The Lion's Tales: May edition

My TBR stack that I'm going to attempt to power through
over the long holiday weekend for the Take Back Your
Shelves Readathon.   Who am I kidding??
I'll be lucky if I can finish two of these... 

Ah May... the month where it FINALLY feels like spring in Michigan -- and we even have days and weeks that feel like summer!



1. Rocky and I celebrated our 11th anniversary. 
We met at Michigan State University in 2001, and married in 2005. We don't get back to campus very often (though we only live an hour away), so since our anniversary was on a Saturday this year, I went ahead and planned a surprise overnight getaway for us! We got a room at the Kellogg Center (the hotel on campus) on Friday night, and spent the evening and the next day walking around campus and reminiscing.

Beaumont Tower. We had some of our
wedding photos taken here!

My major was Agriscience (no, I don't use my degree now)
and I spent a lot of time in this beautiful building. 

No trip to MSU is complete without a stop at the Dairy Store.
It was a hot, windy day - perfect for an ice cream break. 

2. Abby celebrated her 6th birthday.
Isn't she so cute?? She will finish kindergarten next week. It's such a joy to watch her grow and learn and interact with the world. But, as I'm sure any parent can understand, she can also be very stubborn and moody, so we're learning how to deal with that too. :) I'm looking forward to our summer together!

3. I chose, bought, and assembled our new grill.
Our old grill finally rusted out enough after 10 years that I was afraid to cook on it anymore. Since I'm the primary grillmaster in our house, I got the okay from the hubby to do the research and get a new one! I was intrigued by the concept of this new Gas2Coal grill from CharBroil, that allows the use of both gas and charcoal in the single space. I've used it 3 times with gas and 2 times with charcoal, and so far am loving it!!

My van was not tall enough to fit a pre-assembled grill... 

Some assembly required!!

First meal. All cooked outside. YUM.

4. I got my garden planted.
My garden space isn't very large, yet I kept putting off clearing out the space from last year. Luckily the raspberry and strawberry plants were already set and growing beautifully, so I finally took two mornings last week to work on the rest of it. Then Ellie and I went to "the flower store" to get some plants. It's not much, but it should get me outside a few times a week!

What have you been up to this month? Is the weather finally spring- or summer-like where you live?