That's a Wrap

Summer started winding down, but the activity level didn't. August is Dream Cruise time, so off we went to Woodward Avenue. We visited with friends and watched the cars go by. As usual, Nate loved every Mustang that went by, especially the Detroit Tigers Mustang.




August came to a close with our last Cub Scout summer event: family camping weekend. Despite the rain (again!!!) and the whole sleeping-in-a-tent thing, it was fun as always. The kids just carry on with what they're doing and don't seem to care if it rains, and the adults get to share some good company.



Labor Day weekend was the last hurrah before the unofficial end of summer. Paul, Nate and Abby went camping with the Leming clan again. One last trip in the camper for the summer. I headed down to Ann Arbor to watch Western Michigan University take on University of Michigan and kick off college football/tailgating season. The game was a little painful as my Broncos got spanked by the Wolverines, but the tailgating was good though!

Summer Daze

July came in with a bang--of fireworks that is. The Leming clan was together again for more camping and 4th of July fireworks.



July also means birthday time again. Paul and Nate got a mini celebration with the 4th of July festivities, then we headed to the beach to celebrate again with the Platts. Nate hit the big 1-0 this year--double digits!



Then it was off to the west side of the state with the Cub Scouts for Silver Lake Sand Dunes. The dune rides were a blast. Even the doubters of the group had fun. Then we climbed to the top of Little Sable Point Lighthouse for a spectacular view of Lake Michigan and the dunes--at least that's what I'm told. While Paul, Nate and Abby took in the view, I clung to the inside of the lighthouse for dear life and hyperventilated. I made it to the top though!

Long Time, No See

Ok, it's been a while. Life has been kind of a whirlwind of activity. Let's see if we can catch up a bit here. It's gonna be a long one, so get comfy.

Nate's baseball career sprang into action again in May. Although his team didn't do very well in the standings, Nate had a great season personally. He finally got that elusive home run and a game ball. And he proved to be quite the play-maker on first base and even got a chance to throw some pitches.


May also brought some Memorial Day camping with the Leming clan. We headed up to Frankenmuth for some geocaching, hot air balloon watching, a ton of activities for the kids with Yogi Bear, and just general fun. The hot air balloons were quite a site when they lit up at night and you were standing in the middle of them.


June may have brought the end of the school year, but it didn't slow the pace down any. The end of school brought Cub Scout day camp for Nate, led by none other than my husband, Mr. Scouts. Months of planning paid off, and Paul, Nate and everyone else had a lot of fun.


After the craziness of day camp, the kids and I took a road trip down to Dublin, Ohio, to spend some time with Jeff and Lisa. We spent some time relaxing and playing at the park, hit the COSI (one of the coolest science centers I've been to), made a splash at the water park, devoured some ice cream, and even got to catch one of Jeff's hockey games.

Happy Birthday, Abby!

I don't know where the time goes, but Abby is now 3 years old. We celebrated with the whole family (and Tinkerbell) with cake, ice cream, and dinner on the grill (the rain was kind enough to subside by then). Abby got Barbies, Tinkerbell stuff for her bedroom, a Dora scooter, and gasped, "Oh...my...god!" at new clothes for her Dora doll.

Here Comes Peter Cottontail

Yes, the Easter Bunny came to the Leming home. And he would be sitting in jail facing larceny charges if it was up to Abby. First Santa was a home invader, now the Easter Bunny was going to steal Abby's basket. The poor girl is going to need therapy.

We are happy to report that Abby did, in fact, find her missing Easter basket (behind the couch in her toys), as did Nate and Mommy and Daddy. All Easter goodies were accounted for, except for Abby's "bellyjeans" and chocolate bunny. Those items seemed to go missing as soon as Mommy left the room.

The Platt crew came over for some Easter brunch (complete with mimosas--nice!). We enjoyed some Easter Wii and Easter Sorry. Then we went to Grandma Eva and Grandpa Steve's for dinner with the Leming crew. Tragedy struck after an Easter egg hunt in the yard, as chocolate bunnies were maimed and mutilated. They did, however, seem to be delicious.

