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Mikal Krummel
Journey to Parenthood
fertility, pregnancy with liam, nursery prep, how we told parents, labor, baby!
next chapter: Liam
Boyne City
One of my favorite memories as a kid was taking an annual or bi-annual trip to Boyne City to visit family. Mimi would take myself, cousin Terha, Nicole and Stephanie to Boyne City to visit our Aunt Gaynelle, Uncle Dan and cousins Jonah, Jacob and Joey. She loved going there a few times a year and it was always a great getaway for us kids. We would go during school vacations or summer vacations.
The car rides were always memorable. We would all either meet at Mimi’s house in Oxford or she would pick some of us up at our houses. From there, we would drive up I-75 north. The alphabet game started and always ended by the Zilwaukee bridge unless we saw a license plate with a Z on it. Other car games included guessing the title and artist of the song on the radio and the question box. Mimi was always the one person we could tell anything to so as kids so we took it upon ourselves to put ‘anonymous’ questions in a box for her to answer. These ranged from how Mimi and Papa met to who her favorite kid was (She has 9) haha.
One of the things I’ll always remember is stopping at the Cracker Barrel for lunch on the way there or on the way home. Papa would give Mimi 4 film containers filled with quarters to give each of us. That was his way of being with us. We would have lunch then use our quarters in the giftshop. It was always a treat!
When we were at Aunt Gaynelle and Uncle Dan’s house, it was always a blast. There was always something going on as they ran a daycare during the day. If we went on the weekends, we would go to church with them. We would get into adventures with the boys, either playing outside, playing with their black lab named Dozer, or going to the beach. We would get into heated tournaments of Mario Cart. Someone always ended up getting blisters on their palms from the competition games. They lived about a mile from Lake Charlevoix and on good days at the right time of year, you could see the lake from their front yard. We would travel into Petosky occasionally to shop in the downtown stores and have lunch. It was quite a handful to have 6 kids in one house plus 3 adults but it was always a blast.
We continued this tradition until we all were in high school and started to spend our vacations with friends instead of family. This was such a great tradition I am happy we did as a family.
4C
Meeting my husband was the last thing on my mind during a girl’s night at a Blake Shelton concert at DTE Energy Music Theater. Earlier on that hot June day in 2010, I went fishing with my Dad to celebrate Father’s Day. This was something fun that we loved to do and would soon be something that Jeffrey loved to do with my Dad too. Back to getting ready. I got on my favorite dark denim jeans and floral crop tank top with my perfectly broke in cowboy boots. My Mom was helping me perfect my look as she usually would do when I was headed out. I was waiting on the girls to show up to my house and then we would meet the rest there. Terha, Whitney and Stephanie showed up, we took the obligatory group picture and then we were on our way.
We made it to Clarkston and met up with the rest of the group. Our two vows for the night were to use the buddy system and no boys. This was a girls night after all! We got our drinks poured, music on in the car and we hung out in the parking lot before going in to the concert. About 15 minutes in, a girl came over and said we looked fun and that she wanted to start a block party so come over to their truck a row over. Whitney, being the outgoing, party-girl she was, headed over as fast as she could. As her buddy, I was forced to follow her. Needless to say, I was not very happy. We all eventually ended up at the tailgate of a Chevy truck owned by our future best man of our wedding, Kyle Schaenzer. Sitting on that tailgate was a handsome sandy blonde guy, Jeffrey. Whitney parked it next to him and asked if they had some Captain Morgan rum that she was promised earlier. His response was ‘Only if you get that pretty blonde to come over here.’ As Whitney states, On cue, you saunter over in your daisy dukes.’ Jeff hands Whitney the Captain Morgan from the cooler and we start chatting. This backstory was only later revealed to me. I was pretty unpleasant company for about half of the night since one of our two rules had been broken and I was really looking forward to a night with my best girls.
