August 2009 Update

Wow.....

A lot has happen in the last month. Kaitlyn went to China and we went to Houghton Lake for a long weekend. We went to a few baby showers, graduations parties and much more. Busy, busy, busy.

Kaitlyn took 1494 pictures when she was in China, I won't put all of them up here, but I will put a few here of China.



You will have to talk to Kaitlyn about her China trip, she was very enlightened. The bathrooms over there are not quite the same as here.

Houghton Lake was a long weekend with our friends. The kids had fun, we visited Carol and Lee at a cabin they stayed in on Sunday and went swimming.



We are going to try to take one more long weekend if possible, but, if not, we will be up north for Christmas.

Well, I will keep you all updated.

July Update

I know, it's been a very long time. But, I have been very busy. I will update everyone with the items from April.

This year I am going back to college to work on my Master's degree. I'm taking online courses through the University of Phoenix. It's different, and I'm not sure I'm a fan of online courses, but at least I have started. I'm getting my Master's of Business (MBA).

First, in case you didn't know, the kids had birthdays. Here are some pictures from their birthdays. Kaitlyn had a Dora the Explorer birthday cake and party, and Patrick had a computer cake. That wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that he is always on the computer. I'm not sure why Kaitlyn had a Dora cake, you will have to ask her that one. We had a family birthday party, then each of the kids had a separate birthday party with their friends.



Then, one of the next things that happen was Patrick went to Washington DC with his classmates. They flew out on a Saturday morning and returned on Monday night (Memorial Day). He had fun on the trip and here are some of his pictures.



At the end of the school year, Kaitlyn was inducted into the National Honor Society and Patrick was invited to Honor's Night to receive recognition. Here are some pictures from those nights.



Well, that brings me up to the end of June and July. We went to a graduation party for a friend of ours and Kaitlyn's friend Liz. She will be attending U of M Dearborn this fall. I've also thrown in some pictures of the 4th of July at Becky and Jon's and then finished it up with some photos of cars we saw when we visited Norma's brother Stew. A friend of his owns a very nice collection of old cars. Some are worth a lot of money. He has one car that there are only 30 of them left in the world. It was very exciting to see them.



That wraps up the update for now. I will hopefully keep everyone posted.

April

No, I have not fallen off the face of the earth. We have just been very busy around here. I started classes towards my MBA, so I've been very busy with that. We had two birthday parties since the last post and Patrick was in the piano competition again this year. I will post pictures once my six week class is done after next week.

Keep looking.

Patrick's Confirmation

Here are some pictures of Patrick's confirmation. We had a good turnout, considering we got 4 inches of new snow.



On other news, I'm fully recovered after having my appendix out. It took a couple of weeks, but I am feeling good now. Hopefully that will be all the surgeries for me for a long time.

January Update

Well, January was not a very good month. Last year I was having pain in my side and had a few CT Scans and found out I have a chronic appendicitis. Well, long story short, I had my appendix removed January 19th. I have been off work for two weeks and go back to work on this Monday, February 2nd. I'm doing good now, but for a week and a half it was rough. But, it's all downhill now.

Not much else happen in January, so there are no pictures to post. It has been very cold here in lower Michigan, I think it ended up being the 5th coldest January in history. We still have a foot of snow on the ground, which is unusual for here. Today it up to 40 degrees, so some of the snow will melt, but it turns cold again tonight.

Well, I'll keep posting as long as there is news.

Christmas and New Year

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a very Happy New Year, here are some pictures of us during the holiday.








We went to the UP after Christmas and spend time with my mom and dad and family members.

December Update

I know, it has been a long time since I updated my blog. I said I would have it done before everyone received their Christmas letters, and I missed that date. Oh, well. I'm going to update now.

Since the last post, it has been very busy in the household. Kaitlyn has been very busy with colorguard again this year. Her school made it to the semi-finals this year, so she was very busy with trying to get homework done and practice for that. But, that is over.

