Ch-ch-ch-changes

It seems every day the progress on the house is very obvious. I know in later weeks this won't be the case, but at least for now, I'll be posting pictures pretty frequently. And then you'll be stuck with photos of electrical outlets and door knobs.

 

 

Back to school

Yesterday was the first day of the 2009-2010 school year for the boys. For Reece, it just means that his classroom has been rearranged a bit, they are no longer in "camp" mode, and he is now one of the BIG kids. For Greyson, it was the start of fourth grade and his last year at his school. (Our town has an upper elementary for all 5th and 6th graders in the district.) As I thought about this, I realized that five years ago at this time, we had just moved here and Greyson started kindergarten. We were asked to fill out a form about him for his teacher's information, and on it we had to check off any major events that had taken place in his life in the past year. The poor child had three - a new sibling, moving, and starting a new school! In contrast, the odds are very good that Reece will only have one of those next year.

Just to give you an idea of how much Greyson has changed since that first day catching the bus to kindergarten, here are a picture from five years ago and one from yesterday:

The next five years are going to go equally as fast, aren't they?

Renovations progress

Four days ago, we had this:


And now, we have this:It's more exciting than I thought to see the plans coming to life. And now I must go and write probably the biggest check I've ever written, and it will just cover all the concrete work. Framing starts Wednesday. Which means tonight we can park both vehicles in the driveway instead of on the street. Who knew that would make me so happy.

Last vacation in summer, part 2

The boys and I are back home now, and Greyson is the only one who has some of his summer vacation left (his school starts on the 25th). I start teaching a course on the 25th as well, so I've been working pretty frantically to get that together as well as the other work I have to do. However, I think some of the relaxation of the vacation has stayed with me, because I'm feeling more zen about things than I normally would be.

Starting from where the last post ended, on Thursday my mom had to spend all day at the Baby Pantry, so the boys and I drove out to my cousin Lil's house in the morning and went lighthouse hopping with her and her two girls, Emily and Ava. We climbed the "new" Presque Isle lighthouse first, which I recommend since it is much higher than the "old" one. I only realized when we got to the top that my camera battery had died, so I have no pictures of that day. Lil took plenty and is sending them to me, so when I receive them I'll post the best.

Reece made it up about 1/3 of the way before having a mini freakout, which I call impressive (his uncle Nat still won't go up, and he's 37), and we managed to convince him to go all the way up. He didn't want to spend very much time up there, but we did walk all the way around and stop to admire the view from four sides as well as fly tiny airplanes from the top down to the ground. We were amazed that none got caught in any trees or on the roof of the buildings. We then drove to the "old" lighthouse, which is supposed to be haunted, and the kids got to work old fog horns and put themselves into shackles. We completed that trip with pizza and ice cream cones, then went back to Lil's where Greyson and Emily took the paddleboat out to the drop-off to fish and Reece and Ava swam and caught minnows.

Friday we headed back to Black Lake to hang out with Uncle Dan, Jackie, Jill and Susie. Anyone who could read played Whoonu, we had steaks for supper, then went out fishing where we caught nothing but had to hightail it back to beat a wicked storm. That thing lasted most of the night, but by morning it had moved on, leaving a lot of tannic acid spilling into the shallow water in runoff. It was necessary to go back out to fish in order to have tall tales to tell when we returned, so we rode the boat to Uncle Tim's and Uncle Dave's to pick up my cousin Mike, his daughter Jenna, and his nephew Joe. Reece and I were the most successful, with Reece catching the biggest perch (and only keeper). Jackie even drove up on the jet ski and attempted to fish off it (to no avail). Then we went back for lunch and went swimming/snorkeling for most of the afternoon. A great ending to an overall very relaxing vacation. We even stopped by my cousin Dave's outside Detroit on our way home Sunday to have a break and visit with him and his family, so we managed to see a fair percentage of relatives this trip.

And here are the photos:

Playing Whoonu

Reece the owl checking out the loft

Greyson driving at ludicrous speed to beat the storm

Reece driving all by himself (and not watching where he's going)

The rest of our summer vacation, part 1

The boys and I are smack dab in the middle of our Michigan trip, which is becoming an annual event, and I thought I'd better post some photos of what we've done so far because 1) we've been very busy, and 2) I have a new camera that holds a kajillion pictures and takes awesome video (at least compared to my last one), so I have tons to choose from already.

We left home last Thursday afternoon and stopped near Detroit at my cousin Jill's house. While there, the boys found her box of toys and while Reece had me apply kids' make-up to his face, Greyson used the Pickle Pult to shoot at all of us. I didn't get any action shots of the weapon, but if you have a chance, you have got to go to the website and check out the other "pults". At least one of these is going to end up in a stocking this year!