Spring Break

Grandma Chris decided that the kiddies needed a little vacation fun over spring break. Daddy was stuck working, so Mom, Grandma, Nate and Abby headed out "west" to Watervliet, Michigan, and Surfari Joe's indoor waterpark.

Abby loved the "green slide", as long as the giant bucket of water overhead didn't dump on her. And who knew you could spend so much time filling up a watering can and dumping it into a bucket? Unfortunately, we had to make a 3:00 am trip to the emergency room when she woke up with a high mystery fever. She wasn't quite herself for the rest of the trip, but she did have a lot of fun "apple picking" at the Curious Kids Museum in St. Joseph.

Nate had tons of fun convincing Mom to go down the water slide with him. After the bathing suit incident in Columbus last summer, I was a bit leary of the water slide. He also had fun snapping pictures at the pier in St. Joseph of the lighthouse, boats, bridges and anything else he could find. Someday that kid's going to be a photographer--I just know it.

Beds and Boxsprings and Staris, Oh My!

After much debating and deliberating, we decided it was time to make the great bed switch. Abby traded in her beloved Dora toddler bed for Nate's twin bed, complete with new Tinkerbell sheets. It's amazing what a little bribery can do. She actually ASKED to go to bed so she could sleep with Tinkerbell. Nate traded up for his mom and dad's queen bed. The blue and brown striped bedding he picked out should look "cool" (that's the official Nate-approved word) with the sports-themed room he is working toward. A definite upgrade in his book from the construction machines of 5 years ago.

With all that said and done, it was time for Mom and Dad to get their new bed up in their room. Do you think that could actually work out right the first time? Heck, no! What fun would that be? After wedging the new (and apparently larger than the old) boxspring in the stairway, we slept on the new mattress on the floor for 2 days until we could go trade our new boxspring for our old 2-piece boxspring that's been spending its days in my sister's house. Mind you, the reason there is an old set of 2-piece boxsprings is because we couldn't get the boxspring up the stairs in our townhouse 11 years ago. I guess some people never learn!

A Barenaked New Year's Eve

While Nate, Abby and Sophia drove Grandma Eva and Grandpa Steve nuts with their New Year's noise makers, Paul, Angie, Dan and Teresa rang in the new year with Barenaked Ladies at the Fox Theater in Detroit. Great concert, great drinks and great fun. Happy New Year!

Christmas Whirlwind

Christmas might be "the most wonderful time of the year", but it's also the busiest for us. For the first time since...probably ever...shopping was done before Christmas Eve. (It's a Christmas miracle!) Good thing, because the holiday festivities began Christmas Eve with the Platts at Lisa and Eric's house. Jeff and Lisa came up from Dublin. We had dinner, gifts and family time with everyone together.

Christmas morning started at 7:00 am when Nate's alarm went off. Abby wouldn't go downstairs to see if Santa came until Mom and Dad went down too. She was terrified of the thought of Santa coming into her house. She got over it quickly when she saw the presents he left under the tree. We had to coax her out of the princess castle tent from Santa to open the rest of her presents, and Nate's year was made when he opened up a Nintendo Wii. Mom was a little surprised too, since Dad had kept it secret since he bought it in October.

Then it was off to celebrate with the Lemings at Paul's parents' house. Abby wasted no time digging into the gifts when Sophia showed her the gift she had gotten for her. Nate, Sidney and Lauren took turns aiming at pop cans on the porch with Sidney's new Red Ryder BB gun. Armed and dangerous...a little scary! But no one shot their eye out.

Just when you think we're partied out, we moved on to another celebration with the extended Platt family, and finished off the day after Christmas with the extended Gault family. It was nice to see my grandma and all my aunts, uncles and cousins, but we were ready for some down time after all that. We spent the next two days playing Wii and dressing naked Barbies.

Winter Wonderland?

Two feet of snow. Do I really need to say more? I don't think a white Christmas will be an issue this year.