In November, we had our family pictures taken, and most of you received them with our Christmas cards. We also got a new vehicle. Our lease was up on the Escape, so we went to our dealer to see what they had. He showed us a 2007 Explorer, Eddie Bauer. It was much more then we wanted on the vehicle, but it had low mileage. We had determined that we were not going to lease again, so we knew we were going to buy a used car. This one only had 10,000 miles on it, so after some thinking, we told him we would take it. We basically paid 1/2 price for this car. The gas mileage won't be very good, but hopefully the gas prices will stay under $2/gallon, and we should be alright.



We have been very happy with the Explore so far.

Halloween fell within the last update, so here is a picture from Halloween.








Also, Patrick had his play during the last update. I missed the play because it was on November 15th, and of course, I was up north hunting. But, I did go to hes rehearsal and here some pictures from then.

That should bring me up to date for now. I should have another post after the holidays.

Update

Well, it's been a while since I updated, but in my defense, I have not been able to get on the computer lately. With homework and everything, it's been hard to sit down and update the blog.

Here is Kaitlyn at a SHS game. She is the second to last on the right.

U of D Homecoming and Dresden, Ohio

Well, this weekend was very busy. Norma was out of town on a Longaberger trip in Dresden, Ohio for two days and Kaitlyn was asked to the U of D Homecoming by Will. So, I'm posting pictures of both events. First will be the Dresden pictures that Norma went to with a friend Grace. For those that don't know, Longaberger is a basket company and Norma likes baskets. So, she tries to go there every year or so. She likes it, and then I get to go hunting, so it works out.



And now, the pictures of Kaitlyn and Will for the U of D Homecoming... This was Kaitlyn's first time that she was asked to a homecoming by a boy.



She looked very beautiful.

Stevenson Homecoming 2008 for Kaitlyn

Well, it's Homecoming for Stevenson High School for 2008. Kaitlyn and several of her friends gathered at our house before they all went out for dinner and then to Homecoming. Here are the pictures from the gathering.

Apple Picking

Well, just to update everyone, there hasn't been much changed here. Kaitlyn is getting a ton of homework and it's stressing everyone out in the house. She has Color guard most afternoons and that doesn't leave much time for homework. AP Bio is a very tough course, and she is struggling with it right now. Hopefully, it will get better.

But, we went apple picking over the weekend. We had Carla and the girls meet us up there and we all went apple picking. The weather was beautiful, sunny and 70's. The trouble is, everyone else decided to go apple picking too. We only picked Macintosh, we missed the Empire exit. So, here are some pictures.

School Starts Soon

Well, school is going to start soon, so I figured I should post some pictures from the last month. We were fairly busy in August, we went Irish Hills last weekend for our annual trip to the lake. We had fun, we invited some friends and their kids to stay there too. They rented the cabin we had last year, and we went with a bigger cabin. Kaitlyn and Patrick brought friends with them, so we had a gang of seven kids and four adults. Here are some pictures from that weekend.

We also celebrated Norma's birthday during August.

That was our excitement for August. In two days school starts and we will be very busy. So, until then...

As promised - Pictures

Well, here are the pictures I told you all I would post....

First, Fayette pictures...



And here are some pictures from the trip...




And some more from the trip...



Here are some pictures from Kaitlyn's camera...



So, as promised, pictures of the trip.

Home at last

Well, we made it home. The tour was fun, but it is good to be home again. The weather was very nice at the end of our trip, so it wasn't half bad.

Tomorrow me and Norma return to work. I'll get around to downloading the pictures by this weekend, so I may have more pictures to post.

Trip home

Well, we are on our way home. We made it to Gaylord and are staying here for the night. Tomorrow, we will finish off the trip and make it home.

Molly has not been a good girl while we were away, she has had issues with Indy, her cousin. We will have to scold her when we pick her up.

I will post when I get home.

Day 6 and etc...

Well, we did make it to Wallace. It was a long journey and we finally made it. I will post pictures when I get back home, because I don't have my camera right now. The UP is full of dead zones, so it is hard to get on the Internet to update. I'm currently at Rick and Sheila's on their Internet. I hooked up the wireless router for them and now I'm using it.

