Cottage Vacation 2009

A few weeks ago we went on a family vacation for a week at a cottage on Lake Michigan. It was wonderful! We had excellent weather for the week and we thoroughly enjoyed our time together as a family.

Grandma Lynn and Grandpa John were a huge help in getting Jana and the kids up to the cottage because I was in Washington D.C. while they settled into the cottage. I showed up later that night. Grandma Lynn made sure that Kate had plenty of kisses (the grandmas do a good job with that).


Grandpa John gave Kate her evening cup of milk. We've got a fair number of pictures of Drew, but Kate was much easier to get in a picture.

The next morning Drew and Kate were thrilled to explore the cottage and to find that I was at the cottage with them. Everywhere I turned, Drew and Kate were right there next to me. They were holding each other cutely as they looked out the window of the cottage, but they never looked cute at the same time!!

I coaxed a smile from Drew and managed to capture it on camera. Yay!

Jana captured one of our best photos yet of Kate. Kate has a great smile and Jana captured it well in this photo.

For our first trip down to the beach (we were right on Lake Michigan), Kate decided to rock the bikini. It loses a little of its effect with the diaper sticking out, but she still wears it well. Jana found that this was a very convenient outfit for diaper changes, although not one we'll have Kate wear regularly!

I like how in this picture you can see that Jana and Kate have on sweatshirts, while Drew is shirtless. Drew and I were both sans shirts and were plenty warm. It's going to be interesting regulating temperature for our family in the future!

Last year Drew threw sand into the water overhand, but this year underhand was the method of choice. Either way, lots of sand got returned to the lake!

Initially, Kate did NOT like the feel of the sand, so she was decked out in shoes, socks, and all her clothes. Once fully clothed, she roamed the beach with confidence.

You can see her looking down at the sand wondering about it and not quite sure if its a good surface to be walking on. For the first day or two her most common expression on the beach was dubious.

Drew and Kate had lots of fun getting buckets of water and then dropping sand into the bucket, splashing in the bucket, or dumping the water out.

Big brother Drew got big laughs from sticking his face in the bucket of water a few times.

Kate is slowly growing some hair, but it's a lengthy process for her to get some hair. I have to be careful to label pictures like this because without an outfit on, we have trouble telling which child is in the picture.

Drew and I built a large sand castle . . . that Drew started destroying as soon as we were finished. We spent quite a while working on it together though, and we had fun mixing water into our "cement" (sand). Drew helped me smooth it out, move sand around, and build it higher and higher. We were both covered with sand by the end.

Drew doing some demolition work. Kate came over to help as well.

Kate didn't have much desire to go in the water, so most often she was at the beach in a sun dress and her shoes. Can't touch the sand with bare feet!!!

Drew was in and out of the water a lot, especially to retrieve all the sticks he threw into the water. In general, the water was very cold while we were there, so Drew and I were the only ones swimming.

As the week went on Kate ventured into the water, but at the beginning she was happiest being held. These are my two favorite women!

Jana dipped Kate's toes down in the water . . . and Kate tolerated it all right. In her defense, the water was very cold.

Drew, on the other hand, got nice and wet going in and out of the water. Who would have thought that playing fetch with yourself could be so much fun? :)

Another day at the beach, another dress and hat outfit for Kate.

With a little coaxing, Kate braved the water. Once we got her going into the water she was constantly in and out of it.

Jana is sharing her dessert with Drew. They were both enjoying it!

Kate poses like this a lot. That girl is going to be flirt someday. She's pretty good at the chin dip and eyelash batting smile. The teenage years are going to be fun.

Grandma Sue grabbed Kate for her bedtime story. My family came up for a day at the cottage as well. It was fun to share our cottage experience with our families.

There was a wonderful municipal park in Ludington that we visited a couple times. Drew and Kate loved it. Kate is absolutely fearless and climbs ladders and stairs all over the structure. It's so weird to see a relatively small 15-month-old clambering all over a play structure. Here she is on her way up the structure.

Once Kate gets to the top, she flops onto her stomach and goes down the slide on her own. It's quite the sight!

At the bottom, Kate gets onto the ground, walks around to the stairs and goes back up again. She's very independent!

Drew is a climbing machine and he was all over the place. He can climb anything with ease and he's very sure-footed.

Kate is totally fearless and has no regard for heights. We need to keep an eye on her! A very close eye.

Drew and Kate enjoyed riding on this toy together. Drew was a little forceful with moving it back and forth, so Jana helped Kate hang on for dear life.

