Spring Break '10

For Spring Break, Michele and Jake drove with Grandma and Grandpa down to the Smoky Mountains.  They had a lot of fun climbing trails, hanging out by the hotel pool, going to restaurants, and visiting an aquarium.  Michele said that Jake did a great job in the car, which is important on a 10 hour drive.  Their hotel room wasn't quite what they were expecting since there wasn't a separate sleeping area and living room, but that mean that Jake got to stay up late, and everyone else got to go to bed a little earlier so they could all go to sleep at the same time.

While they were gone, I worked for the first half of the week.  On Thursday and Saturday, I got to attend the Frozen Four NCAA hockey tournament at Ford Field and be part of the record-breaking crowd for an indoor hockey game.  I went to that with Mark, our dad, and Jason M.  On Friday, we sat in the bleacher seats to take in the Tiger's home opener with Mark and Dad, and Mark O.  It was a great sports weekend!

The only downer happened on Wednesday night.  On my way home from work, around 7:00, my HHR started to hydroplane, and I spun around.  Just when I thought I might get away with maybe just a scratch, the car rolled over 1 and 1/4 times.  Thankfully I was wearing my seatbelt and was uninjured.  Traffic was really light, so no one else was impacted and a few people stopped to make sure I was OK and call 911.  Since my car was laying on the passenger door, I had to release my seatbelt and fall to the door.  The moon roof still worked so I was able to slide that back and climb out of the car that way.  When I was done saying a prayer of thanks for not getting hurt, or worse, I got a little bummed since I didn't feel I was doing anything wrong.  If I had been speeding or moving over three lanes or something, I'd at least understand why it happened.  The worst part of all, has to be the fact that now any time I'm driving anywhere, Jake makes sure to tell me to be careful so that I don't break any more cars!  With his insane memory, I'm guessing that might stick around for a while.  The HHR was a great car, but with it being totaled out, we're trying to figure out what we want to do next.  Pete and Teri generously let us borrow their Sebring so we're not in a rush, but we'd like to get something soon so that we can get that back to them.  We considered looking at used cars, but cars keep getting safer and more fuel efficient, so it looks like we might try to get into a new compact SUV.

Here are the few shots I got of the car with my camera when I went to collect my personal belongings from the tow yard.  You should be able to click on them to make them larger.

 

When you're done with those pictures, please click here to see the happy shots of Michele and Jake on their trip.

Happy Easter!

We hope everyone had a great Easter.  For Michele and Jake, today was a great way to kick off the beginning of their Spring Break.

We had a nice brunch with the Trosko and Herman families at the Fenton Hotel.  Then, the cousins got a chance to play together until the lack of naps started to set in for the little ones.

You can find our last photo from March here along with the Easter-related photos here.

Jake is 4!

Our little boy turned four years old today!  We had a great birthday party for him, at our house, on Saturday.  A lot of family was able to come by to help us celebrate.  Jake got spoiled with all the presents, most of which were related to Cars.

Then, this morning, we had to hustle to let him open our gifts before Church.  After Church, we headed over to the Detroit Zoo.  It was amazing how different the experience is when you feel like the only family there!  We actually got to sit and talk in the the tunnel at the Polar Bear exhibit.  We had a great time watching one of the young polar bears try to turn a seal into lunch.  A very friendly volunteer explained that two of the seals will actually hang out by the window that divides them from the bears just to get the bear to run into it as it tries to hunt!

We were hoping that with the cooler weather that a lot of the animals would be up and moving, but besides the bears, that wasn't really the case.  It was warm enough that they let he giraffes out, so we got to watch them walk around and eat for a while.

We spent the rest of the day playing with Lego's, cars, and trains while watching some great basketball on TV.  After dinner we even made it back outside for some driveway tennis.  We got Jake his own racket and some training tennis balls, and he's really improving in the few short days that we've been playing.  It's no surprise but getting a racket that fits him instead of him using Mommy's really made a huge difference.  Today was also the first time he was able to do a bounce serve.  When we tried on Thursday, he couldn't even get the ball to stay within 5 feet on the bounce, so it was a HUGE improvement.

Please click here to see the rest of the photos we've captured since the last post.

Hello March!

March is a crazy month for us with birthdays, so I figured I'd better get a blog post in while I can.  To be honest, with the amount we post on Facebook, it's pretty much making this obsolete.  Still, it probably makes for an easy spot to find our latest photos since I don't feel like uploading them all both to Picasa and to Facebook.

We have two birthdays down in our immediate family.  Meme celebrated something close to her 30th birthday on the 5th, and Emily celebrated her first birthday today!  Jake keeps thinking his is next, but Grandma has to slide in a week between his and Emily's.

Jake got to have fun with Mommy this winter as they got to celebrate two snow days along with mid-winter break.

Besides that, we decided to try our luck and put our house on the market.  You can find the listing here, and be sure to click on the arrows under the photo to see the other pictures.  If you're interested or know anyone that might be, you can contact our realtor for more info.  While we both hope it sells, Michele is definitely more optimistic about the whole thing.  I think it's just her way of making sure we keep the house cleaner since it has to be ready for viewing on short notice.  I think I've made our bed every day for the first time since I was living in the main level of my parent's house!

Please click on the month to view our photos from January, February, and March.

Happy New Year... it's still the new year, right?

We celebrated the New Year with the Herman family again this year.  Then, the next day, we got to celebrate Maiya's third birthday.

Backing up a bit, the week before we rang in the New Year we had a great visit from the Pruss family.  We had our final Christmas celebration as the kids opened their gifts.  The kids all played together the whole day and then the adults got to hang out and watch a movie while they slept quietly.  We really enjoyed having them stay over and would have liked it even more if they hadn't had to pack up and head home early the next morning.  Maybe next time we'll get them a little longer.

Later that week, we had a few people over to our house to watch the MSU bowl game.  While they didn't win, we still managed to have a great time with our friends.  Jen came from as far away as Grand Rapids.  Melissa, Steve, and Jack came from Brighton.  And, Ryan and Katie came from all the way across the street!

Last weekend, while the girls headed to Bravo's for Nez's birthday, Dan, Pete, and I took the kids to the Livonia Rec Center so they could play in the pool area.  All three kids ended up loving everything, especially the water slide.  Surprisingly, it took the most convincing to get Colin on it, but he was happy he went, and ended up going MANY more times.  We then grabbed a few Hot and Ready's and waited patiently for the girls to return for presents and dessert.

You can find the last of our December photos here.  And, the photos from this year can be found here.