Summer Fun

Our exciting summer is continuing at break-neck speed.  We have had time to enjoy the cabin, play in the sandbox and the pool, meet new friends and Brian and I have even had time to go wine tasting. 

Brian and I celebrated our anniversary two weekends ago at Sawmill Creek in Huron, Ohio.  They offered a wine tour and we visited 2 wineries with 4 other couples.  One of the other couples actually lives in Perrysburg, very close to us.  That evening we went to the Huron Playhouse to see "I Love You, Your Perfect, Now Change".  A number of students from ONU are working there this summer and Brian is actually there tonight with his mom to see "Gypsy".  He is also going to pick up our new patio furniture that we ordered when we were out there.  We had researched American made patio furniture and we were having a hard time deciding between wood and polywood.  So we visited Rudder's in Port Clinton.  It is a fantastic place and the main business is a cafe that has fantastic scones and iced tea (that was all that I tried, I am sure there are other great items as well) as well as a cute grocery area.  They also have a gift shop and sell Polywood patio furniture, which is all made in Indiana from recycled milk jugs.  We ordered rocking chairs and a table for our front porch.  Hopefully after tomorrow I will be able to post a picture of our awesome new furniture.

While Brian and I were enjoying Erie County and the beauty of the area (and the wine), the kids were hanging out with Grandma Linda and Grandpa  Butch.  Grandma was kind enough to share some pictures with us:

These two of Isaac make me laugh.  Isaac gets scared of animals.  He has this reaction with dogs as well.  He is okay with trying to pet them, until they look at him and then he freaks out.  They went to Grand Rapids, OH where there is a mule drawn canal boat that they went for a ride on.

I really like this picture of Mackenzie and Grandma hanging out on the bridge.

 Here is a picture of Grandpa swinging with the kids.  Mackenzie has become quite a good swinger lately.

 

On Sunday, after we bought our patio furniture, we stopped at a farm stand and bought peaches.  When we got home I canned peach jam and did laundry while Brian went and met his family at Shannon and Doug's house where the cousins went swimming together.  Aunt Shannon shared this great picture of the cousins at the pool:

 

Last weekend Mackenzie got to spend Thursday and Friday with Grandma Kathy and Grandma Mike.  Lexie joined her on Friday and then Brian, Isaac and I drove up Friday night and we all got to spend the weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's.  We stayed in Midland the whole weekend and the kids loved playing at the house and in the yard.  We had to leave early Sunday to get Isaac home for a playdate and a birthday party at the park.  Mackenzie spends most of her free time at home with Payton and Aubry who live in our neighborhood.  It is great that they have neighbors to play with here now.  However, I am learning to be the mean mom that makes them pick up when they are done because I am really tired of toys being all over the floor and I am way too lazy to pick them all up myself.  So our house may not be the fun house to play at for long.  

So we are all really enjoying summer.  Next weekend we are headed back to the cabin for Lexie's 12th birthday party!  Isaac is going to get to stay alone with Grandma and Grandpa after the party, which he is really excited about.

 

Crazy June - Warning: Long Post with Vacation Pictures

So our crazy June is just about over.  Brian enjoyed going back to the Goodman and helping to finish up The Jungle Book and I enjoyed the OHUG conference, especially since my friend Janet from Alberto was there.  It was really great to catch up. 

I also got to see the Grassy Knoll and ride a mechanical bull, for a very short time.

In the middle of all that, Mackenzie had her first ballet recital.  She did very well and now thinks that she wants to continue ballet.

We spent the last week of June on vacation.  Butch and Linda drove the kids and I over to Chicago last Saturday.  Saturday night we went over to the George's for dinner and to catch up.  Abigail has gotten so big and the kids really had a great time playing together.  We stayed out way past bedtime, but it was totally worth it to see the kids playing together again!  The George's are heading through our neck of the woods in August on their way to the East Coast.  It will be a lot of fun to show them  our new home.

 

On Sunday we met up with a lot of old friends in Millenium Park and then went to Greektown for lunch.  Mackenzie was so excited to see Sophie.  I had emailed her parents earlier in the week to see if they may be available during the weekend, but I hadn't mentioned anything to Mackenzie about it.  On Friday she asked me if we could see Sophie when we were in Chicago.  I asked her why she asked to see Sophie and she said, "Because when I think of Chicago, I think of Sophie."  She didn't even have to think about it.  Fortunately they were available on Sunday morning, along with our Pastor from Chicago and my friend Jie and her daughter Anwen. 

