Trip to Michigan

The Morehouse's came to visit just before Julie was in her 3rd trimester of pregnancy with super-surprise #4.  Her pregnancy was very similar to mine with Colin, except her baby came out with a planned C-section and didn't fall out in the ER.  They decided on the name 'Emma' while sitting in our living room, a name Julie and I both said we loved since the time we were both pregnant with #1's.  The day before Emma was born, Julie was texting me, asking for prayers over the delivery and Ben said, "How would you like to go meet baby Emma?".  Um, YES please!  And just like that, Ben took a week off work and booked me a ticket to Michigan (okay, it was a little more planned than it sounds; we had just enough airline points for 1 ticket and he also wanted to take a vacation before deployment...and I just realized I haven't mentioned deployment on this blog yet, so I guess that's another post to come).  So I took my first ever trip all by myself and it was awesome.

She is the sweetest, one of the most beautiful babies I've ever met.  I realize more and more how alien looking our babies looked.

I got in Friday night and Saturday morning I went with Julie to Cross Country practice.  She coaches the Grosse Pointe high school girls team and I got a little taste of coaching life.  I can see why she loves it; it was really fun hanging out with the girls...did you know that it's now the norm for all teenagers to have phones?  I got to run down Jefferson, the same road I took everyday to work when we lived there.  I felt like I was in a movie, with mansions on one side of the road and water on the other side.  It was SO refreshing to run outside and not feel like I was dying the entire time!

After practice, we met the Marlow's at Yate's Cider Mill.  I think these donuts are worth flying across the country for...I could have eaten a dozen all by myself.

We sat by the creek and I soaked up all the green.  This was definitely a time I missed my kids; I wish they could have been there to splash in the water and build bridges with me and the other kids.

 

Then we spent some time at Julie's house, catching up, snuggling the baby and Andrea did my hair (she has mad hair skills).

 It rained that afternoon and everyone thought I was crazy for how excited I was to touch it.

Then in the evening, we went out for a girls night at Partridge Creek.  We had dinner at California Pizza Company and did some shopping.  Andrea and Julie helped me pick some accessories at Charming Charlie's for the upcoming Marine Ball I have to attend.  We had just a little fun being silly in the store.

 

Sunday, we went to church at Knox and then helped Julie throw Kyle a birthday party.

All of Tim and Julie's family was over for the party, so I went with Andrea to Knox's picnic at Belle Isle.  We picked up Starbucks on the way down.  Back in the day, Andrea and I would get frappucinno's at the mall and talk while the kids played at the indoor play area.

I definitely do not miss all the driving you have to do in Michigan, but there are some things worth driving for.  I think I only went to Belle Isle once when we lived there, but I found it even more beautiful this time.

Not having my kids with me was odd at times, but then again it gave me a chance to really help out Julie and Andrea with their kids.  While Andrea ate dinner, Leia and I looked for fish.

P.S. You can see Canada in this picture!

Though we were only part of Knox for a few years, they are still so loving of our family.  Julie jokingly said one day, "Bet you never thought Michigan would be refreshing, huh?"...boy was she right.  Never did I think coming back would be a source of refreshment, but it has.  Seeing these friends and laughing with them and being able to love on their wonderful families and having some time to cool off (literally) and see green and water was SO completely refreshing.

Monday morning I went to Cross Country again with Julie.  She's had a complicated recovery post C-section and her riding a bike at practice was a BIG deal.  I ran along side her and then ran with the girls while she timed the mile splits. 

We had lunch with Nicole Crissman (failed to get a picture) and then it was time for me to make the long journey home.  I hope it was a little refreshing for Julie for me to be there, if nothing else, she had a good time laughing at me for being freezing all the time.  This makes 2 years in a row I've been in Michigan in August and I can definitely see the advantages of making trips like this a priority in the coming years.


P.S. I will fully own that I am consistently inconsistent, but I have been blogging more on http://simplymommashear.blogspot.com and plan on having more on these trips on that blog.  If it doesn't happen, just remember the first part of that sentence.

Going stir crazy

This week's theme was 'Stir Crazy'.

We met some friends at the bowling alley on Monday.  The base has a pretty neat little place to bowl.  It was perfect for our group of kids.

One morning, our air conditioner was going crazy and wouldn't turn off!  We were sitting at breakfast, all freezing and the kids could hardly stand it and ran outside.  Somehow the warming up turned into a "let's fill every jar in the house full of rocks and flowers" project.  You know it's been a long time since you've played outside when collecting gravel sounds fun.

This week has been the first time, in what feels like forever, that temps have been under 110°.  It feels better, but it's still too hot to play outside.  You gotta do what you gotta do in a desert summer and this week roller skates and bikes and tents came into our house and there were couch cushions everywhere.

 I love seeing the boys imagination and one day they built a pool with couch cushions are were having a pool party.  Colin kept saying, "This is EPIC!"....I think it was confirmed then that we're going crazy.

 

Friday, Colin had his first story time and the rest of us surprised daddy at his office.  While dropping Colin off, I realized how good this time is for him.  He is so used to following Eli and Alison and trailing along to their activities, it was fun to see him participate in something that was just for him.  Plus, he loves doing hand motions and singing songs .

 

Saturday, the kids had an end of basketball season pool party.  Going swimming sounds like it would be really refreshing, but I've found this summer that's it's like taking a bath and doesn't cool you off all that much.

After the party, we dropped the kids off at the Y for Parent's Night Out.  This program at the Y has been a huge blessing to us.  We get a date and the kids have a fun night.  I love that it gives them an opportunity to play with other kids, instead of paying someone to just come hangout at our house.  This month's theme was circus and when we picked them up, Eli looked like this:

I was SO surprised because previous face painting opportunities have resulted in him disgusted at the very idea.  But this time he didn't want to take it off and didn't want to shower or  go to church (because he knew that meant he had to take it off).  Alison learned that lesson and requested hers on her arm.

