Lots of Spring Fun

Today we spend Mother's Day at the Toledo Zoo. Mom, Dad, Bill, Lisa, and Brenden also came with us. It was a great day with lots of fun animals to see. Many of the animals spent their time sleeping and sunning themselves, but we did have some excitement throughout the day. My highlight of the day was when Ana and I were watching these crazy monkeys run around their pen. This one went "ape S^*#" and ended up throwing himself against the glass right in front on Ana and me. I screamed and laughed as I fell backward all in one motion, taking out a couple of kids and a dad as I fell. It was pretty funny.

Ana loved the zoo, but could not pinpoint her favorite. She actually said the penguins a few times so maybe it was the penguins. I liked the rhinos myself. And of course those dang monkeys! Mike was pretty gungho on seeing the polar bears, but they just wanted to sleep when we came by.


On Thursday Ana's preschool had a Mother's Day luncheon. It was really great to talk to the other mom's and kids. I was able to snap a few pictures of Ana and her friends to share here. A couple of them have been with Ana since she started at ABC when she was 11 weeks old. She has also grown pretty fond of a few of her classmates and a few classmates have become pretty fond of her. I shared a story with Ryan's mom on how I recall a few years ago when Ana and Ryan were in the baby room together and one day I came to pick up Ana and the two of them were sitting in the center of the room taking each others socks off. It will be a story that I hope they share as the years go on.

In a couple of weeks Ana will graduate from preschool and begin her new adventure this fall as an Early 5 - Kindergartner. She is pretty excited about that, but I am not. My babygirl is not a baby anymore, but what she is, is a sweet and loving little girl. I just love watching her and talking to her about things. Kids this age have so much to share. I love it!



Last weekend we were able to spend the afternoon with the Worsley's. Austin and Ana had alot of fun with the kids and their new puppy.

Will she play hockey?

Last weekend we took the kids to skate in Chelsea. They had a DJ skate which was pretty fun for the older kids. Ana was determined that she was going to get out there and skate just like her big brother and sister. After four trips around the rink she was done. We will have to see if she really wants to play hockey? Mike is all ready to take her to learn to skate. That's ok with me, but when I see a hockey stick in her hand I don't know...





Lately Spencer has been quite the lovey dog. I am thinking back a year ago I wanted him gone. After we took him to obedience school it made a world of a difference. I am glad we kept him and I think the kids are too...



Superbowl at the Caryl's



Our Superbowl Half Time Show...

Catching up while it snows!

Today it snowed quite a bit and as Ana and I went out to play I caught a few photos of her. I also realized that I am just going to give up on posting to my blog on a regular basis. Life just doesn't allow me to have enough time to do it all so here is what I can post as a catch-up since November.....



Sneaky Spencer......taking Ana's mitten from her!



I can just see Spencer thinking.... "Come on...just try and get it from me!" Ana tried to chase him for a bit, but the deep snow got the best of her and with a cold exposed hand it didn't take long for the tears to start and call it quits.



You can see who won this battle! Oh so proud he was!



We brought in the New Year pretty quietly this year. We had some friends over and played alot of Wii. We also had some great entertainment watching Doug do the Wii fit into the early am hours. I was also threatened that I had better not take any pictures or videos so unfortunately I don't have any entertaining videos of this to share.


Alex turned 15 on December 26th! Look out...one more year and she will be asking for the keys!



Christmas came and left in a blur. We were on the go for just about that whole week trying to get to everyone to visit and share Christmas greetings with. We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas season!!



Analeigh turned four on November 19th. We didn't have Austin and Alex with us on her actual birthday so it was a little quite celebration with just the three of us going to dinner and falling asleep to Kung Fu Panda. Later that weekend we celebrated with family.

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!