 

Mackenzie and Sophie

Pastor Joann

 

Mackenzie and Anwen

 

Sunday afternoon we saw The Jungle Book at the Goodman.  It was very good and since then Isaac has been singing "Bear Accessories".  It is pretty hilarious and he has even taught his new song to Mackenzie. 

 

After the show we headed down to Indianapolis.  Once again we were up way past bedtime.  Isaac figured out how to order a $4 Dinosaur Train video after we got into the hotel room with the game controller, so we did a movie night and then crashed.  Monday morning we headed to the Indianapolis Children's Museum.  It was fantastic.  It was truly a full day.  Isaac was super excited because at the end of the day he got to see a real transformer.  (They had a Bumble Bee show at the end of the day.)  

Mackenzie had a great time as well, I honestly think the sand table was her favorite part of the whole museum, despite the fact that she now has a sand box at home.  Though she truly enjoyed all of the museum. Here is a great shot of her in the Dow Science Center area of the museum:

 

She pushed her baby stroller through the entire museum.  She also decided while we were there that she liked taking pictures.  She took this lovely shot of the rest of us in front of the train:

  Both kids posed with Spiderman as well:

We were there pretty much from the time they opened to the time they closed.  Before the Bumblebee show at the end of the day the kids got about 20 minutes to go back to their favorite thing, but other than that it took us the whole day to get through the museum.

 

On Tuesday we did a "Mom" stop at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.  I really wanted to walk through their outdoor exhibit, which we did.  The kids complained a bit at the beginning, but they really liked it once we got to the sculptures.  They especially liked the bones.  I didn't get any really good shots there.  Most of the art work was really large and it is hard to tell in the pictures that they are playing on bones.  By the time we finished up outside it was lunch time and we were all very sweaty.  We decided not to go into the museum building.  Instead we got lunch and headed to our hotel in Louisville. 

 

We had decided to try out the Horseshoe Casino north of Louisville for the night.  When we checked in there was a very angry woman at the front desk in her bathing suit, with two kids in their bathing suits.  She was upset because the pool had been shut down.  It was explained to us that they had to shock the pool and it should be opened up the next morning.  It was definitely inconvenient, since we planned to swim that afternoon.  To be honest though I am guessing that they had to shock it becuase something disgusting happened in it, so I am glad they were doing it.  So instead we went to downtown Louisville, where they had a splash park.  The kids had fun getting very wet (it was really hot), but they enjoyed the playground area more.  There was a pyramid shaped area attached to one of the jungle gyms that they really liked climbing to the top of. 

 

The Horseshoe Casino hotel was quite nice and the next morning we really enjoyed the huge pool.  Mackenzie made a friend and they played nicely together.  Isaac enjoyed jumping in the pool and sitting in the hot tub.  We headed back into Louisville after swimming to go to the Kentucky Science Museum.  Once again, the kids really had a great time.  They especially liked the area where they could pull a bubble around themselves:

I thought that the dish of mirrors at the entrance was really cool: 

After lunch at the Old Spaghetti Warehouse we tried to go to the Kentucky Arts and Crafts Museum, another "Mom" stop, but unfortunately they were changing exhibits around and it was closed.  We did go into the store and Isaac found some pottery that he really liked.  He wanted to use it in the bath : )  I decided to buy a bud vase from the collection for my souvenir.  Maybe one day Isaac will appreciate it enough to take it with him to his own home.

 

After that we headed to Mammoth Park. 

 

We rented a cabin at the park and were pleasantly surprised when we got there.  We actually rented 2 cabins that were connected.  The bathroom was inbetween the two and we could leave the doors open to make it one big cabin.  The kids thought it was awesome that they got their own cabin with a sink, refrigerator and coffee pot.  They had a ball playing house in their cabin and washed their faces in the sick, pretended to make coffee, etc.  It was really quite humorous and gave Brian and I some time to lay down and relax.  When I rented the cabin I thought that there would be a double bed in each room.  They actually each had a double bed and a twin bed.  Mackenzie exclaimed, "We all get our own bed!"  In the end she slept in their double bed and Isaac in the twin.  She didn't understand why I didn't want to sleep in the twin bed in the adult room rather than sharing the double bed.  That night there were some really strong thunderstorms in the middle of the night.  Luckily they didn't wake the kids, but Brian and I didn't get a whole lot of sleep. 

