Why did we go all the way to Petoskey when we found all these in the front yard landscaping in the last 30 minutes?! 🙂 I swear we found them all last year.
The kids even found some rocks for their new collections (yes, they’re apparently starting rock collections now).
We took the kids to Kalkaska today for open swim…and boy did they have a blast! Owen was excited to go down the slide again (mom fail: I may have forgotten to mention he did it for the very first time when he was there earlier this vacation). I LOVE the faces he makes. 🙂
My favorite:
You see his harem standing by watching him, right? 🙂
Katie really wanted to go down the slide but she was too little…or so we thought. The lifeguard came up and told Tom she could go down as long as he was at the bottom to catch her. So Owen took her up:
There were other kids going up and they were getting too close to them on the stairs so Owen put his hand out to stop/block them and protect Katie. And then he guided her into the slide while he made sure to keep everyone back. Awwww, I know. 🙂
Here she comes!
Caught her!
Her reaction? She LOVED it and wanted to go again! (But she was done after the second time!)
I still can’t believe it—Owen was 6.5 when he finally went down the slide…and Katie was 3! You can tell who the family daredevil is!
And then Papa and Grannie came over to say goodbye…and brought nutty donuts!
Grannie bought Owen a purple shirt to match Papa’s. They weren’t exact but they were close enough for them. 🙂
And with the purple birthday girl!
One of the two things* I wanted to do on this vacation was look for Petoskey stones in a target-rich environment…so we headed to Petoskey State Park! The kids were super excited to go to the beach and Grannie and Papa met us there! Unfortunately I didn’t take many pictures because I forgot the waterproof camera and didn’t want my expensive phone out in the sand and water!
Eating lunch after the grandparents left:
The stone hunting was fairly pathetic as we were obviously in a well-populated and well-picked-over area right on the main beach…plus we were in knee-deep wavy water trying to dredge stones from the bottom. This was all we found after about four combined hours of searching:
But the kids were having fun!
So we talked to a park ranger who told us where there was better stone hunting…so Tom went to scope it out. He came back about a half hour later with full pockets…so we packed stuff in the car then took off walking down the beach. It was quite a walk but it was the place to be—we filled about 2-3″ of a 5-gallon bucket in another two hours!
Unfortunately, Owen lost his goggles (even after I specifically told him to put them around his neck) and we hadn’t thought we’d be gone that long so we didn’t reapply sunscreen…so Owen’s face was pretty red and both kids had a little too much pink. 🙁
But! Both kids were amazing while we were out there—they stayed close, Owen mostly played in the water and Katie mostly played in the sand running between me and Tom (we were about 20-30 yards apart), and they listened well and weren’t cranky!
Of course, I’d forgotten how much I hate the beach—sand, sand, and more sand in every crevice of the kids’ bodies. Ugh. I pulled Katie’s bottoms off and literally a half cup of sand fell out (in addition to what was stuck to her). We were all done at that point (we’d been in the sun for six hours!) and had just trudged (guessing) 1/4 mile back along the beach to the car (with me carrying 20# of stones and Tom carrying Katie on his shoulders) and we just didn’t have the energy to go get them showered.
Within two minutes of starting the car:
Within 25 minutes:
So overall it was a good day…even though we can already tell we’ll be sore tomorrow. 🙂
*The other was to see the start of the canoe marathon.
Thanks to the magic of a little packet from the fireworks shop, this is how we do campfires on vacation… 🙂
Katie’s first sparkler. She was…intrigued. She didn’t love it and she didn’t hate it.
And then the fireworks! It was a wild crapshoot because we didn’t know what 90% of them were supposed to do…we just stood back and watched…and we had a few close calls with things whizzing by us and up and into the neighbors yard. EEK! But the kids loved it!
Well, they thought some of them were a little loud. 🙂
Of course we did the pooping dog again!
And we still have a bunch left that we hope to get to before we go home!
Katie liked to feed the fish one single pellet at a time.
Katie caught a fish! She didn’t want to look at it, and after one she was DONE.
Owen caught three fish…in about 10 minutes. 🙂
This year the party was at my mom’s house! Katie “helped” with the party prep!
Katie loved her Anna dress from Grauntie Rose!
The cousins being silly!
If there’s water, the kids will come.
Bubble wands at the ready!
The annual by-age lineup: Katie (3), Owen (6), Aubrey (7), Gracie (9), and Nick (11). You’ll see a direct Owen/Nick comparison tomorrow. 🙂
Everyone always complains but I think they secretly enjoy the family photo! 🙂
Our little Santas.
Owen was GIDDY with the bazooka Grauntie Rose got him! It’s almost like she knows him exactly like I do. :p
Katie LOVES her Frozen magic music wand from Grauntie Marilyn.
No snow? Grass angels!
Ice cream face!
Overall it was a great day—the kids all had a blast together, the food was abundant and delicious, and everyone had fun relaxing and playing games. I think it was the right decision to move our Christmas to the middle of summer!
Owen ran his first Fun Run (with daddy!) this morning during the AuSable River Festival! (Sidenote: it will always be Milltown to me…though AuSable River Festival does fit better.)
Katie wanted to run…on daddy’s shoulders. 🙂
We had time to waste before the race started so we wandered around downtown and ran into Papa and Grannie! 🙂
And a pout for good measure.
Pre-race announcements:
Heading to the starting line!