What a week!

What a week we had!  All good things, all good things :)

Alison decided that she was a chef and went smoothie making crazy.  However, it was exciting to see her make something completely independently and was helping feed our family.

 

 

In light of her current "needs to gain some weight to catch up with her height", I let her help me do the grocery shopping (i.e. I let her add things to the cart that I would normally say no to).  She asked if she could make cresent rolls for dinner and I loved that she thought of contributing to the meal.  She again made them all on her own!

She also made up a menu and cooked me lunch one day.

Eli is the chess master.

I can't keep up, so I play checkers with him.

I've gotten up super early a few mornings to run.  The first morning felt great and then this wicked wave of humidity hit.  I enjoyed it while it lasted and look forward to being back out...hopefully soon.  I'll come pick Maya up to jog around the block and pick up the mail.  It's so entertaining to take her out.  First, she is the happiest puppy on the planet and second, my sprint is her kinda trot.  Also funny; at 6 am, the sun is shining and people are out doing yard work and rollerblading and I even smelled someone grilling one morning. 

I signed Colin up for story time at the base library.  Essentially, it will be equivalent to a free hour of preschool for him.  It's extremely hard to get in to because it's in high demand and a great program, at least I've heard, so we were there right as the library opened.  I'm excited for him to have something just for him and the rest of us can be checking out books while he's in his program.  Win, win.

This is what he wore to sign up:

We finished school this week.  I promised Alison a fish when she finished chapter 20 in history, but she completed it right before the move.  So when she finished the entire 42 chapters this week and aced the test, I figured I better keep my promise.

Welcome Skye to our family.

 

Alison is a great fashion designer and dressed up Colin.  He thought it was SO fun!

 

Colin has several things he says really funny and 'girl' is one of them.  We were getting ready to leave and I told him he needed to change clothes and he didn't want to because then he would be a boy again and he wanted to stay a girl.  I tried to get it on video of him saying girl...

Last day of school pictures equaled boys in underwear...will this ever end?  Not sure I'm ready for my little boy to be in 1st grade.

 

Ben's command had a family day at the pool which worked out perfectly for our end of school celebration.  The kids went down the slide 8,000 times and I just floated and it made me miss our pool in Virginia terribly.  It's a miracle we've survived this summer folks.

Today was the last day of basketball games.  I am SO proud of Alison and Eli.  They had great attitudes all season and learned a ton. 

Eli made the winning point for his team today!

This and That

Another trip to the Children's Museum with some friends:

For some reason we always pick the hottest day of the week to go.  This time, I thought I was being smart by picking a parking spot in the shade, but it ended up being a pretty far walk to the museum.  We found a cute little ice cream place right by the museum and quickly ate our scoops of ice cream on the way back to the car.  Alison said it definitely helped her survive :)

The air conditioning has gone out a few times at the base gym and they've only cancelled practice once when it happened.  Last week, Eli and I were pouring sweat just from watching Alison practice.  Only in the dessert...

Colin has been such a trooper through this LONG basketball season.  It seems really long, but maybe that's because it's consuming our life right now.  4 days a week of watching basketball and he's still smiling!

Then there was that awkward moment when Colin checked out this book from the library, and the librarian kept looking at my stomach and I couldn't decide if I should just tell her, "I'm NOT pregnant." or if I should let her mind her own business and suck in my tummy.

We took Alison to her well-check up.  All of the sudden, Eli scooped up Colin and held him in his lap.  I've never seen this affectionate towards him.

Alison is healthy and doing great.  As always, she's super tall and skinny, but this time the doctor asked me to try and get more calories in her as it looks like she's in a growth spurt.  Story of my life.  More calories in, while trying to still eat healthy.  My solution for the week was chocolate milk.

Alison and I finished a mosaic project we started in June!  It was for history and we only have 1 chapter left, so I figured we either needed to finish it or throw it away.

Cheers to chocolate milk and the last week of school and basketball!!!

Alison's 9th Birthday!

We started birthday celebrations on Saturday since Alison's birthday was on Sunday and we'd be at church for a good part of the day.  After basketball games, we went to see 'The Secret Life of Pets' as a family.  Alison has been really excited to see that movie.

Then we went Famous Dave's for dinner. 

We surprised her this year with the birthday plans, so she woke up with balloons covering her bedroom door and her party all set up. 

She came downstairs to a new trampoline!

We had breakfast corndogs and opened presents before church.

Eli got her sour gummy worms and lemonade gum.  Colin got her a Barbie convertible, Nana and Grandaddy sent a leotard and hair bow, Grandma sent 'Little House, season 5', Katherine and Maggie sent Barbies and Ben and I got her a Kindle. 

After church, we brought home Maddie and Alison with us to have an Olympic gymnastics party. 

Dinner was Papa John's pepperoni, sausage, bacon pizza; her favorite!

Then she opened presents from her friends and boy, were they generous!  Alison got her an "American Girl" (really Next Generation) horse and Maddie got her a pet vet play set.  Both gifts were absolutely perfect.

The boys helped me make the oreo cake.

After cake, the girls made some ribbon wands and hair bows.

 

We watched a few videos of ribbon dancers while they worked.

 

While the girls crafted, Ben built a balance beam for the party.

I was so surprised by the boys.  They wanted to participate in everything, including the crafts and the gymnastics routines the girls made up.  Eli was worried that he didn't have the right gymnastics outfit, so he pulled off his shirt and said, "There, now I'm ready!" 

The girls made up a routine and then we handed out medals. 

We had such a fun day celebrating my favorite girl!

 Happy Birthday sweet pea!