Tuesday, July 31, 2007

A Busy 10 Days

(Please click on the photo to see more pictures.)

The past ten days sure have flown by. The first four were consumed with a lot of reading (finished the book... it was great!) along with some golf and Melissa's birthday party.

Last weekend, we met up with a lot of Michele's teacher friends at a wedding for one of their own. Gina, another first grade teacher, got married to Matt Breslin on Saturday. I was working and as such didn't get to see the ceremony, but I heard it was beautiful. I did get to accompany MY beautiful bride to the reception at St. John's in Plymouth. Unfortunately, Michele is still getting over a cold/cough and I was exhausted from all the hours I put in at work, so we had to cut out earlier than we would have liked. From what we heard, the rest of the night was just as nice as the beginning though.

On Sunday, Pete and Teri held a memorial for Pete's mom, so we were all up in Fenton. Again, work got in the way for me, but Michele said the grave-side gathering went very well, and plenty of people turned out for lunch after and helped to remember Vera.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

HP : Book 7

Jason, his friend, Todd, and I just got back from Borders in Novi. We got there around 10:30 pm and checked out shortly after 2:00. I'm now debating going to sleep or starting the book. Either way, I've got an 8:00 tee time. At this point, I'll probably be just as tired if I go to sleep as I would be if I stayed up.

In other quick news, Brian and Di came down last night. Brian and I went to use some free sneak peak passes to see Hot Rod. There were some very funny parts, but all-in-all, the movie was pretty dumb. If you liked Napoleon Dynamite, then it's probably worth a rental once it comes out on DVD.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Shelby 2007

(Please click on the photo to see A LOT more pictures.)

We just got back yesterday from our annual trip to Shelby, MI with the Trosko family. We had another great week. This year, we stayed in a different house now that the family has increased from 6 people to 9. The new house has more room, and was closer to the beach. Unfortunately, there was a pretty big dune to cross that started to give one of the older vacationers a bit of a hip ache. As we also went a little earlier in the year, the temperatures were much better for Jake and I, but not so much for everyone else. Dan, Colin and I spent the most time in the water, followed by Jake. The girls and Pete didn't spend hardly any time in it, as they felt it was too cold. We packed in the usualy adventures including the fish boil, dinner at the Par 5 Grill, and a trip to Craig's Cruisers for putt-putt and go-kart racing. This year, we also headed up to Luddington and spent some time shopping, eating, and then playing in the park.

Michele and I also celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary while we were there. I bought Michele a complete outfit and surprised her with that, dinner, and a play in a nearby town called Whitehall. I had arranged for the rest of the family to take over Jake duty for the night, and Michele and I headed down to the Michillinda Lodge for dinner. We had delicious seafood with a great wine. After dinner, we headed a bit back up the coast to the Howmet Playhouse to see a performance of William Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale". The performance was very minimalistic, but was still, very good.

One other adventure on the trip involved our hospital-prone baby. On Friday, before we left, Jake cut his 8th tooth. With that in mind, it was not surprising that he had a bit of a fever. The fever, however, persisted and reached 103 on Sunday. After a call to the pediatrician, and their recommended double dose of tylenol didn't keep it away, we took him to the ER. There, they started him on a Motrin/Tylenol cocktail and did all sorts of other tests. He had blood drawn, a strep culture, and chest x-rays along with the usual checkup stuff. When all the tests indicated we had a healthy baby, they decided it was likely a viral infection, so we were just asked to treat the fever. They also saw what might have been the start of an ear infection, so they gave him a 3 day antibiotic in hopes of keeping that from adding on. Jake's fever broke late Monday or early Tuesday. When he was getting his chest x-rays, they used this cool device called a Pigg-O-Stat. Michele thought it looked cruel, but it didn't seem to hurt him, and it was way more effective than us trying to help him stand or sit still for the x-ray.

After the fun week, we are glad to be home. I am also glad to be done getting the photos online and getting the blog updated. If you get through our pictures, and your eyes aren't yet bleeding, you can see Dan and Lynette's photos here.

Saturday, July 07, 2007

Happy 4th!

(Please click on the photo to see more pictures.)

OK, so this post is a few days late, but at least I got it out before we left for vacation. Tomorrow we're heading over to Lake Michigan for our annual Trosko vacation to Shelby, MI.

We got to hang out with Mark and Kelly and some of their friends during their 4th of July barbecue. Jake had fun showing off for all the new people. Mark and I dominated in bean bag toss (corn hole). Then, Jake got tired and we got to leave without eating.

Michele spent the rest of the week getting ready for our trip. She did find time on Thursday to make a delicious dinner of baked ziti. We paired it with my new favorite wine, Tres Pinos. We got it at Trader Joe's a few weeks ago, and I'm hoping they still have it when we go back to look for it next time. It's a lot milder than most of the Shiraz wines Michele prefers, but at the same time also seems to have more flavor.

Unless they have expanded the cellular networks, I probably won't be able to post any pictures or updates while we're on vacation. I grabbed two different providers' cards from work just in case, so we'll see. If we don't have connection, I'll be sure to post as soon as I can after we get back on July 14.

In the mean time, after checking out our photos, you can head over here to see MPnA's photos from their vacation to Tennessee.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

A 13!!!

(Please click on the photo to see more pictures.)

Jake has a good reason to be goofy... he passed his sweat test! The normal range for the level of sodium in sweat is 0-40. 40-60 is considered borderline CF. Over 60 is considered a definitive indicator of cystic fibrosis. Jake, thankfully, received a 13 on his test.

The test began with a five minute shock treatment. They taped two electrodes to his right leg and turned on a small current. Jake started whimpering almost immediately, and it got continually worse until the test ended. The nurse administering the test stated that he wasn't nearly as bad as some of the children that she has performed the procedure on, so I guess that's good. As soon as she turned off the electricity, he calmed down and became interested in what was going on. She then wrapped some gauze on his leg, and we killed 30 minutes walking around.

We got the results back around 4:00 this afternoon. I met Jake and Michele on their walk and we split a mini bottle of champagne in celebration. After that, we made the all-important calls to the grandparents to let them know the results as well.

Tonight, Jason and I caught a late showing of the new Transformers movie. It was a very good flick, and definitely a buy when it comes out on DVD. There was a ton of action, and quite a bit of humor. I did, however, get reminded why I hate seeing a movie in a crowded theater. While some people enjoy the reaction of a crowd, I could do without it. People seemed to laugh at weird times, and there was SO MUCH clapping. If you're at a live performance, clapping is great. When you're watching a movie, clapping does nothing to inspire the performance. Oh well. I would recommend anyone looking for a big summer blockbuster to go and check this one out in the theater.

Congrats: 2007 Grads



Congratulations to Nick (Left) and Shawn who both graduated in 2007. Nick had his open house last weekend at Elms Park. Shawn opted for a cash buyout. After spending some time with Grandma Stewart, who seems to be healing well, we met most of the family at Nick's open house. It was a very nice day to have it out at the park.

On Sunday, Pete and I got up early to take the first tee time on the back nine at Fenton Farms. Pete, of course, beat me, but only by a slim margin of 42 to 46. That afternoon, Mark and Kelly came over to PnT's and we all went out for a ride on the pontoon boat. It was a bit chilly so there was no swimming or tubing, but we all had fun cruising around the lake.

On Sunday, MPnA also took off for a little vacation down to Tennessee to look at some time-shares. They are ending their adventure with a trip to Cedar Point on Wednesday. The Husted's (at least some of them) should also be down there that day as well. Hopefully they'll have plenty of pictures to share when they get settled back in.