came. It was hot and muggy, but a beautiful day, which gave way to a beautiful night. The moon was full and bright. We had a nice campfire and roasted marshmallows for s’mores.

After lots of sugary snacks, I tucked the girls in the camper and the rest of us stayed up by the fire for a bit. Zach thought it was great that he got to stay up with us big kids.

Sleeping in the camper was fun. Hopefully, it’s the first of many camping adventures with the Olczak clan, whether at “Camp Olczak” or elsewhere.

By Kris | Also posted in Family, Friends, Kids, Travel | Comments (0)

spring blooms

April 27, 2010 – 1:57 pm


The May flowers have arrived a little early this year. The temperatures have been unseasonably warm lately, which has caused the trees and flowers to start blooming sooner than they usually would. The trees have been so beautiful that I decided to bring my camera along on a walk with my mom last week. It’s a good thing I did, too, because we had a ton of rain this past weekend and a lot of the blossoms are now on the ground. My favorites were the pink/purple trees at the park. I just wanted to lay down in the grass underneath the beautiful canopy of flowering branches. So pretty.



By Kris | Comments (1)

our weekend up north

March 9, 2010 – 2:59 pm


After the strange week I had last week, I was so ready to get away to Traverse City this weekend for my cousin’s wedding. If you are facebook friends with me or follow my twitter updates, then you already know that I witnessed a car accident last Wednesday. I was waiting to turn left onto our street, completely stopped and waiting for oncoming traffic to clear, just minding my own business. A woman in the oncoming lane put on her blinker to turn left across in front of me. I thought she would stop before turning to see if any cars were coming around me in the lane to my right, but she didn’t. As she turned across, I glanced in my side mirror and saw someone coming full speed and I screamed (and scared the kids to death!) because I knew they were about to hit. I don’t think either of them expected the other to be there at all and the car coming around me smashed right into the side of the woman’s car. I just sat there for several seconds, completely shocked that she had actually turned without looking and afraid that I had just watched someone die right before my eyes. I pulled safely out of the way while others ran to help and called 911. The emergency vehicles and police were there in minutes and I waited to tell the officers what had happened. I just stood there watching for about twenty minutes. I think I was in a bit of shock and I was very shaky. When the officer spoke to me, he told me that everyone was going to be OK and he thought the woman who had turned had a broken leg. I was so happy to hear that. That is the closest that I have ever been to a car accident and I thank God that neither of their cars touched mine because it happened literally a couple feet in front of me. So scary! I was pretty shaken up for the rest of the evening and into the next day.

That next day, my mom was coming over to my house and she called me and told me that the bottom of her car had fallen off. I was like “What do you mean?” She had turned onto the same road where I saw the accident the night before and as she turned there was a clunking sound and something dropped and she lost control of her car. Luckily, she was driving slow enough that she stepped on her break and got it to coast to a stop against the curb on the opposite side of the street. A city worker passed by just then and parked his big truck in the lane in front of Mom so nobody would hit her. She said there was another car coming in the lane when she started swerving over into their lane, but thank God that car was far enough away that there was no danger of her being hit. I guess some kind of bolts came off that hold the engine up or something. I don’t know much about cars, so I’m not positive on that, but she totally lost steering. She was pretty shaken up. I went and picked her up and was her chauffeur for the day.

Needless to say, it was a crazy couple of days! And we’re avoiding that road for a while. ;)

So I was really looking forward to Friday! I packed up, Jake got out of work early, we picked the kids up, and took off for Traverse City for my cousin Brian’s wedding! The drive up was so nice. We’ve had glorious sunshine for the whole month of March so far. It’s been awesome! And this weekend was picture perfect … literally! It couldn’t have been more gorgeous out. When you think of a wedding in March in Michigan, you never know what you’re going to get. There’s always that fear of a big snowstorm or something. But it was just beautiful weather. Couldn’t have asked for a better weekend! I’ll share some pictures soon.

The kids had a blast swimming in the pool at the hotel every chance they got. I took full advantage of the jacuzzi tub in our room to take away some of my wedding aches and pains. We had a lot of fun!

On Sunday morning, before heading home, we took a drive up to the Old Mission Lighthouse and took a walk out on the snow/ice. Then we drove across town to Moomer’s for some ice cream. The kids loved everything! Chloe said it was the best adventurous day she had ever had. hehe! So cute. Jake and I both took the cameras out with us and got a bunch of pictures of our walk. Here are a few!





Speaking of cameras … something interesting happened to me at the wedding. I had just finished shooting some pictures of the bride & groom before we headed over to the hotel for the reception and I took a picture of the hotel and heard a strange click. Through the viewfinder it looked like something was blocking part of the picture. I carefully removed my lens to see that the mirror in my camera had detached from the tray it normally sits on. What? Now what do I do? This was my main camera, my beloved 5D, the one I use the most at weddings. I have two backups, but I was determined to somehow attach that mirror just enough to get me through the rest of the night. And what did I use to do that, you ask? Scotch tape. haha! The funniest thing about that was that it raised the mirror up higher than it normally would be so anything I wanted in focus appeared to be out of focus, but if I took the photo and looked at it on the screen, it was perfectly clear. So I had to make sure that my subject was always out of focus to my eyes. Thank God for auto focus. I made it through the night and got all the lovely photos that I wanted with my 5D. Now I have to send my camera to Canon to be fixed. It seems I am not the first person to have this happen. Something to do with faulty adhesive. So Canon is paying shipping to and from their repair facility, where they will fix and reinforce my mirror and make my camera work right again. Yay!

Poor Jake is going in for a root canal today. He’s needed one and has been putting it off, but he has been in a lot of pain for the past week and was in terrible pain at the wedding. I felt so bad for him. Glad he’ll have this taken care of finally!

Man, last week felt like the longest week ever. Just one of those weeks, I guess. How was your week? ;)

By Kris | Also posted in Family, Kids, Photography, Travel, weather | Comments (0)
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