 

We had tickets for the 9 am cave tour on Thursday.  As they had highlighted everywhere in the park, they are on Central Time, so that was 8 am our time.  This was great for us as our kids have the most energy in the morning.  We weren't sure about the kids doing a 2 hour cave tour and in the beginning it looked like we shouldn't have booked the long tour.  Once we got going though the kids really enjoyed it. 

 

We had decided that morning that although we had only planned on staying at Mammoth Park for Wednesday night, the kids loved the cabin so much we would stay another.  When we finished the 2 hour tour, Mackenzie informed me that we had lied to her, since we told them they would see stalactites and stalagmites.  So when we got back in the visitors center we asked about that.  The stalactites and stalagmites were part of another tour and, luckily, a shorter one.  So we booked that tour for later in the afternoon and headed to lunch.  Later the kids got to see the stalactites and stalagmites (since I now know how to spell those words, I am going to use them as many times as I can):

Isaac was exhausted by this point, having missed a nap that day and having been up late so much.  So afterward we got dinner and headed to the cabin for bedtime.  In the morning we checked out and headed to Cincinnati.

 

We went to a famous grocery store there called Jungle Jim's to get food for a picnic and then headed to Loveland Castle.  This was a stop that I had picked especially for Isaac, since he had a castle themed birthday and I figured Mackenzie would enjoy it as well.  We had a really nice time there:

Once again it was really hot and we were quite sweaty by the time we left and headed to the final hotel.  This was the "fancy" hotel of our trip, I figured for our last night we would live it up a bit, so fancy hotel, a little swimming and Skyline Chili for Dad : )  On our way back from Skyline we saw a horse drawn carriage and decided to take a ride and check out the neighborhood.  This was the only time the rain got in our way.  After we had been riding for about 10 minutes it started raining quite hard.  The driver put up the cover for us, but it wasn't quite the same.  Other than that we were really lucky and all of the rain came at times that were actually convenient for us. 

 

On our final day of vacation we went to the Newport Aquarium.  I think the kids were quite worn out, but we gave each of them a camera and they enjoyed taking pictures of the fish, penguins, crocodiles, birds and frogs at the aquarium.

 Isaac tried toucing a shark.  Mackenzie posed for the picture, but didn't really want to touch a shark.

 

 The scale is definitely off!



The kids really liked that the scuba divers in the tank would do fist bumps with them, Isaac even got exploding fist bumps! 

After lunch we headed home and Isaac slept for basically the whole trip.  It is really nice to be home.  Mackenzie was exhausted, but Isaac seems to have gotten used to the late nights and is still upstairs playing.  Hopefully he, and I, will be snoozing soon.







 

Behind

I am very behind in posts.  It has been a hectic weekend here.  We have been trying to get a lot of work done in the yard prior to our insane June.  Brian leaves tomorrow to go to Chicago and work for the Goodman for a week, then I head to Dallas for a week for the Oracle HR User Group conference, and then Brian goes back to Chicago and the Goodman for another week.  So needless to say, not much is going to get done around here for a while :)

Last weekend, however, we took one day to have some fun family time.  We went to a safari in Port Clinton, OH.  I have actually bought the passes quite a while ago on Groupon.  So we drove over and bought some food to feed the animals.  We got to feed them out of cups, grain and carrots.  We went around once and fed all of the aminals and learned that most of them did not like the grain much, except for the small deer like animals (I can't remember what all of the animals are called).  We also learned that the bison are very big and try to get their whole heads in the car.  Actually all of the animals tried to put their whole heads in the car, except for the giraffes and the zebras.  The problem was that the bisons' heads would take up pretty much the whole car if they got their head in.  Mackenzie decided that she did not like the bisons. 

When we finished the car ride we got out to see more animals in a walk-through section.  We couldn't feed any of them and the only cat (an ocelot) was in its house under the heat lamp.  However at the end of the trail there was a small park with swings, a slide, and a jungle gym shaped like a whale.  The kids enjoyed the park a lot, while we waited for the camel ride. 

