Selfies

 That time my parents decided to try to take a selfie...

Watervliet Ice Sculpture Festival

 Apparently there was an ice sculpture festival in Watervliet (MI) in 1997. I think that's my dad in the top right picture. If he ever did any ice sculpture I was unaware of it... so I don't know if he made this or if Mom just took a picture of him standing next to it.

Watervliet House, Snow

I'm pretty sure this would have been the first winter after Mom and Dad retired -- 1997. They started spending winters in Florida after that. Most of these pictures are of Dad. The top one and lower right of the top collage are Rick.

A New One on Me

 Every once in a while I find a picture that I don't remember ever seeing before. This is one of them. I think this might actually be my favorite picture of Mom and Dad. Well, one of my favorites, anyway.

Here's another picture, apparently taken the same day

This looks like the Grand Canyon, although it could have been Bryce Canyon or some other place. They did a lot of traveling out west. One of these days I'll post a whole series on their travels.

Watervliet House in winter

Most of the time Mom and Dad spent winters in Florida, leaving as soon as all the leaves had fallen and been cleared from the yard. The first winter after they retired, 1997, they stayed in Michigan. And there was one year (2008, I think) they didn't go to Florida until January. So these pictures would have to be from one of those years.

Red Made These

 Here are some things my dad made in his workshop. 

I love that drop-leaf table! Great for a small space, doesn't take up any room when not in use.

Watervliet House, Red's workshop

 Dad had a woodshop in the garage. Woodworking was one of his favorite hobbies.

Dad kept his shop very well organized, as he did with everything. One of his superpowers was finding, making, or creating places to keep all my mother's collections (shoes, purses, nesting dolls, books, art supplies, cooking supplies...)

Watervliet House, leaves

Michigan is beautiful in the fall when the leaves are changing. Dad was an expert leaf-wrangler.

Watervliet House, Earl the Squirrel

 Earl the Squirrel

Red adopted a little friend...

Who Are You?

 'Kay, don't shoot me, but can any of my peeps tell me exactly who these two people are (Karen?) and when this picture was taken? The location is Mom & Dad's house in Watervliet.

Watervliet House yards and views

The house sat on two lots, one of which was a corner lot (which was lovely, so no one else could build a house there and obstruct the view). My dad kept the lawns and the house looking like a showplace. 

It was on a nice quiet street, close to town but far enough away from the main streets to keep traffic noises to a minimum.

Watervliet House, interior (after)

This is how the interior of the Watervliet house looked after Red and Wathada put their magic touch on it. 

Living room

Mom's nesting doll collection. She spent a number of years building this valuable collection while they lived in California. The last time I saw it was Christmas of 1997 at the family reunion / housewarming party. The next time I was in this house was 2003, at their 50th anniversary -- the nesting doll collection was gone, and nobody in the family seems to know where it went (or when, or why).

These pictures are of the kitchen and dining room.

Other rooms -- front porch, mom's bathroom and bedroom, dad's computer desk (affectionately known as the "old Thomas pit")

More miscellaneous. This little nook (top left) was somehow tucked in between Dad's bedroom and the room behind the kitchen -- I never did figure out exactly how it fit into the configuration of the house. That's what I love about those old Michigan houses. They were full of odd little nooks and crannies.

Dad put the brick facade (I don't think it was real brick, but it might have been) around the edges of the sliding glass doors in the dining room.

We always lived in rented houses, after it took my parents ten years to sell the first house they bought in Bangor. You can see why people always loved to have my parents as renters. We actually had a man ASK us to move into his rental house once, when we weren't even looking for a place to move into. He was a lawyer and was handling a case where the house belonged to a couple who had died in an automobile accident. They had two teenaged children, and the kids wanted to keep the house, but they were living out of state with relatives. It was going to be two years before the oldest child would turn 18 and could legally take possession of the house. So their lawyer (a friend of our family) asked Dad if we would move into the house and maintain it for those two years. Which we did.

Watervliet House, interior (before)

These are pictures taken inside the house before they fixed it up.

Stay tuned for the AFTER pictures