Tigers Game and Red Bull Air show

We finally got to go to a Detroit Tigers baseball game! We took the whole family and it was so much fun! We have been trying to go to one since we moved here six years ago. I am so glad we finally went.
Estee didn't really sit still the entire game, but it worked out fine because we had these amazing seats with tons room to walk around--she could just wander amongst the other 5 of us.
Paws the Detroit Tigers Mascot gave Estee some personal attention and she liked it, but it kind of scared her too :)

I love these handsome boys!!
There was girl who kept coming and checking on us to see if we needed anything, and Jake finally talked us into letting him get some nachos from her (we went to dinner before the game) and he thought he was pretty hot stuff as he got his nachos delivered to him! He loved them! Gross pasteurized nacho cheese and all. Before the night was through we had all gotten drinks, cotton candy for the kids, and bumpy cake for me! Yum!

When Estee was really needing a break from baseball, we went to find something else to do and look what we found! Right in the stadium, right by our seats--a tiger carousel! Jake almost thought he was too old for this, but he is a HUGE fan of tigers so he couldn't resist! Abby just loved going on this with Estee, she is such a great big sister.


Estee is giving me the look that Abby gives me all the time! Mini scowl! I think I told her I was going to take that cotton candy away if she didn't stop getting so sticky!

We stayed after the game for fireworks, there was a really good show of fireworks, but it was kind of loud and Estee kept her ears covered the whole time--but she LOVED the fireworks!
***I just have to put a note here and say thanks to Dan's patient for giving us these amazing tickets! The seats were so good and that was so nice. I have to thanks to Dan too for being such a kind, and loving doctor. His patients love him and he comes home all the time (sometimes daily) with things his patients have given him! Usually not as nice as these tickets but still just very thoughtful and nice. Thanks Dan for being such a good doctor, husband, dad and person!



The next weekend our good friends invited us to the Red Bull Air show/race. The race was on the Detroit River so we decided to go over into Canada and watch from the Windsor side of the river. Our passports came in handy!Chris and Dan (Abby playing on my ipad--love my ipad--thanks Dan) and Michelle who would NOT turn around for the picture!
The kids got a little grumpy and all wanted to use the ipad (see Abby above) to play games. How annoying! Watch the airshow kids!!!

Zack and Michelle

Playing on the big rocks right on the Detroit River. It was kind of a hot muggy day and it was about 10 degrees cooler right by the river.

This was about the only time all day the kids were looking cute and being nice!

See the yellow airplane? It just flew through those cones and flipped around and is going back through the cones. So cool. It was fun to see it. At one point one of the planes wings hit the water. So cool. Thanks for inviting us Sadlers!! Sorry the kids were grumps!

Catch up

The time has come for an update. It's actually way past due, I feel guilty every time one of my kids does something wonderful, or has a birthday etc. and I don't post something about it. I obviously don't feel that guilty or I would just post more. Anyway, I think the main reason I haven't been posting is because life has just been hard and not really that fun as of late. No one wants to read about that including my posterity someday so I just haven't posted anything and once you get out of practice you wonder how on earth you ever had time to keep up a blog. Maybe I am the only one with such thoughts, probably.

So, Jake turned 9 in November has been on the swim team and swam a mile without stopping, he's also been playing indoor soccer, and just built his first pine-wood derby car. I am telling ya, it looks pretty fast. I will let you know how it goes, the race is tomorrow night, I think he 's got a good chance of taking the whole derby.

Estee is my 3 year old who really thinks she is a princess. Not like oh, you are pretty as a princess, but she actually believes she is a princess. We asked her today what it takes to be a princess and she replied "you have to be pretty, you have to be smart, you have to like to clean (I love this one you better believe I will be using it later to get her to clean her room), you have to be nice, you have to be Abby's sister!" Sorry all of you who thought you had a chance of being a princess (in Estee's eyes at least) Abby only has one sister.