Tomorrow we are leaving for home and on the way we'll be stopping at Fayette to see the historical town there. Then we will stop somewhere on the way and finish going home.

I'll keep you updated.

Day 2, 3, 4 and 5

Well, I had every intention of posting daily on the blog, but that did not happen. The cabin we stayed at said there would be free Wi-Fi, but I was never able to find it. And, the cell phone service did not work, so I could not use my broadband card. So, I am sitting in Marquette and updating for the past three days.

Day 2:

We went to Mackinaw Island. The weather started bad and ended bad, but the middle was okay and we ended up having a good day on the island. A little cool, but it wasn't bad.



Day 2 also had us getting to our cabin in Newberry that stunk. There was not Wi-Fi and the cabin was very small. The bathroom didn't even have a door, it had a curtain. The shower also only had a curtain. The website was very deceiving and misleading.

Day 3:

Day 3 we went to Taquamon Falls. Again, the weather was not the greatest, but it was okay. All and all the weather has been cooler than we expected, but we are in the UP so the weather can be bad. We actually ate dinner at Taquamon Falls, the Upper Falls, and the food was really good. We also went to Paradise and White Fish Point. That way we can all say we have been to Paradise. The kids put their feet into Lake Superior, although it wasn't for very long. The lake was 47 degrees.



Day 4:

Day 4 was a visit to Sault Ste. Marie and a visit to Lake Superior State University. Kaitlyn had a tour of the campus and a meeting with the nursing counselor. I don't think she will be going to LSSU, but at least she is seeing what other Colleges look like. When Kaitlyn finished the tour of the campus, we went on the Soo Locks Boat Tour.



Day 5:

Well, now we are up to today. Today, we checked out of the cabin in Newberry, and headed toward Munising and did the Pictured Rock Boat Tour. During the night, Kaitlyn was complaining of sore throat and her chest hurt. So, after the boat tour we went to the Urgent Clinic and they put Kaitlyn on antibiotics. She has a sinus infection. So, we are now in Marquette, we were going to go to Baraga and from there we were going to Copper Harbor. But, with this development, we are going to head to Grandma and Papa's.




Hopefully, I will be keeping the blog updated for the remaining days.

Day 1 - UP Tour

Well, it's day 1 of our UP Tour. Today we drove to St. Ignace from home and went to the Mystery Spot. It's been a long time since I've been there, and now I remember why. It was OK, but for some reason I thought it was much bigger. Patrick was fascinated by it.

We made it back to the hotel, The Budget Inn in St. Ignace, and then we went swimming.

Tomorrow we are going to the island. Weather is calling for rain, so we'll see how that works.

I tried to upload pictures, but for some reason, the computer won't read my camera. Hopefully I will fix that tomorrow and we will have pictures.

July Update

Here are pictures of us camping. We went to Interlochen, near Traverse City, and Billy and Jo provided their camper for us to use. We only went for a long weekend.



Then we went to Becky and Jon's for a Fourth of July Party. Here are some pictures from that event.



Kaitlyn, Norma and two of Kaitlyn's friends and their mom, went to the Jonah's Brothers concert at DTE Energy Theatre. It was very crowded and they only had lawn seats, but the girls had fun. They got to sign the tour bus, along with a million other girls.



Next week, we are starting our UP tour. We will be going to Mackinaw Island, Taquamon Falls, Sault Ste. Marie, Paradise, Christmas, Pictured Rocks, Marquette, Houghton, Copper Harbour, and them to Wallace to visit family. We are taking ten days to drive around the UP and site see. Hopefully, I will be able to update the blog as we go. It all depends if I can dial in or not.

Clear the streets of Livonia

Well, Kaitlyn is officially a driver.
Today she got her license from the Secretary of State. She passed her road test yesterday and today we went and picked up her license.
She actually went to her friends house to go swimming and she drove there without adult supervision.

Here is Kaitlyn going to her friends with her new car.

So, all I can say is watch out Livonia!!