I tried to give up my attitude and chatted with our new friends. We all headed into the concert and set up camp on the hill altogether. We danced the night away and found out more about the guys. Jeff was a police officer at the time. My cousin, Stephanie, was completely enamored with this and had so many questions for him as the night progressed. One of the fun facts, and probably a pick up line to see me again, was that they could get free vouchers for future concerts. I hate to admit it but in the moment, that sold me and I uncharacteristically put my phone number in his phone.
The concert ended and it didn’t take him very long to text me. For the longest time, my name in his phone was ‘Daisy,’ a nod to my attire for that night. From then on, our friendship grew and our two groups of friends hung out all summer long. To this day, we still hang out frequently, Adren and Kyle were the best men in our wedding, Terha was the maid of honor, Adren and Terha are the Godparents of our son Liam, Lisa is the Godmother to our son Lucas and the others are still important parts of our lives. I love looking back on this night and seeing where it went and how it has ended up for us so far. Meeting my best friend and husband is certainly one of my fondest memories.
Growing Up in Small Town, USA
I was born in Lapeer, MI to Mike and Patti Schenkel. I lived in the same house until I was 21 in Metamora, Michigan. The house was 2 bedrooms, one bathroom, beautiful yard with trees and and a rock wall. When I was young, my Dad built a pole barn one summer in the backyard. Mom always had flowers that we tried in so many ways to have the rabbits not eat. We would lay in the sun, play in the sprinkler, ride bikes and draw chalk murals on the entire paved driveway at my parents pig roasts.
My Mom is a unique, strong willed, tall, long-haired beauty. She grew up in Detroit and moved to Oxford with Mimi and Papa when she was in school. Mom worked in catering at the Huntsman for many years and spent most of her time being a wonderful, present Mom. She always encouraged creativity, crafts, cooking, baking and being a unique individual. We put glitter and sequins on everything if we could! Dance parties in the kitchen and singing our hearts out to “Now that’s what I call music-Christmas #1′ was always a fabulous tradition.
My Dad is a masculine, strong, hardworking, caring and understanding man. He grew up in Dryden all of his life. Dad worked as a heavy equipment operator for most of his career. That is where I learned to love the smell of a good mechanic garage, wood stove and fresh asphalt. Dad was the one who taught me how to drive, fish, hunt and take care of my car properly. Before I could get my license, I had to change all four tires and change my oil and fluids. I obviously wasn’t too happy to actually do this, but these are all tasks that I now appreciate and cherish learning them with my Dad. We went to NASCAR races together, cheering on Dale Earnhardt, Jr every time, went fishing for blue gill in the winter and summer, and hunted whitetails at the condo.
I had a tight knit group of girlfriends during school. We had surprise birthday parties for each other in middle school, were a sarcastic bunch, loved sleepovers with junk food and spending time together especially after school and in the summer. Lisa Stoutenburg, Kristen Williamson, Ashley Roth, and Ashley Carbone were my main girls. Ashley Carbone lived about a mile away from me. We walked to each others house when we couldn’t drive and we drive around on the back roads together when we could.
I went to Imlay City Schools all of my childhood. My favorite classes were always art and social studies. In elementary school, it smelled like pickles during recess from the Vlasic plant in town. I played basketball every year until senior year when I called it quits. I was the forward/center and honestly not very good. haha! I can laugh about it now but it was frustrating as a kid to always be the backup no matter how much I practiced. It was a great way to keep me in shape though. That was a big plus!
Growing up, I was blessed to be an only child with many close cousins. My mom was one of 9 kids so I was extremely close with my cousins Terha, Nicole and Stephanie. We would always spend the night at each others house and at Mimi and Papa’s house. No matter what happened in our lives, we would always remain so close. I still call Terha my sister. Nicole was and still is obsessed with animals. Stephanie was emotional like myself and loved to be apart of the group. We got a long great for this reason and also because the older girls Terha and Nicole would gang up on us for being the youngest. We all are a year apart over 4 years.
Growing up in a small town is something that I’ll always cherish. I loved being so close to my friends and family, being outside, learning valuable life lessons and actually knowing your neighbor.
