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.