Summer Vacation: Part 3

Here are the rest of the pictures from our fabulous summer vacation in Northern Michigan! We had a great time camping, and then spent the day on Mackinac (pronounced Mackinaw) Island before coming home. We rented a tandem bike with a trailer for the kids and rode around the whole island, it was so beautiful! The weather was perfect, ice cream was super yummy; my only complaint was the smell! (there are no cars on the island, so the only transportation is horse and buggy - and bikes)

Stay tuned for more excellent summer adventures!

Summer Vacation: Part 2

We weren't able to get to as many lighthouses as I wanted, but it was fun to see the ones we did! Northern Michigan was so beautiful, and the kids absolutely loved playing at all the beaches! Stay tuned for part 3 of our super fun trip!

Summer Vacation: Part 1

We had a great vacation last week - our first few days were spent in a town called Bay View, which is about 4 hours north of us. We stayed with Great-Cousin Barbara Jane (she had the kids call her Momo) and I was finally able to experience this amazing place that I've only heard stories about from Brett's childhood. His Grandmother and all her family had come to this place every summer for years and years. We were there over the 4th of July, and I can't imagine a better place to spend the holiday! We played at the beach every day, watched a very unique parade, and went to a beautiful patriotic concert. Momo took great care of us, and we are already making plans for our next visit! Here are some of the pictures we took (you have to play the game to see them!) and I will post pictures from the rest of our trip a little later. Have fun!

It's Official...

Summer's here!!First camping trip with Daddy

(only a few injuries occurred)

Fun in the sandbox

more sandbox fun

First visit to the pool,we need to work on Kody's newfound fear of water.

At Last...

Okay, here are those long-awaited pictures from Kody's birthday party!

Tres

I know it's hard to believe, but our little Kodiak is THREE today!! It's been such a busy day, I'm just now able to sit down and post some pictures of the birthday festivities.Okay, so I have been trying for a long time now to post pictures and it's not working. I've decided to cut my losses and try again tomorrow. Please injoy the one picture I was able to do and have a great day!

"Gavin" Hair

The other night after Kody's bath, I was playing with his hair and shaped it into a mohawk. He looked in the mirror and said, "look Mom, it's Gavin* hair!" The next morning he woke up and immediately looked in the mirror. Unfortunately, the hair had dried and the mohawk was gone. He was so sad about loosing his Gavin hair, I decided to make it a little more long-lasting for the day!*Gavin is Kody's cousin and he always has a mohawk!

The First Stop

Make your own | Click to play

These are some pictures from the first stop on our lighthouse tour here in Michigan. We loaded up the kids for a "quick" trip to Grosse Ile, about an hour away. It was a perfect day, sunny and warm; and a beautiful drive to boot! We brought along Flat Stanley, a school project from my neice and nephew, so that he could get his picture taken at a lighthouse. The kids were in fairly good moods, so life was good. We crossed the bridge over to Grosse Ile, and then drove around the whole island looking for this blasted lighthouse! We even stopped at a gas station and asked for directions, but when we went on the street where it was supposed to be we saw nothing but huge houses. By this time we were frustrated, the kids were hungry and cranky and Brett's foot got a little heavier on the gas pedal. Sure enough, the local police car (I'm sure there's only one) saw us and followed in hot pursuit. As you can assume, we were given a hefty ticket for excessive speed - but did this put a damper on our near-perfect day? Of course it did! Well, that mixed with the fact that we couldn't find the blasted place! Finally, we stopped and asked someone out walking their dog and when they sent us to the same street the gas station attendant did, we went back. Sure enough, in the backyard of one of these mansions was a lighthouse! All in all it was a good trip, just a little more expensive than we had planned. Enjoy the pictures!
(P.S. To get a better look, click where it says "click to play".)

7 Years Later

Happy Anniversary to Papa and Mama Bear! I meant to post this earlier, but it's been such a busy day this is the first chance I've had! Between church, presidency meetings and home teachers/home teaching, this has turned into quite the busy day! We'll have to celebrate another day when there's a little less chaos.

To Hell and Back

We took a little trip down to Hell on Friday night - Hell, Michigan that is! Because it was Friday the 13th, there was supposed to be a celebration but by the time we got there it was pretty much done.