 

This isn't a great shot, but I can't find the second camera to download the other pictures, so this is the best I have right now.  Mackenzie rode the camel alone first, and then Isaac was scared to get on.  There was another little boy that was scared and the people in charge told him he could ride with his brother.  After that Isaac decided that he would ride if Mackenzie rode with him, so Mackenzie got a second ride.

 

After the safari we went to a restaurant on the water where a lot of people were putting their (large) boats in the water. It was pretty cool to see them lifting the boats out of storage with a fork lift and then hauling them over to the water and setting them in.  Here is a shot of us waiting for our lunch as we enjoy the harbor:

 

I had to add this update.  Mackenzie and Isaac have both decided that they don't need naps on the weekends.  They tend to do okay without them, but they were extremely tired tonight after a very active weekend with no naps.  So we had some obstinence at bed time tonight and when Brian and I headed downstairs tonight, Isaac had his pillow and his quilt in his hands and insisted he was going to the chair.  I have (finally) learned that when my kids are that tired and stubborn just to go, so we went downstairs.  This is what I just found when I went upstairs to give the kids their final kiss and tuck tonight:

He had managed to put his bookmark in his Bible Stories before he fell asleep with the book on him :)



Stressful Week, Awesome Weekend

So last week was tough for me.  The company I work for went through a Reduction in Force last week that was focused mainly on the US.  We knew it was coming and had known for almost 2 weeks, but we didn't know who exactly would be affected, of course.  We all finally found out on Thursday and my team was affected pretty strongly.  I won't go into details, but it was very sad.  I am fortunate to still have my job and this week we will learn more about how thing are changing for those of us still around.

So I really needed a good weekend to take my mind off things, and I got it.  We took the kids up to my parents' cabin Friday night.  The weather wasn't great yesterday.  It was cloudy and windy most of the day, but the kids really wanted to get in the water.  So we let them.  They stayed really shallow and pretty much ran around in the water a bit.  They both agreed it was freezing though.  Then at the end of the day I got the chance to get in the very cold lake.  The kids has been playing with some blow up toys.  They had all been on the shore when Mackenzie and I headed to Cadwell's to see when Emma was going to be up north.  When we got back to my parents they were about 5 cabins down and in the middle of the lake.  Grandma suggested we just let them go, but Isaac was not pleased with that.  I figured if the kids could play in the water I could swim out and get the toys.  Wow, it was very cold.  My toes were numb by the time I got back to shore, but I am pretty sure Isaac will be asking me, "Remember the time you swimmed out and saved the toys?" for a while.  He was very appreciative.

I also got a chance to go to what is becoming my favorite quilt shop, Heritage Quilt Shop (http://www.heritagequiltshoppe.com/) in Gladwin.  Brian helped me pick out a possible backing fabric for my newest quilt, which will hopefully be on our bed soon and indulged me and let me buy two fabrics for my next project, which I only know will involve a lot of navy blue.  After two weeks stressing about whether I was going to have an income a tiny shopping spree felt pretty good.  We also bought some plants for Mom's planters at the cabin.  Of course we bought too much, so we got to take matching plants home to plant here.  The kids had a great time planting the flowers in Grandma's hanging planters after dinner and Mackenzie continued planting with Grandma yesterday evening and this morning.  She also helped Grandma prune some of her existing plants.  My kids love to prune!

Today it was much warmer.  The sun was out and it was beautiful.  The kids got in the water again before lunch.  They said that it was still freezing, but they were much braver and went out deeper and even jumped off the dock.  They spent the whole morning outside.  Isaac liked playing with the badminton rackets and birdies and the wiffle ball and bat.  He connected quite a few times with both of them.  Mackenzie was super excited when Grandma brought out the hammock.  Not to lay in and relax, but to swing in and flip over.

We headed home after lunch and when we got home we spent the rest of the afternoon outside.  We planted blueberry bushes, strawberry and rhubarb plants in our front yard where we took out some overgrown bushes last year.  Here it is very warm, so we were worn out after than and we had peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches and apples for dinner before heading to bath and bed time. 

