October Review

Well...it's November and I sit here reflecting on the month of October and wondering where the month went?

Our month started out celebrating my father in-law's retirement from the University of Michigan where he worked 31 years as the Division Controller of Financial Operations. We celebrated with immediate family with a dinner at the Outback. We hope Dad will stay busy making his great birdhouses with the new saw that we got him. Hint...hint...hint...Mike and I are still missing one in our backyard.


Our weekdays and weekends are still very busy with Austin in hockey and Alex in crew. Alex finished her fall crew season this past weekend and did well for her first season taking two medals. She wasn't home much on the weekends as just about every weekend she was away at a regatta.

Austin has been fire on ice lately. He is leading the team in assists with five and in points with eight! He has been amazing to watch lately. On the weekend of the 18th, Mike and Austin went up to Sault Ste. Marie for a tournament where the Wolves took second in a pretty devastating championship loss.

We spent the Michigan vs Michigan State game at our house this year and had a few friends over to basically cheer on the Spartans!


We finished that evening playing our traditional Cranium game where the girls won...ok not! Damn jello shots! We then rocked out the evening on the Wii with "Rock Band!" I know, I know, we are getting old, but it is pathetically fun! Here is a video of one of our great performances. Doug was the lead singer, Mike Caster on drums, and myself on the guitar playing Blitzkrieg Bop by the Ramones.



The end of the month obviously brought us to Halloween where we carved pumpkins with my side of the family. It was a relaxing afternoon and a lot fun watching the kids get into the pumpkin carving. Well...Austin didn't really like the pumpkin guts and made his sisters clean his pumpkins out!



Sadly it was not our holiday to have Austin and Alex so we missed them trick or treating with us. However, we did take Ana over to the Winn's house where she went around with Kelly and Critter to about a dozen or so houses. It was hard for those little legs to keep up with the bigger kids, but she had fun none the less. I think Christopher "Critter" has taken a liking to her!



I am still so glad that she decided to be Tinkerbell for Halloween. For the longest time she kept telling me she wanted to be a snake! How the heck do you make a snake costume!? Whew! I think she made a pretty darn cute Tink!



Now she is all about Tinkerbell and wants just about everything Tinkerbell for her birthday in a couple of weeks when my little baby girl turns 4!

As for Mike and I, we are planning to take a weekend trip to Chicago in a couple of weeks. We will celebrate his birthday and just have a couple days to ourselves. Before Ana was born, we did this weekend getaway around Christmas time to do some Christmas shopping and relaxing together. I miss that "together" time with the busy lives we lead so we felt this year we are going to get back to doing that again.

Alex Update

Well....
Alexandria has kept us pretty busy since the start of school. She has become part of the Ann Arbor Pioneer Crew Team. Crew is all very new to Mike and I so we are learning as we go. She had her first Regatta on Saturday at Ford Lake against Saline and Huron. She is part of the novice girls team and was in two races that day. Even though the novice girls team came in last I think she did a great job and am very proud of her.

That same day she also had her first homecoming dance. She has found interest in a boy named Robert who we meet prior to them going to dinner with a couple other couples and then on to the dance. From what we have heard and seen of him, he is a very nice young man, who I am fond of since he and his family are alls SPARTANS!!! Hehehehe....by the way, good luck to my Wolverine friends and family! It doesn't look so good for you guys this season. And I should probably not run my mouth yet as the Spartans really are not looking all that strong either. Well, here are some pictures of Alex at her Regatta and also homecoming.

South Haven

Mike had to work this weekend and we did not have Alex and Austin so Ana and I decided to "road trip" it and took off to visit my parents who were camping at South Haven this past weekend. We just went for a night and spent the afternoon at the beach playing in the waves and climbing dunes. My brother Bill was also there with my nephew Brenden. Bill took me out on a raft into the waves and thought it would be fun to wipe me out in the waves. It brought back the good ole days of childhood, but I was always the one getting him dumped over so I think he thought he had some catching up to do. He definitely took advantage while I was susceptible on a raft. Believe me he should be caught up now! All in fun, right Bill?!

Medflight Family Picnic

On Saturday, Midwest Medflight, where Mike works, had a family picnic where family were able to take a ride in the helicopter. It was a really great experience and a ton of fun! Thank you Medflight! I am really appreciative of the work Mike and his co-workers do to help save lives.

We could not have asked for a more perfect day as it provided a spectacular view and a smooth ride. I was a little worried about my whole motion sickness, but I was fine. We took a trip around Ann Arbor up to Domino's Farms and back around by Michigan stadium. And even being a Spartan fan, I will have to say that it was awesome to see the stadium from up above! Alex was able to snap a picture of it here.








To stop the music select the volume symbol at the top of this slide window.

After the picnic, we headed over to a summer/birthday party that our friend EJ invited us to. You would not believe all the kids and the craziness this party had! There was a huge homemade slip and slide, a enormous blow up bouncing thingy, a dunk tank, a trampoline, and into the evening there was an egg toss and a huge display of fireworks. Wow...is all I can say to that, but here are a few pictures and a video from the party.

Well....

I have been away for a while, but found a new photo editing program that should speed up my digital scrapbooking. It is called ACDSee Editor. It's a pretty good program that I am trialing right now to see. Here is a page I made in about 10 minutes. Although it isn't my traditional scrapbooking with paper and scissors, it's still fun to make and post to my blog.

Ana wanted to use face painting to put faces on her knees last night. She told me that she wanted her dad on one knee and her on the other. So...we were bored and I did it. She is too funny!





We also spent some time in the pool last weekend and had some great family fun.





Baby's got blue eyes....



Here are some photos while out at the Mom and Dad's lake

Here was Ana's first Detroit Tiger Baseball game. Michelle was not all that thrilled with Rodriguez getting a break and not playing in the game, but it was fun anyways!

Ana started the preschool room this week at daycare. It is hard for me to see her growing up so fast, but the change has been even harder for her. She has made some good friends in her previous room, so she has had a rough week adjusting to new kids. When dropping her off on Thursday she stood at the door to her room (Bears) and said, "Mommy I don't want to be in Bears, I want to be a little kid." She is a pretty social kid so she will be fine. Here is a picture of her on her first day....as you can see not a happy morning for us.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. Wish it really felt more like spring, than winter with all the snow we had.


Look at this...Alex got her braces off on March 19th! She is turning into such a beautiful young woman. It's hard to believe that the 5 year old that I met 8 years ago has grown up. She will be in High School next year...wow!

It's been a while!

Well....it has obviously been a while since I have posted and my goal is to keep this updated and current at least every other week or so. There is alot to catch up on so this post has alot!

Little Ms. Hannah Montana Wanna Be!



Austin's Hockey....#12 Ann Arbor Wolves - Left Wing

Alex and Spencer...a Christmas dance around the tree???


A few of Christmas...

Halloween 2007