Michigan Fan Day

Jake with his favorite player--Jake Long



Look at all those signatures on that football--so cool!










Every year right before the excitement of the fall football season gets underway, the University of Michigan Football players sign autographs and take pictures with their fans. They call it Fan Day. We discovered it last year when Estee was just 3 weeks old and had so much fun. Well, this year, Fan Day was last Saturday. Dan, Abby, and I all had prior commitments so we couldn't attend. Luckily, Aunt Lindsay was able to take Jake and Andy. They had so much fun and got pictures and autographs with some of their favorite players and play football on the field. The lines for autographs were so long they couldn't get every player's autograph! We love the excitement of football season here.






In case some of you don't know the following facts about Michigan football:







1) The stadium, although it doesn't look that big, is the biggest football stadium in the world.







2) The population of Ann Arbor nearly doubles on game days. The stadium population itself on game day makes Michigan Stadium one of the 200 largest cities in the U.S. The official capacity of the stadium is listed as 107,501. The one "extra seat" in its capacity was "reserved" by former head coach Fielding Yost for the then athletic director Fritz Crisler, although its location is not specified.







3) The largest crowd in North American stadium history was 112,118 on November 22, 2003 for the game against Ohio State (Michigan leads the all time series with a record of 57-40-6). Michigan won this game 35-21 on its way to its 41st Big 10 championship. As an interesting side note, many Ohio State "traditions" were actually started by the University of Michigan. The script Ohio that the OSU marching band performs was created by and initially performed by the University of Michigan marching band at an Ohio State football game. Also, the Ohio State Alma Mater "Carmen Ohio" was written on the train ride home to Columbus following the 1902 contest, which saw Ohio State losing to Michigan 86-0. The lyrics and melody (Spanish Chant) have remained largely unchanged since its conception.







4) Since 1975 - Bo Schembechler's seventh season as coach - the stadium has held over 100,000 fans for every home game.







5) Ohio State and Michigan have a huge rivalry going, which has resulted in a bit of a rivalry with my sister's family, who are Ohio State fans (her husband did his oto residency at Ohio State, don't ask me why!!).







6) Michigan will play Utah next year! We can't wait!







7) On September 9, 2006, attendees of the Michigan vs. Central Michigan game had to endure the first weather delay in the Stadium's history, after a lightning strike occurred shortly after 12:30 in the afternoon. The game was delayed approximately 1 hour.







8) Michigan is UNIVERSALLY regarded as having the best fight song, "The Victors."

Get ready for another great year and look for a Michigan victory this year assuming the city of Columbus finally figures out a way to stop Buckeye fans from starting their couches and tires on fire, rioting, looting, and throwing batteries if the Buckeyes lose (so says Dan). Here's a link to prove his point http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=2997669.







I'm expecting a full, although certainly inadequate (Really, how can one defend Ohio State?), rebuttal from the Blotters. I can't wait to make the switch from NPR to sports radio now that football is here again.







Go Blue!





This is truly disturbing:

Estee can walk!! (sort of)

We had some friends over on Sunday who have a baby who is just a few days younger than Estee. She was so jealous of his walking that she took off and started walking herself--like 15 steps!! So, here are some of the first steps, but as you can see she can get there a lot faster by crawling. The loud music in the background is to encourage her to dance, which is really cute too, but she wouldn't really do it.

More of Estee and Abby's B-day's

Here is a glimpse of the b-day celebration with Abby as the commentator.

Abby's Dream Car

Abby is looking cool in her dream-come-true car at the Ann Arbor Art Fairs

Abby 10, Estee 1

We had much to celebrate as Abby turned 10 and Estee turned 1 the next day! I can't believe it's been a year since Estee was born!Here is the GIANT Birthday cake to celebrate both girls at once!
Estee got her own big piece to eat all by herself! She was wondering if this was OK at first.....
...but before too long she realized it was OK and fun to tear apart and it tastes really good too!

Everyone loved the new swing Estee got for her birthday...


especially Estee!!


It's so fun to have these girls 9 years apart! They are so much fun.

Lagoon!

We had such a blast at Lagoon. We went with my sister Jill and her two oldest kids Josh and Jenessa. Lindsay and Mollie (Dan's sisters) also went, but they kind of did their own thing. I don't know why they didn't want to hang out with all of us? My niece Jenna watched Estee all day so we just got to go on all the rides all the time. It was so much fun, even Jake went on every ride he could. He loved the old white roller coaster and the colossus.
Abby and Jenessa on the log ride.

This is a great shot on Jet star II. Jenessa is in the way back, then Abby, then two strangers, then Jill and in the front Josh. I love the look on Abby and Jenessa's faces.




Here Abby is ready to ride the old white coaster, with some strange guy who refuses to look at the camera, or even acknowledge we were taking a picture.

Dan and Jake on their first ride of the day--you can see Jake's eyes peeking through the spaces of the seat in front of him. This was his first big coaster ride and I think he's hooked for life now.

These girls loved this ride! Abby rode it eleven times and Jenessa rode it twelve times!! The people running the ride got to know them. I had to get a picture of them on the Wild Mouse.

Jenessa, Jill and Abby on the Sky Ride.

Me and Dan on The Rocket--re-entry. It was the funnest and scariest ride of the day.

These boys are getting worn out from a long day at Lagoon. Jake is holding the two stuffed animals that Andy won when he shot the basketball twice!!

To see the rest of the Lagoon pics click here http://picasaweb.google.com/janieward1313/LagoonJuly07

Fishers

While we were in Utah we went and visited our good friends, the Fishers, who use to live in Ann Arbor. They were such great hosts and we had so much fun with them especially going to there cabin up Little Cottonwood Canyon. Thanks Fishers for a fun Utah weekend!

Nicole and I shooting the breeze in the Cabin

We kept Estee contained in the big box/coffee table with the lid off. Tyler was entertained by Estee in the box it was great!

Dan and Peter hiking up the big mountain with babies, Estee and Tyler, in tow. Mitch is up there too.

Nicole and Madeline heading up the mountain.

Can you find Jake (Fisher) and Andy in this picture? They climbed this big cliff, I actually had to stop watching because it was a little scary watching them climb up so high.

Cecret Lake (yes spelled with a C).

For all our Fisher's house pics click here http://picasaweb.google.com/janieward1313/FisherSCabinJuly07

My Sisters and Mom

I had so much fun seeing my sisters and mom on our trip.

4th of July in Utah

We had a fun vacation and got to Utah just in time to celebrate a fun 4th of July--Utah style with LOTS of family, food, a parade, and carnival.

My sister Josie holding Estee and me watching the parade

Cute Cousins!! Jenessa, Nicole and Abby trying to score some candy at the parade.

McCall and Jake, notice how Jake is saving his otter pop for later in his little tiny shirt pocket.

We got a nice family picture after the festivities at my moms house. We also took a picture of everybody in my big family with all my siblings and cousins. We wanted to get everyone because we didn't know when we would have everyone together again. Right when we got the last shot and everyone said "no more pictures" Jake came strolling around the corner--He had missed the pictures with everyone! So I guess everyone wasn't in the picture.

To see more of our 4th of July pics click here http://picasaweb.google.com/janieward1313/FourthOfJulyAndSistersLunch

Tracylee's visit

Estee with Tracylee--they had a great time together :)

Our good friend Tracylee came to visit and we had so much fun with her. We met her while we lived in Utah. She has since moved to California and for the last 3 months has traveled all over Europe. In spite of that seemingly spoiled life she is really nice and fun and it was a blast to have her come and see Ann Arbor.


Eating lunch at Shalimar--Yummy!