Our Weekend

We had a nice relaxing weekend. We spent Saturday hanging out around the house. In the morning, after playing some foosball, Jake and I built the biggest tower out of Tinkertoys that we've ever attempted. It went all the way from the floor to the ceiling! After his nap, Mommy took him to the park where he got to play until it started to rain on them. We then lit a fire in our outside fireplace and enjoyed some leftovers from East Side Marios in the cool fall evening. Jake liked the fire so much, he got Mommy to take him back out to read his book before bed!

On Sunday, we headed over to DLCnM's to help celebrate Colin's birthday. We had a great time with the Herman family, including Bill and Joanie. Grandma and Grandpa Trosko were also there, so Jake had fun spending time with both of them as well. And, possibly the best part of the day for at least the guys in the house, the Lions finally won a game. It was just too bad we had to experience their first win in 20 games on the radio and nfl.com instead of on TV. Maybe they should black out ALL their home games if it'll keep them winning! You can see some of our photos from the weekend here.

While playing foosball with Jake, I was really impressed at how much he's improved. I've helped him to understand which way he's supposed to shoot, and how to spin the guys to get them behind the ball, but that's about all I've taught him. Through watching me play with him, apparently, he picked up the proper way to perform a wrist shot (no wild spinning in this family) and actually got some pretty good speed behind it! I can imagine it's going to be even more fun when he doesn't have to step up onto a stool just to reach the game. Here's a quick video I shot of him taking a great shot from the 5 line and then performing our standard, post-goal celebration.

Labor Day Weekend '09

Jake is really enjoying his new classroom. A lot of his classmates "graduated" this past week, which means he won't be one of the smallest kids come next week. It also means that his friend, Lincoln, should be coming up to be with him again. I hope their teacher is ready!!!

We had a great Labor Day weekend (at least the first 2/3rds).

We spent Saturday hanging out with Meme and Alison. They met us in the morning at the Detroit Zoo. We wanted to make the trip so that we could see the dinosaur exhibit that was ending on Labor Day. While the rest of the animals seemed to be taking it easy in the heat, the robotic dinosaurs weren't bothered at all! We all really enjoyed the dino trail. Afterwards, they hung out at our house until dinner time, and played a few board games and games of Boggle before heading back.

On Sunday, we headed up to Fenton in the afternoon. We spent the early evening on the boat with Grandma and Grandpa and the Herman family. The lake was not as busy as I expected, and I thought the water felt great. Everyone else seemed to think it was too cold, but I don't think they remembered the temperature of Lake Michigan on our Shelby trip! After the boat, we went back to the Troskos for some dinner and desserts. When their bellies were full, the kids had a good time riding their bikes, scooters, and anything else with wheels up and down the driveway.

Tomorrow, we're hoping to just hang out at home and take it easy. I'm guessing we'll spend a good chunk of time on chores and yard work, but we'll make the most of it!

Here are a few photos from Jake's first day back to school. Our photos from this weekend can be found here.

Port Crescent 2009

We spent the weekend, wet, in Port Austin. We thought Friday was bad when the rain sprinkled and misted pretty continuously at Port Crescent State Park. Then, Saturday brought the torrential downpours and we realized Friday wasn't so bad after all.

Even with all the rain, we still had a great time. There were a lot of us camping together this year. Besides the regular crew of us (3), the Herman family (4), and the Wegienka's (5), we also had the Wingblad's (4) and their friends Kitty, Brian, and Layla (3). We were spread across three campsites with two campers and two tents. Kitty's family stayed in Caseville at a friend's cabin.

Thankfully the wind that blew ALL NIGHT Saturday evening pushed all of the rain away so we were able to pack up this morning with the only water coming from the tops of our screen tents!

You can see our camping pictures here.

Tomorrow, Jake heads back to daycare where he'll be in a preschool room now. Michele also starts heading into her school on a regular basis next week as well. Me, I just get to keep working like I did all summer. We'll see who has the easiest transition!

The End (of Summer) is Nigh

We sure did a good job of saving our summer trips until right before Michele had to start getting ready to go back to school. We've had a busy couple of weeks, but they have been well worth it as it meant we got to see some new sites and spend time with family and friends.

We got to visit and have dinner with MPnA at Camp Dearborn. They took their first trip in their new "hotel on wheels". It sounded like everyone had a great time.

We took another shot at Music at the Zoo and met up with the Jurado family this time. Thankfully, this time there was no rain. I also enjoyed the kid music, The Candy Band, more this time around as well. Jake and Addy spent a lot of time playing AROUND each other going from dancing, to climbing into and out of the strollers, to climbing on all of us. Whenever the music would stop and people clapped, Addy would start clapping and then look at the rest of us to make sure we were clapping as well!

The next day, we packed up the car and headed up to Alpena to visit with David, Anna, and Reid. Jeff, Marie, and Addy made the trip as well as this replaced our camping trip with each other. We met up with them on the way for a stop at a McD's with a playland before we finished getting up north. Jake and Reid played really well together, and when he was interested in what they were doing, Addy joined in well too. It was great to see the kids all playing together and having fun. We had some cold weather which I didn't mind, but it kept us from getting out onto the lake. The three days passed much too quickly.