The Ice "Scream" shop was rockin though! Some weird guy (I was afraid to take his picture) was singing scary songs like Scooby Doo and Sponge-Bob Square Pants and the kids got free ice cream because they fit in the devil door!There were all these pictures set up where you could put your head throughand superstitions you could test likewalking under a latter, breaking a mirror, etc.

Won't you come join us in Hell on the next Friday the 13th? (it's in July, you know)

Happy Easter (a little late)

We had a great Easter week with visits from the whole Brown family! The only thing that could have been different was the weather - it actually snowed the whole time! The temperature never got above 45, and let's face it that's cold! Here's a slideshow of some of our fun.

Happy Birthday 2 Me!!

It's my birthday!!! Brett made me this fabulous cake yesterday, and we had some friends over to share it with us. More party tonight, I'll post pictures of the party later! Happy birthday to me! I will accept phone calls, visits, comments, cards, gifts and general well-wishery. Have a great Kim's Birthday day!

*Gick*

"Mommy, I gick." Says a little voice from the bedroom in the middle of the night. I go in to see what's going on and poor Kody is laying in a pool of -- well, I don't think I have to spell it out for you. Let's just say I was seriously regretting the olives I let him snack on, not to mention the pork chop dinner I made for him. He has been sick with the stomach flu all day and it is so sad to see my energetic little guy laying on the couch with this glazed look in his eyes. The good news is, he has finally mastered the art of using a bowl to catch it, rather than towels - what a big boy he is!Poor Mollie is sad because her playmate isn't very much fun today and she can't go outside. This has been her attitude pretty much all day. Don't you all just want to hop on over to the house o' fun?! Oh, did I mention that Daddy won't be home till late tonight? He has some silly anatomy class that he has to take on Wednesday nights - don't you think he should be over that stuff by now? I do!

Ahhh, Spring!

Well, I have a clean house and 2 sleeping toddlers, so I thought I would take this rare opportunity to post a few pictures and give a quick update! Not much new happening around here but...Mollie is FINALLY sleeping through the night!

The weather has been great - 77 right now, can you believe it?!?...and last but not least we're learning how to deal with the temper tantrums.

Hints of Spring

The first part of this week we had the most beautiful weather! The sun was shining and the tempurature got up into the high 60's, it was like a dream. Of course, we spent every waking moment outside - it's a good thing, too, because yesterday morning we woke up to snow!This is Mollie's chalk-eating faceThat yellow chair bucked her off a few minutes later

Locking up the girls?the Three Amigos

nice sharing!

Can't catch me!Kody disappeared after a while, and we found him in the neighbor's house
(they have way cool toys)

Visit to the Cosi Museum in Toledo

Calgon where have you gone?

...and why can't I come with you? Some of you may recall the commercials from long ago where a woman (did you ever notice it was never a man?) was having a particularly rough day and she just said, to no one in particular, "Calgon, take me away!" Suddenly, she is relaxing in a bathtub in some tropical setting and all her stress is washed away. Today was one of "those" days for me and I sat on the couch and yelled "Calgon, take me away" and then I waited. And waited. I had the thought that maybe I should actually purchased some Calgon bubble bath, but I knew that even if I filled my tub with as much product as possible, I would never be "taken away". First I would have to send the kids away, because they would never let me be alone in the bathroom - or anywhere out of their sights - for any amount of time. But don't worry too much about me. Life is better now, the kids are sleeping and I have a few minutes of peaceful quiet. I may not be able to escape to some fabulous tropical island, but tomorrow is a new day and it has potential to be so much better than today. Who knows, maybe we'll even venture out of the house and go on an adventure! I think I'll be okay, even if I don't have some fabulous bubble bath!

Finally - new pictures!

Here's a quick update, and then you can enjoy all the cute pictures:

• Mollie likes the snow now - yippee!
• Brett helped some fellow Daddies make a giant snow fort
• We had a heat wave last week - 35 degrees every day!
• It's snowing again today, but it's still above freezing.
  

You can't really tell, but this was Kody climbing out of the snow fort - it was huge!