'Tis the Season

Well, Christmas is in the air...and the malls, the television, the radio, school, daycare...it's everywhere! And no one is more aware of its presence (not to mention presents) than our kids. Nate's busy adding to his Christmas wish list daily. Abby reminds us constantly that Ho-Ho woke up (apparently Santa sleeps until the Thanksgiving parade) and is going to bring her three Barbies. And both of them went to their annual Christmas party at Miss Patty's (daycare) last night. Apparently the kids were learning Christmas carols at Miss Patty's to prepare for the party, so Abby gave us a little holiday Jingle Bells concert. Holy cheese balls, Batman!

Set...Hike!

Nate decided to give up soccer for flag football this fall. He's had a great time learning a new sport with several of his friends on his team, the Vikings. Center and quarterback seem to be frequent positions for him to play, but he likes being a receiver the most. He's getting hooked on going to Lake Orion High School football games with his dad now too. He has his sights set on tackle football in the near future, but he'll have to convince his mom first!

Trick or Treat

Nate and Abby took the neighborhood by storm this Halloween. Nate, dressed as Indiana Jones (That's my boy!) weighed his bag in at 8.2 pounds of candy. He's already hard at work to reduce his inventory. Abby went as Abby Cadabby from Sesame Street. My oldest neice actually nicknamed her Abby Cadabby before we knew about the character, so it just had to be. Although she refused to speak to anyone while trick-or-treating, she was very good at promptly holding up her pumpkin bucket to receive the candy.

The kids got some good practice on the Monday before Halloween when we went trick-or-treating at Crossroads Village with friends. Nate, friend Daniel and his brother Stephen gave mom Susan and I a workout as we tried to keep up with their speedy treat-seeking. Abby and little Benjamin thoroughly enjoyed the Ghost Train ride. It was obvious that Abby already understood the value of her candy at this point when she ran away from a 1-1/2 year old ladybug saying, "Them can't take my candy!"

Pumpkins and Donuts

We made our annual trek out to Blake's Farms in Armada for apple cider and donuts. Unlike in previous years when we had to go in winter coats, we had beautiful, warm weather--very un-October-like. After enjoying entirely too many donuts for one sitting, we went off to our favorite pumpkin patch at DeBruyn's Produce. Nate, the reigning champion, picked out a 27 pound pumpkin. Mom came in a close second at 26 pounds (my pumpkin, not me).

Photographer in the Making

Nate has always enjoyed taking pictures. In fact, some of them are pretty good if I do say so myself. We recently submitted one of his pictures of a sting ray from the Columbus Zoo trip to Boys' Life online magazine (a magazine for boys in Scouts). Not only was his picture approved and posted on their website, but it received a 5-star rating as well! Go to boyslife.org to check it out.

A Camping We Will Go

That's right folks...Angie went camping, and for the third time this summer I might add. The four of us packed up the tent and did a little Labor Day weekend camping up in Port Sanilac with the rest of the Leming clan. Don't be fooled though, I slept in a camper. We had beautiful weather for our weekend with Paul's mom and dad, brother and sister-in-law, and our three nieces. The kids enjoyed lots of activities at the campground, we took in some folk music at Thumbfest in Lexington, and we browsed through the shops in town. It was a very nice way to end the summer before the start of school again.

Are We There Yet?

Paul and I took the kids to see Jeff and Lisa in their new home in Dublin, Ohio. We played at the park and managed to find our first geocache ever. Then we hit the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium and Zoombezi Bay waterpark. That was a lot of fun (until I tore the rear end out of my bathing suit on a water slide) for everyone. Nate took some great pictures of the animals, I tried to get everyone to pose with the sculptures, Abby hated the snakes, and Paul lived it up on the water slides (so I heard...I was busy holding my bathing suit on). The weekend ended with cement corn and dancing bunnies (I'm not crazy, click below to look at the photo album), and then we were too tired to go on. So we drove back through the corn fields and came home. Thanks for a great time Jeff and Lisa!

The Truth Shall Set You Free

Ok, I admit it... I'm lousy at keeping in touch. I forget to call back, I don't find time to email, and I forget to pass on pictures. So what to do? Start a blog! You can check back here to see what we're up to now anytime you want.