There they go!
Heading a block back to the finish line—it won’t take them long!
Here they come! There was no official time or finish places, but they were in the top 10!
And here’s the start—and finish—all in one video!
Post-race snacks! 🙂
We taught Owen on the exact game board Gramma Jean taught me to play on 35ish years ago!
Finally jumping into a pool that has a deep end! All the pools we frequent are a max of 5′ deep so he always hits bottom! This was a new experience for him and he loved it!
Showing Grannie Lin that he can really float now!
And this little stinker! Here she is jumping into the shallow end…BUT!…Earlier, she walked down to the deep end where Papa and Owen were, walked right to the edge, and jumped right in! Went completely under and everything—and came up smiling! SHE HAS NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE, even with prompting! It was so unexpected that I didn’t even have time to get a pic of it! She swam over to the ladder, got out, and DID IT AGAIN! I missed it again, too, because I had a brain fart on how to take a video with my real camera. ARGH! Of course, she refused to do it a third time!
She loves her brother!
Strangely enough, her in the pool doesn’t bother me…but her climbing up this ladder scares the crap out of me.
This is a horrible picture but I need to use it as an illustration. You can see I was a bit away from her and she had climbed up there. No biggie. Then she reached up and grabbed the first bar. Still no biggie. Then she leaned out and grabbed the second bar (as seen here) and right as I snapped the picture, she swung her legs off the bar so she was hanging there. I practically dropped the camera and rushed over there—knowing she couldn’t hang there very long on her own and not wanting her to come crashing down. EGADS. I grabbed her and she proceeded to work her way across the bars like no big deal. NO FEAR!
And Owen in the same spot back in May 2011. 🙂 (As a sidenote, I didn’t think so at the time, but looking back…HOLY WAH does Owen look like Tom at that age.)
Gramma Jean said there was a new playground by the house so on the way home from Kid Fest we stopped to check it out.
HOLY CRAP.
It’s bigger and nicer than the playground at Owen’s school!
Hopefully we’ll make it back at least once before we leave!
It’s Milltown week so we took the kids downtown to Kid Fest! They had a blast!
She LOVED the popcorn. The SnoCones…not so much.
Making bracelets and necklaces with Gramma.
Then Owen got to ride in a racing canoe!! Some of the racers were the back seat paddlers and took the kids up and down the river. It was his very first time in a canoe and he loved it!
If you notice, he’s watching what the pro does and copies him to steer the boat!
He said he was a little scared at first but then he was okay! We were SO proud of him!
Owen loved sitting in the big fire truck—and even got to turn on the lights and the siren! Katie wanted NOTHING to do with any of it. 🙂
Getting a ninja turtle mask!
And lastly, our crazy photo booth pictures!
Gramma Jean has been teaching Owen how to play Yahtzee!
The kids had a long, busy, fun-filled weekend with our friend’s kids and the babysitter (while we were at our TiVo events) and didn’t get their normal amounts of sleep…so this happened pretty early into our trip.
She wanted to play before class! (I’m guessing because it felt like 100° in there.)
And of course she immediately swam down to where Owen was playing (his class is after hers so he gets to play for a half hour).
She’s slowly getting less panicky when floating. The instructor can almost get through the ABCs before Katie sits up.
Katie’s funny. She doesn’t mind being in the water with the instructor but after each turn in the water she comes over to me and asks if she’s done. I tell her no, she whines a little, them she goes and sits back at the edge of the pool and waits her turn while playing with water toys. Every. Single. Time. 🙂
She also normally doesn’t want to play much afterwards because she gets cold but today she was all about it! She swam down to Owen again and he taught her how to swim over the lane dividers! So, she had great fun showing me her new skill!
While she was playing, I took a moment to go watch what Owen was doing.
Owen is getting really good at the backstroke!
Headed home!
Katie ADORES Maddie and Owen and Mason are best buds (and Mason has introduced Owen to Minecraft…).
Mark asked Katie for a cheer (since she was wearing her MSU cheerleader skirt)…and she brought him a chair! 🙂
Katie got a Frozen Lego set for her birthday, so of course Owen helped her put it together! (It was WAAAAY to old for her so I knew he’d have to help her!) We ended up having Katie pick out the pieces as we needed them and then Owen would build it. It worked pretty well.
It took two days (which drove Owen insane) and he eventually did the last part by himself…
I’m WAY behind in getting this done. Time just FLIES.
>>> May and June pictures are both now online at Shutterfly!
Daddy and Owen went to pick up the cupcake cake and the pizza before the party!
We surprised the kids with a bounce house borrowed from friends!
Owen testing out the Frozen stick-on earrings!
Everyone had a good time and the bounce house was a success!! I’m losing my mind, though—I didn’t take a picture of the decorated table OR the food table! 🙂
Friends of ours came to spend the night on their way to their OBX vacation…so we took the kids to the pool. I only snapped a few pics because we were busy visiting!
And then a tantrum shot for good measure (she couldn’t get her backpack zipped):
The kids were watching TV while I showered and got dressed. I looked over to see this.
They has been playing loud and hard while I was cooking in the kitchen and when I finally walked out to check on them, this is what I saw.
She wasn’t really tied up, but probably only because he doesn’t know how to tie yet. 🙂 They were having a GRAND time.
Edited to add: I posted this picture on Facebook and these were the great responses:
