Camping and Josh's Birthday

We went camping for Josh's birthday weekend, which was a month ago now. So I'm a little out of order here, but I got some really great photos that weekend so I wanted to get them on the blog. Seth was home from the island, and he and Beth came along too. It was such a fun weekend! I wish we could camp more often...it just seems like there is something going on every weekend in the summer.

We camped by the mouth of the Gratiot River, up on the west side of the Keweenaw. It was beautiful. The bugs didn't seem too bad, but Willow did get three big black fly bites right on her face. For about 2 weeks afterward it looked like she had the chickenpox or something.

Here's Willow getting up close and personal with some bushes.















Willow and Dada by the river.















Reading books in the tent.















The guys did some fishing, and I don't think they caught much. A fellow fisherman caught this fish and didn't want to keep it and couldn't toss it back because he hooked it in a bad way, so he gave it to us. Josh and Seth cooked it over the fire on a stick. It was pretty tasty, actually. Don't they look like rugged mountain men? Ha.















Willow with Seth and Beth:















Josh blowing out the candles on his birthday cake:















We had a beautiful sunset. Earlier in the day, there were quite a few daytrippers hanging out at the park, but by this point, we pretty much had the place to ourselves, and it was very peaceful.

















The next morning, we drove to a hiking trail I've never done before. It led to the mouth of another river, the Montreal River. There were some great waterfalls. The guys went upriver to fish and us girls hung out on the beach. Willow had a blast.

















After that, we all went to my parents' camp for dinner, the perfect end to an awesome weekend. Josh had another birthday pie, and Willow helped him blow out the candles.















I love this picture of Willow, Scout and and my dad.

Fourth of July

Hello,

We're on a little vacation this weekend, down in Hastings for Josh's cousin Amanda's wedding. It's a quiet, rainy day here, and Willow's napping, so I seized the chance to write a blog post.

I'll have to skip the camping post I wanted to write - those photos are all at home. The photos I have here are from the Fourth of July. We had a wonderful weekend with our good friends Mark and Amy and baby Ava.

They drove up to visit on Friday, July 1 and got to our house in the evening. On Saturday, the weather was just perfect - sunny and about 80, I think. The guys went biking, and me, Amy, Ava and Willow went on a hike. The hike sort of backfired, but I won't go into that. Then we all went back to our place and spent the afternoon lounging in the yard, playing a beanbag toss game, and drinking beer. It was really run and so relaxing!

















Willow's very first popcicle!















Here's Willow with baby Ava.
















Is she adorable or what!















The next day we went out to my parent's camp and had a beach day on the big lake. It was very hot out but the water was freezing! I'm no meteorologist, but it was something about the wind taking all the surface water out and leaving the freezing water underneath. (By the way, I am not in the video because I had already gone in) :)



After hitting up a barbecue at the Vendlinski's, we went to the Lake Linden park for the fireworks. Willow loved them and talked about them for days afterward. "Siawoks!" is how she said it.
















This was taken through the fireworks glasses.

















The park had a monkeybar where Willow tested her strength.

A Few Random Photos..

I have a whole bunch of pictures from our camping trip a couple weeks ago, but in trying to stay in chronological order, I really need to post these pics from Relay for Life first, along with a couple others. I am trying not to get behind on this blog!

So yeah, I'm pretty involved with "Relay" through work. The Aspirus Keweenaw team pretty much kicks every other team's butt. This year we raised over $13,000. Our employees get pretty into it too, which is I guess why I end up so involved as an HR person.

Two of my coworkers have daughters about Willow's age, and the three girls had a blast at Relay. For some reason the ice from a cooler was the best part. Here's Willow, Amelia (daughter of DaveO), and Cameron (daughter of Jess). They were so cute together!















Here's Willow riding the horsey (long story why we had a horsey there)















OK, and here are just a couple recent photos of Willow, both showing big girl stuff. First, pigtails! I pretty much just did this to see if I could; she doesn't wear them regularly. We have put in a ponytail a few times though. Her hair gets so fuzzy, sometimes a ponytail is necessary or it sort of gets like a little 'fro. Seriously! I think she must've got it from Josh; I had really fine hair when I was little.















And another potty photo. I can't resist. I can't say we've made much progess. Willow will go pee on the potty at least once a day, sometimes three or four times. But it's always incidental, I think. We (or Linda, usually) will put her on the potty, and she'll sit there, read, sing, play, and when we come back 15 minutes later, she has peed (or pooped, a couple times). But she has never once told us that she had to go to the potty. That seems to be the missing link. Well, hopefully it will come soon.




















Early On came on Thursday, and the lady was very impressed with Willow's development. She said we don't need Early On anymore. Hooray! Of all of the items on the 27-month questionnaire, the ones she didn't ace were mostly in the gross motor skills category. She can't jump yet, and she can't walk up stairs by herself. I think the stairs thing is just because she's so small. Not sure what's up with the jumping, but overall she did great. Her language is really good. Actually, I swear her vocabulary has doubled just in the last 2 weeks. She will pretty much repeat everything you say now. (Which can be dangerous - she picked up "oh, crap!" somewhere...)

Have a great July weekend everyone!

Bridgefest

Bridgefest was already two weeks ago! We had a barbecue/party that Saturday night. It was a lot of fun. Parties are a little different now that a lot of our friends have kids...but different in a good way. There were probably 15 adults there and 6 little kids running around. I didn't take very many photos, but here are a couple I got of Willow and her friends sitting at her patio set.