A few days after getting home from Alpena, we were packing the car up again to visit the Pruss family. We decided to cut the trip about in half on the way there. We got a hotel room in Naperville, IL which is just outside Chicago. After checking into our hotel, we headed to the train station and hopped on a train to take us into the city. Jake had a good time both coming and going. Michele didn't get motion sick at all, which meant I got to have a good time as well.

Once we got to the city we rushed around to try to get as much in as we could. Our first stop, after finding our way out of Union Station, was to the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears tower) so we could head up to the Skydeck. Luckily, we were visiting on a Thursday so it wasn't quite as busy as it had been the last time that we went on a weekend. After zigging and zagging through the lines and sitting through the mandatory movie, we hopped on the elevator and zoomed up to the 103rd floor. We think Jake thought it was cool, but he's probably a bit young to truly understand how high we were. Once we stepped out onto "The Ledge" he did think it was neat that the cars on the street below us looked like his toy cars from that high up.

After the Skydeck, we headed grabbed some Jimmy Johns and headed to Millennium Park. And, yes, I realize this is the post after the post where I complained that I'd probably never see it. We enjoyed our dinner while watching kids play in the Crown Fountain. After he finished eating, Jake got to go and splash around too. He was not thrilled about the water when it came out of the mouths, so he tended to keep his distance during that time. After we switched him into some dry clothes, we dashed over to the Cloud Gate (shiny bean) and then got back to Union Station to catch our train back to the motel.

Friday morning, we got our breakfast at the hotel and then went swimming for a while before hopping back into the car to finish our trip to Missouri. About 7 hours later (hit rush hour afternoon traffic) we pulled up at the Pruss' new house. That evening we got unpacked and just spent the time visiting while the kids played together.

The next day, we all piled into our cars and headed into downtown St. Louis. We spent the majority of the day exploring the City Museum. I had NO idea what we were getting ourselves into. When you hear museum, you typically think paintings and sculptures, or a kids museum with hands-on interactive displays. The City Museum is more like a real-life chutes and ladders game with various tunnels, stairs, and slides. We probably could have spent twice as long there and wouldn't have tried everything. Before we head back to that museum, I think I'm going to need to shave off 20 or 30 pounds to be able to fit all the places Jake wanted to go. I'd probably also be tempted to wear some gym clothes! After exploring the lower level and eating lunch, we headed up to the roof. They had some cool water fountains, a suspended bus, and a big wall slide on the roof along with other slides and tunnels we didn't even try. Jake and I also waited in line to take a ride on their antique Ferris wheel. Elle and Zach really had a lot of fun playing with the water jets. All three of the kids were soaked by the time we decided to venture back into the inside portion. After heading back in, we spent the rest of the time playing with arts and crafts and then playing on skate ramps and in ball pits.

We grabbed some dinner, then Jason and I said goodbye to the wife and kids and headed over to Busch Stadium. We watched the Cardinals beat up on the San Diego Padres. I also kept an eye on the outfield scoreboard and got to watch the scores change as the Tigers smoked the Royals, so it was a good baseball night all-around.

After going our separate ways for Church on Sunday morning, we met back up for some breakfast in between and then headed back to their house. We spent the afternoon playing with the kids and then Jason and I went out and golfed 18 holes. We got hit with some rain and had a thunderstorm go right by us, but were luckily able to get all 18 in. Neither of us did great, but we both managed a few pars, and I got the sole birdie of the day so there were some bright spots. We forgot to grab the scorecard out of the cart, so we don't know what the total damage was, which is probably for the better.

On Monday, Jason had to get back to work, but the rest of us headed back towards the city and visited the Butterfly House. Besides the impressive amount of butterflies, they also had some various insect displays and a movie about how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly.

On Tuesday, we headed out early and drove the entire way back to Michigan with only a few bathroom breaks and a stop for lunch. We really enjoyed the time we go to spend with the Pruss family and really wish we didn't have a 10+ hour drive in between us. It's remarkable how much Elle and Zach have each grown since they left.

Our summer travels should be wrapping up this weekend as we are heading to the thumb for our annual camping trip. We're hoping for some nice weather since we still use a tent when we camp!

Until then, here are some pictures to browse through if you're interested. There are just a few left here from the end of July, and then the August pictures, including these trips, can be found here.

Girls' Weekend

Michele spent the past weekend in Chiago with her girlfriends from college. They packed quite a bit into their three day trip including a show, brunch, and some sightseeing. It sounded like they all had a really nice time. I'm very jealous because I've been wanting to go to Millennium Park since the first time I heard about it. Maybe I'll get to see it eventually if they make a Midnight Club: Chicago or some other Chicago-centric video game.

With Michele out of town from Saturday through Monday, Jake got to split time between his grandparents. If this weekend was any indication of how this fall is going to go, he's going to have a hard time adjusting to not having Mommy around.

Please click through to see the rest of the pictures from their weekend. There are also a few pictures from our latest zoo trip and Jake with his puzzles.

If Michele were part of a TV show when she redecorated Jake's room, this would have been the reveal scene. Try to listen to catch the two things that he notices are missing! The pictures of the finished room can be found above as well. The video was taken after the painting was done, but before Meme and Papa brought down the bed they were so kindly storing for us.