We arrived at my mom's the next day (after stopping at the A&W restaurant in Standish, where the boys got to order their own food using the telephone at the table) and just hung out and explored all of Grandma's toys (and ate ice cream on the deck). Saturday, we ran errands so that we could repack for our time at a rental cabin on Black Lake that began later that day. Sunday the boys spend lots of time in the water while Grandma observed and I drove back to Alpena for a close friend's baby shower, and then we had dinner at my uncles' cabins not too far away. It's always fun to see who will show up there, and this time it was my uncles Tim and Dave (who own the cabins), my cousin Greg (which confused my kids because he is close in age to my uncle Dave), and my dad's cousin Bill, who I had probably seen once or twice before in my life but owns the cabin next door.

Monday was spent in the water - I think the kids went in four separate times and we went for a canoe ride - and playing with the 3-year old girl whose family was renting the cabin next door. That evening, we had a bonfire and roasted marshmallows for S'mores. Tuesday was overcast and cooler, so we drove to Mackinaw City and toured the fort and bought fudge. Today we returned to my mom's, stopping to swim at Ocqueoc Falls on the way (sorry, no photos of us at the falls as I had to be in the water with both boys the whole time). Part 2 will be posted after we return to Ohio.

Cedar Point trip

Every year, the Cleveland Clinic offers discounted or free tickets to some event or amusement park to all its employees. It used to be to Geauga Lake, which is about 20 minutes from us, but the amusement park half of that closed last year and only the water park remains. So this year they gave us a 2-week time frame in which to use half-price Cedar Point tickets with the option to buy Soak City tickets at nearly half price. We decided to make it a whole 2-day event and extended the invitation to relatives within a 3 hour radius. Only my cousin, Jackie, was able to take us up on the offer. In addition, Dan's brother, Ben, was still with us and came along. Turns out, a 4 to 2 ratio of adults to children is just about right for a large amusement park! We spent all of last Thursday at Cedar Point, spent the night in a lovely cabin that fit us perfectly (although Dan says any more people and we would have needed a 2nd bathroom), and spent most of Friday at Soak City.

Before we left, Greyson was talking up how he was going to go on all the biggest, fastest roller coasters. We thought it best to start him small and work his way up. Here he is on the Jr. Gemini with Uncle Ben (all the adults took turns riding the kiddie rides when needed, since none of us could stomach them more than once or twice!). The ride lasts maybe 30 seconds start to finish and is even tamer than Goofy's Barnstormer at Disneyworld. When he got off this, he said that was scary and he was done with all roller coasters.




So he stuck to the littler kids' rides for the rest of the day:





Reece didn't want to do the roller coasters but was thrilled to ride anything he could "drive". On the bigger rides, he wasn't allowed to sit in front of the steering wheel, but we managed to let him steer anyway:
I purposely didn't take my camera to the waterpark, but rest assured that we all had a great time there. Dan, Ben, and Jackie hit most of the big slides while I took the kids to the kiddie parts, and then we swapped off so everyone got to enjoy the parts they wanted. We even convinced Greyson to go on nearly all he big slides, and he is now a convert. We rented a cabana as home base, which worked out perfectly. They had table food service for the cabana area, and when we were getting ready to leave, we asked Reece what his favorite part of the two days had been. He said "When we ordered food at the table and they brought it to us!" Clearly, the boy was delerius from the sun.

Happy 35th Birthday, Nick!

Belated birthday wishes to my younger brother (it was yesterday, but he doesn't seem to care much if we actually hit the date). I can't believe you're this age! To me, you will probably always be about 14, which is the age you were when I left for college.

I know I've said this to various people, but I'm actually affected more when my brothers hit milestone birthdays that it did when I hit them. I thought I'd share a few memories of Nick as a child in honor of this momentous occasion.

Nick was usually game to do whatever I was doing, especially baking or playing card games, but if he didn't want to do something, no cajoling could convince him otherwise. He also only gave smiles when he wanted, which prompted one of our aunts to nickname him "sober socks". When he was about 3, I nicknamed him "Piglet" because it seemed like he was the partner to my Winnie the Pooh (and awfully cute and slightly round to boot), but my mom stopped that after a while because she was afraid he would get a weight complex. Of course, now Nick is the leanest and most in shape of all of us! Nick also weathered being called "Nicky" by relatives for as long as he could, only to be called "Uncle Nicky" by one of my boys a few years ago. He was kind enough to allow that - but only from a nephew!

I'll update this post with a few old pictures of Nick when I can get them scanned. Happy Birthday little brother!