Willow and Carter:
















Willow, Cat and Lewis:
















After the barbecue, everyone left but the Vendlinski's, and we walked down to the water together to watch the fireworks over the canal. Both Willow annd Lewis were running fools and just wanted to zoom around. Here's Willow, RUNNING!!! down the bike path.

Biking

I've been trying and trying to carve out an hour of my life to update this blog, but it's just not happening...I don't foresee it happening in the next couple weeks either, so I decided a little bit is better than nothing. I'm doing a quick weekday morning before-work post.

We picked up a bike trailer for Willow (thanks, Beth!). So far we've only used it once, but I hope we have many more rides ahead of us.It was fun! We have a paved bike trail just a couple blocks from our house that goes along the canal.


















Then two weekends ago, Josh's friends Nick and Chris both came up to do the chain drive bike race. It's the one Josh and Chad did last year. Chris is missing from this photo, but here are the boys before their race: Marty, Josh, Chad and Nick.
















Josh was happy with his time for the 16-miler; he improved over last year's time by quite a bit.

Have a good Thursday!

ABCs

Hello,

We've actually had a very eventful weekend - Bridgefest, visitors, the Chain Drive bike race, we had a party last night...and I don't have time for a post right now, but I wanted to post something .

Here's Willow singing the ABCs. She actually can sing the whole song, but this is the best we could get her to do on camera. I was having issues with blogger uploading the video, so I tried something new - I uploaded it to youtube and put in a link.

click here to watch the video.

I'll post more soon!

2 corrected years

Hi everyone,

Sorry it's been so long between posts. Our weekends have been busy lately...although June is shaping up to be even busier! Josh is working long hours lately too - this is the busiest time for lawn irrigation.

There isn't much news anyway, but I have some photos to post. I'm hoping this computer holds up - lately, randomly, the space bar and the letters N and B stop working. Then later they start working again. It's hard to make much sense without those things. We really need a new computer soon - this one is ancient.

Willow turned 2 years old corrected on May 22. I wanted to update her age "ticker" at the top of this blog, because the little ticker thing was an infant. But they didn't have a "big kid" ticker option for the preemie version that shows both ages. So, I went back to a plain old age ticker. Which is probably good anyway. "They" say you're supposed to stop correcting at age 2 anyway and the kid should be "caught up". I'm not so sure I agree with that...at least not for physical milestones anyway. I'd rather compare Willow to the chart for her corrected age - at least then she is on the chart! :) Oh, the big kid ticker I ended up choosing was a little girl with a winter jacket throwing a snowball. It was either that or a fairy princess girl with a wand. It will be winter soon enough, I figure.

Spring has finally arrived here. Willow's been spending lots of time outside, with Linda and with us. We also got Linda a car seat, so she can go more places with Willow. I think they will both be happy to get out of the house a little more!

The first few photos are indoor photos, just hanging around the house.

I just thought this one was a nice smile. I think I was tickling her, actually.
















What she is doing a lot of the time: RUNNING! I thought this picture was funny because it pretty much sums up a 2-year-old. When she runs she lets you know...by yelling, "RUNNING!" while she runs. She also points to runners when we're out in the stroller and says "RUNNING!".

















Perusing Time magazine:















Little beggar girl:
















In her robe with a barrette in her hair.



















The rest of the photos are outdoor photos. We love playing outside!

For Mother's Day, we went out to McLain's park. We were about the only ones there. Willow was running around like a...well, like a toddler. Getting into everything. Here she is heading down to the beach, and on the beach throwing rocks for Scouty. (Happy birthday to Scouty, too, who just turned 9!)


















Willow definitely loves living near the water. One of our stroller routes is down on the bike path along the canal. She loves it so much that as we're leaving the driveway in the sroller, if I turn the direction away from the canal, she points towards the water and goes "that way!". If I keep going in the "wrong" direction she puts up a fuss. "that way, that way!". She gets over it, but then every time we pass a cross street where she can see the water, it's the same thing, pointing and shouting "that way! and "wala!" (her word for "water"). I like to walk by the water too, so I do it as much as I can. When I do turn that way, she cheers.

With dad and her favorite new toy - the sandbox! Grandpa made it for her. I don't think I ever mentioned in this blog that my dad recently retired - congratulations Dad! Linda assigned him the sandbox project, and he had it done in no time. The sand is from the beach on Big Traverse where we got married. When I got home the day it arrived, I asked Willow, "what did Grandpa bring you?" She said, "dirt". Ha.
















In the yard, chasing Daria. There haven't been many sundress days. This was one random hot afternoon. (Andi, you might recognize the dress!)
















Smelling the tulips.
















Willow loves to explore in the vinka (sp?). I like that we sort of have a little forest right in our yard. When I was a little kid, my friend Susie and I played every day in this forest in our neighborhood. It was a vast forest, dark and dense, with miles of trails. When I went back to it as an adult, it was just a little square of trees. But it seemed so huge to us back then. Maybe Willow will feel that way about our yard.



















I'll end today with a quote I found in a magazine at work, by no other than teen pop star Justin Bieber. You might have to click on it to make it bigger to read it.

Who knew the kid had so much wisdom? :)