Andy is gone from early morning to late at night most weekdays and I kind of miss him. He is a joyful teenager, most days, and I wouldn't mind having him around more. He has been in early morning seminary all year. He rarely complains, but I have to tell you I cannot wait to move to Utah and this is one of the major reasons! Andy has been in some kind of sport all year at Pioneer, he is currently in Track and has been recruited to the pole vault team, he also runs sprints. He had a personal best at his track meet on Saturday and cleared 8 ft 6 inches. He was the highest jumper for a freshman and 9th overall with seniors and everything. Can you tell I am his mom??

Abby has recently developed an interest in Star Wars movies which has pleased her brothers very much. She said "these are so much better once you get the plot, I just thought they wanted to save the galaxy or something." Family movie time is much easier now, Estee loves Star Wars too. I am raising some kind of nerd girls, I know, I like nerds they get in less trouble. Abby has been swimming this winter, playing volleyball, playing basketball, playing cello at Hill Auditorium (which is the 3rd best auditorium in the USA--according to Abby's teacher, Mr Bailey), and playing lots of piano including competing in the SATD (no idea what that stands for) and being good enough to qualify for the next level. Can you tell I'm her mom??

Dan has been studying for boards. That pretty much sums up his last three months. I guess he's also been working. Same thing to me. He takes Oto boards this week. Hallelujah. I don't even care if he fails, lets just get it done already. Ok, I care if he fails. That means we will have to hear about it more. I sound like the most un-supportive wife in the world. It's all talk, I am really super supportive--just ask me, I will tell you. He has facial plastic boards in June. I have just about had it with all the test taking (16 years later). It's not like he goes to the hospital and an hour later comes home with the test all done. Oh, no we get to pay THOUSANDS of dollars for the privilege of taking the test. Oh, and did I mention it's a four-day three-night trip to another city, in our case Chicago and Washington DC, respectively. And guess who covers all the cost for hotel, flight, meals etc? Did I mention I am super supportive?

To vent my frustrations with Dan's money spending career path, I have taken to mile upon mile of running. I just finished my first half marathon and it felt pretty good to have accomplished that goal. Thanks to my friend Elizabeth for having the goal too, because it got me going along with her. She posted about it if you want more details. http://elderfam.blogspot.com/2010/04/martian-half-marathon.html

Over the long, cold months of winter here in MI I was working hard getting my house ready to sell. Including painting (thanks so much to wonderful friends for helping me), packing up enough of our stuff to fill a storage unit and moving it all to the storage unit, throwing out or donating mounds and mounds of junk we have collected over the last six years, and countless other fix-it projects (thanks to Dan's parents for coming to help with fix-it projects!). Now, it's all done and we sold our house without a realtor! In less than 2 weeks on craigslist!!!! We are so happy to be done with it! Now we are renting it (for less than our mortgage payment!) until Dan is finished with his fellowship and the kids are out of school. We are all ready to enjoy our last couple months in Ann Arbor.

Looking back over the last year I can see that we have been so blessed even though it's been the hardest year. I can see that our Heavenly Father was with us every step of the way helping us get through it. I am so glad to have my four pretty close to perfect kids, my good, hard working husband, and a better perspective on what really matters in life. That was probably what Heavenly Father wanted me to learn from this year. I hope I am all done with that lesson.

The End.

Thoughts

Andy is on a trip to Montreal, Canada with his french class. When we dropped him off at 4:00 am to ride into Canada and catch the train, I was kind of sad. Dan called me crazy, but it made me fast forward in my mind to when he has to leave for a mission or college. It is going to be here so soon! It's a hard thing to let kids go. I also had a meeting at the high school last night for Andy to start there next year! How in the heck did that happen! He was really JUST a two-year old that loved playing with little cars on the ground for hours. He sure is a great kid and will make a great missionary/dad/man someday.

Jake, Estee, and Dan have been sick, really yucky flu sick. It looks like we are finally on the tail end of it. It's hard to see the people you love in pain and not be able to do much, except to give hugs and tell them it won't last forever. It makes me think about how hard it must be for our Heavenly Father to watch his children suffering all over the world. It makes me stronger and better to think I can do it on a much smaller scale, in my little family. It also makes me grateful that my trials are so small compared with some of the huge trials that others have to deal with.

