Anybody up for a Spring Meetup in Royal Oak?

[Linnybelle]

I am terribly jealous of all of you.  I currently live in the frozen North, otherwise known as the Upper Peninsula, but am planning on moving down there for grad school in a little while.  Also, the meetup is the day before my birthday. 

Hopefully they'll be more for me to come to and have fun at this one for me.  I'll be thinking of it.   

[sheepBlue]

I just heard ahout this meet up. Hopefully if I don't have to work that weekend I'll totally be in for pottery painting (I haven't done that in forever!). I suppose even if I had to work I could rearrange my schedule to get it off.

I'm relatively new to Michigan and didn't realize Royal Oaks was only a 30 minute drive up 23. Haha, I thought it was way out west, and I could only shudder to remember the one hellish trip I had to take to Troy (bad bad bad day).

[SevsOnlyGirl]

sheepblue - it's so funny to hear that!  When I lived down in the Detroit area, I was all over all the time and was amazed at how close together things were!

I lived in Clawson (near Royal Oak) and worked in Eastpointe.  It wasn't too bad.  The worst was when I lived in Sterling Heights and worked in Warren - the traffic was unbelievable at 5pm - it took me 15-20 minutes to get to work in the morning and 1 1/2 hours to get home at night!

hey superhooker - hubby asked me the other day about who made the hat for him  awhile back.  He said he wants another one, but just a beanie this time.   I told him he'd have to wait for another swap where I could ask for one.lololol  He loves his socks too!

[superhooker]

hahaha!  Tell him I'll put it on my To Do list.  Just let me know what color he wants.

I used to live in Eastpointe, and while I hated it, it was pretty easy to get around to stuff on the East side of Detroit.  Then I moved to Bloomfield Hills, and it took sorta forever to get anywhere.  My new house is right in the middle of everything.  I'm right next to 696 and 75, so it is pretty easy to zip anywhere. 

Sevs, have you been to Clawson lately?  they're making it really nice up there.  Lots of cute new shops, and they are trying to make it into a real "downtown".

[SevsOnlyGirl]

I haven't been to Clawson since I moved out of it!  That was just over 15 years ago!   I moved in with my then-bf in Sterling Heights and got preggers with Katelyn right away, that's the only way I can remember when it was!  It was looking a little rundown when I was there.

I've only been to Sterling Heights and around Garfield and 19 in the last 5 years or so.  I had a friend who lived out that way.

[Muria]

I drove past the Zoo either yesterday or the day before, and thought of you guys as I was driving by.  I've been driving to Troy (where my parents live) a lot this week. My dad's in the hospital, and someone needs to stay with my mom till he's able to come home (hopefully sometime this week). Unfortunately, there's only two children to divide up the work (and we both have families, and live an hour's drive away so it's hard).  I told my husband we should have three more kids so that if we get sick when we get older, there's one for each day of the week. 

Sheepblue, the best way to get to Royal Oak from Ann Arbor, is 23N to 14E to 275N to 696E. It's probably closer to 40 minutes from here (I live in Saline (south east of Ann Arbor, but only 5 miles away from the mall in case you're like me when I moved to the area), and it's been taking me 40 minutes to get to Dad's hospital in Southfield with little to no traffic).

[sheepBlue]

Oh thanks for the heads up Muria  I live just outside of Saline at the moment, and have never ventured up to Royal Oaks before, so this will be fun.

[imthecutest81]

I used to live in Troy and we always said that it is nice because everything is close but then when you want to go anywhere out of the ordinary (good Movie theatre, mall, visit our families, etc) we had to drive at least 20-30 mins.  Not to mention we avoided the freeways like the plauge because they were always super congested. 

We found our own little crazy sideways to get everywhere...especi ally work (12 Mile & Telegraph)  So if anyone wants to know a nice scenic route to Troy just let me know.

Do we have an idea of where we want to meet and a time?

[Muria]

I used to live in Troy and we always said that it is nice because everything is close but then when you want to go anywhere out of the ordinary (good Movie theatre, mall, visit our families, etc) we had to drive at least 20-30 mins.  Not to mention we avoided the freeways like the plauge because they were always super congested. 

We found our own little crazy sideways to get everywhere...especi ally work (12 Mile & Telegraph)  So if anyone wants to know a nice scenic route to Troy just let me know.

Do we have an idea of where we want to meet and a time?

Eh, the freeways aren't too bad on the weekends. I avoid them before 9:30am and 3pm-6:30pm (rush hours), but unless there's a problem to gawk at, they're not too terrible.  Of course, if I have to drive home during rush hour, I tend to take the back roads. I had music lessons as a kid at 12 mile and orchard lake, and my dad got bored driving  the same route every day, so I learned my way around pretty thoroughly (which was when I found out that there's actually a "Long Lake" at the end of 18 Mile Road (aka Long Lake). There's a gorgeous church at 18 Mile and Telegraph, too. There are pictures here: http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?_adv_prop=image&fr=yfp-t-501&va=kirk+hills+michigan&sz=all  There are some on the church website, but they're not especially good pictures (imagine, they're actually interested in talking about the congregation and not just the building).

The commentary on the quality of the pictures counts as crafty content, right?   

I'm pretty flexible in times, as long as you don't mind me running a wee bit late (usually because of a discovered diaper emergency).

[tamilyn]

Looking forward to a Crafty Tea Party on April 18th. I must confess though, I am feeling kinda old here, you all sound so YOUNG, lucky ducks....not sure what I can "bring" to the party. But, I'm always up to learning new things. SevsOnlyGirl, I hope your Aunt can make it....I may need to talk to her about those Red Hat ladies! LOL

My daughters took me to Creative Arts Studio for my mother's day gift last year. It was a fun day with them. They worked on projuects for me and I made a vase for my mom. It looked like I made it when I was 5. LOL So, I dated it with the year when I was 5.

If you go to their web-site you can see ther merchandise and register for e-mail updates and coupons.

 http://www.creativeartsstudios.com/