Uncomfortable Conversation

I took Mackenzie to a doctor's appointment this afternoon to get her ear checked out.  The good news is that the infection is gone and the eardrum seems to have reconnected properly.  The doctor couldn't see the eardrum because there is still some "stuff" in her ear hiding the ear drum.  They did a hearing test and she is doing fine with the higher pitches, but isn't hearing the lower pitches as well as she was when she took her hearing test for school.  So we are going to let it continue to heal and she will do another hearing test in the fall to see if she has regained all of her hearing.  So all-in-all the doctor's appointment was pretty good.

When we got in the car after the appointment NPR was on the radio.  I had given Mackenzie my iPhone at the doctor's office and when we got in the car she wanted it back to finish her "Where's Perry" game.  So I didn't think that she was paying attention to the radio.  I wasn't really paying attention to it either, as I was thinking about something else, but I did notice that they were talking about Kermit Gosnell being found guilty of murder.  From the backseat I hear "Mom, I just heard them talking about killing babies."  Of course I immediately turned the radio off and I explained that yes, they were talking about a man that was going to jail for killing babies.  In my head I am trying to figure out how to talk about murder with my 6 year old, or how to talk about abortion with my 6 year old and wondering which I would prefer to have to talk about with my 6 year old.  Luckily she didn't want to talk to much about it.  The word abortion was mentioned and I tried to explain it as shortly as possible and without much to do.  It seemed to work as she went back to playing "Where's Perry".  However, knowing Mackenzie, this is not the end of the discussion and she is still thinking about it.

Awesome Spring Weekend

We had a wonderful weekend.  We started it off at 5 o'clock Friday afternoon.  Mackenzie's elementary school had its carnival.  I can remember my elementary school's carnival and I loved going every year.  So I volunteered for the first shift of the carnival and was assigned to the beverage station.  It was a beautiful evening.  I was originally staffed inside, but luckily they needed a couple of people to go outside and the woman that happened to be next to me asked if I wanted to go outside.  I jumped at the chance and we got to be outside for an hour and a half and I could see
Brian and the kids as they enjoyed the carnival.  After my shift was done I got to go with the kids as they played the games and as Mackenzie found some of her friends from her class.  It was a lot of fun, and we stayed until the end at 8 o'clock. 

 

We had a very busy Saturday.  I took Isaac to the grocery store and Brian took Mackenzie to the tractor store.  We originally thought that the kids would be swapped, but they both enjoyed their outing with Mom and Dad.  Brian and I took Lauren to lunch and horseback riding while the kids hung out with Grandma and Grandpa at their cousins baseball games.

 

I think that Lauren had a great time at the horse farm on her horseback riding lesson (I also think she liked lunch at the Chinese buffet). 

 

She got to learn how to groom the horse:

then got to lead it out for her ride:

My camera ran out of battery after this shot, so Brian took pictures of her actually on the horse with his phone.  She did really well and I think she really enjoyed the afternoon.

 

We picked up the kids and then went over to their cousin's house for Lauren and Carson's birthday party.  Our kids were definitely tired when we left them with Grandma and Grandpa after the party as we headed to Northern for a concert.  Grandpa said they went to bed very easily that night.

 

Today we spent the morning outside.  I did a lot of weeding, planted some bulbs, and the kids and I started some seeds for the garden.  Brian went to another Tractor Supply store and finally got the lawn mower working, at least enough to mow the lawn.  By the way, I have a great husband, I would never have thought that it was possible to replace a transmission in a riding lawn mower on our own.  Then when things still weren't working properly that we could fix that as well.

 

Anyway, after all that we had lunch and headed to a Mud Hens game.  They had a Star Wars themed weekend, and Isaac was super excited because his cousins let him borrow a Storm Trooper costume.  Brian's coworkers and some UK students that travelled to Ohio for the concert last night were supposed to join us at the game, but unfortunately they were in a car accident in Ada.  Everyone was okay, but one student had to go to the hospital and was suffering from whiplash (they were rear ended). 

 

The game went really quickly, so the kids made it through the whole game.  The Mud Hens lost, but the kids didn't care.  They had a great time, ate a lot of ballpark food, and enjoyed the warm sunny day.

 

 

I tried to get a shot of the Mud Hens uniform, which was supposed to look like Chewbacca.  This was the best shot I got:

So we had a wonderful spring weekend.  The weather was fantastic, we had lots of fun activities, we got a lot accomplished.  We couldn't ask for any more.