Abby is our virus resistant child, she never gets what the rest of us pass around. She is positive it is from the years of thumb sucking and already being exposed to all the viruses out there. Maybe she is right? Abby got her cast off last week and after a couple days of being obsessively careful with her arm, she is using it like old times. Hopefully a little more carefully. She is swimming at school for gym class (fun, huh? my middle school did not have pool!) and she said it feels so good to be in the pool and using her arm. She cannot wait to go skiing.

I can't believe we are in our last months of residency. It really has gone so fast and we have had so much fun, so many great experiences, and friendships here in Michigan. I am glad that we are staying for an extra year so I can put off saying goodbye to friends, and so I can check some more of the things off my list that I want to do while we live here. I am ready, however, to get back closer to my family, in particular my mom. She has Alzheimer's disease, and every time I talk to her she asks me how much longer and that she hopes she still has her brain when I get back. She called last night to tell me it was her and my dad's anniversary of when they met--January 13, 1953! I suppose I should have sent a card! That is quite an accomplishment, and I should be especially grateful for what happened that day or I could have ended up with some other parents, in Gaza, or worse Democrats from New York! (Just kidding that was for the benefit of my Democratic friends--who I love).

Memorial Weekend

Our family exactly four years ago on Memorial Day. My family has a big Memorial Day family reunion every year that I never want to miss because it is usually the only time all year I get to see some of my cousins, aunts, and uncles. This picture was taken on our last day in Utah before we left for Michigan! We still miss those beautiful mountains!

Even though we didn't get to spend this Memorial Day weekend with my family, we still managed to find some fun things to do. We got some work done too, as you can see in this picture of Jake with the giant axe that is way too dangerous for someone his size. We decided to get the work done before we played, so we dug out this tree stump that's been bothering us since we moved in. Jake really wanted to help out especially when we got to the axe chopping part. Here he is chopping away.

Abby also helping with the axe chopping. After I took the pictures, I noticed that she didn't have shoes on. I had to tell her that she would chop her toe off and to get some shoes on!

Dan did a lot of the work on the tree stump on Friday night with plans to finish it up the next day. Unfortunately, Dan was on call and ended up being gone all day long and the nex day, too!! He was exhausted and didn't help any more with the tree stump, so I broke some child labor laws--as you can see, it was pretty fierce. After all the guilt I felt from forcing my children to work soooo hard all weekend on Monday (Memorial Day), we decided to play. Dan had the day off and finally slept Sunday night, so we decided it was time for some fun. We had a fun family run/bike ride where Abby rode my bike with Estee in the trailer (it was so cute, I wish I would have had the camera), Jake rode his bike, and Dan and I ran alongside. Andy sat home, so I guess it wasn't the whole family, but close enough. Next we headed to the pool, which was the highlight of the day! We took the camera and got some pictures at the local pool.

All the kids loved it. But I think it was the most fun to see Estee, because she was so excited for the "Big Wa-wa" (big water). We enjoyed watching Andy, Abby, and Jake playing with her in the water.

Jake playing a game with Estee in the pool.

One of my little ghosts,. My kids are easy to find at the pool--I just look for the glowing white bodies.

Cute girls playing in the pool. We had fun day with perfect weather. It was fun to lay in the sun in Ann Arbor!

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day to the loves of my life!

Dan--What I fell in love with and what I still love is his sense of humor. He always make me laugh and I have lots of fun with him.

Andy--This is the nicest 12 year old on earth. He is so nice to everybody he meets and makes friends very easily because people just want to be around someone nice.

Abby--She is so much fun. I love shopping, talking, baking, or just hanging out with Abby. She has the best sense of humor, way beyond her ten years!

Jake--He has always been my little buddy, and he always aims to please. Jake is just pleasant and I love hanging out with him.

Estee--Oh, Estee, she is sweet. She is 18 months and I just pulled her off Abby's desk where she was standing eating Abby's pennies and fingernail polish. But, she will grow out of that soon. I love her sweet little face and cute little spunky personality. I also love her scowl she gives to most people. She is a joy and I am glad she is here in our family.