We enjoyed taking walks on the beach as a family after supper. Most of our evenings were gorgeous!

Drew loved walking around the beach in his pants and bare feet.

Kate usually got a ride from either me or Jana because she'd get distracted by stomping in the water. The goal was to actually walk at least a little bit.

Drew made sure the beach was clean by throwing things into the water. Throwing things into the water never gets old!

Drew moved a LOT on our walks. He was a constant blur of motion moving from one area to the next. He especially loved splashing through shallow water and getting his clothes soaking wet. There's something very satisfying about that, isn't there?

Occasionally, we let Kate down for a little walking. She loved walking with mom along this little stream that fed into Lake Michigan.

Where Drew went, Kate was not far behind. She loves to follow her big brother around. As she walks along, she says, "Drew! Drew! Drew!"

Our annual footprints in the sand photo now including Kate. Her little foot doesn't really press into the sand, so we had to help out a little by scratching the sand where her foot was.

It was not very busy on the beach and we often had large stretches to ourselves. It was beautiful!

Kate enjoyed climbing in and out of this bin. She was so tremendously pleased with herself the first time she stepped into it and plunked herself down.

Kate has also been enjoying reading, just like her big brother, and she'll sit and read to herself for extended periods of time. We appreciated how independent both Kate and Drew were on our trip. Jana and I had plenty of time to relax without having to always interact with the kids.

We had some beautiful sunsets and we also had some evenings when the whole sky was purplish-pink. It was fun to have the kids in bed and for Jana and I to read and watch the sun set each evening.

Before leaving we had to take a couple more photos with Lake Michigan in the background. Drew was a rock star on these pictures and smiled nicely. It was a treat!

We couldn't be too picky using the self-timer on the camera, but we were happy to get a shot of all four of us when we were at least looking at the camera. Not a great picture, but we'll call it a success.

It was tough to go back to reality after a week of relaxing fun! We've done several more things since our vacation, so I'll be posting those pictures when I get the chance.

Father's Day

This past Sunday was Father's Day, and it was a great day for me with my family. We went to church in the morning together, we had lunch and supper out together, and in the afternoon I got to watch golf on TV and work out at the gym (while watching golf). It was a perfect day balancing time to myself and enjoying Drew, Kate, and Jana.

At the end of our vacation Jana took the picture below of me with Drew and Kate, and it has immediately become my favorite picture with the kids. What a great Father's Day present! This is a picture that I will save for a long time.

Drew and Kate are so much fun to be around because they get just enough of my presence to always want more. Both of them start a chorus of "Dad! Dad! Dad!" from the backseat of the car whenever they pick me up from work and if I sit down on our living room floor, they both immediately climb all over me. Just last night after dinner, the kids took turns leaning in and giving me hugs from their chairs. Jana and I have been blessed with two wonderful kids, and it is a total joy to be their dad.

Happy Father's Day!!

Around the house

I've got more pictures coming up from our vacation, but first I'll start with some pictures from the last month taken around our house. As you can tell, I've got lots of pictures to catch up on. Who cares what we've been doing if there aren't any pictures to go with it?

A big hit at our house lately has been chocolate ice cream. About once a week we let Drew have a tiny portion for a bedtime snack. It's pretty impressive to see how excited he gets about what amounts to roughly 2-3 tablespoons of ice cream. He does a great job eating it and we hear lots of "Mmmmmmms" between bites.

Kate gets in on the action too for a some small bites of ice cream. She'll start panting and running around she gets so excited about the ice cream. Kate knows a good thing! For both kids, their absolute favorite ice cream is chocolate.

I'm not sure when we took this picture with Todd, but I love that despite most of Kate's mouth being covered, you can clearly tell she's smiling. Kate is our little joyful baby and she constantly has a smile on her face. We consistently have people exclaim to us how amazed they are at how often she smiles. She's lots of fun to be around!

Lest you think that Drew is the only construction worker in our house, here is photographic evidence of Kate's home improvement skills. She has discovered Drew's tools and adopted his love of tools, so now I've got two little ones following me around the house whenever I tackle a project.

Jana is off work for the summer, so she's working hard at staying home with Drew and Kate. It's a big change from being a university professor, but it's also been a lot of fun. The next few pictures were taken by Jana during her days home with the kids. Whenever she takes Drew and Kate outside she's careful to protect Kate's bald little head with a hat. Kate does an excellent job of keeping it on and plays away with her hat perched on her head.

Our lilac bush bloomed quite profusely this year and our whole backyard smelled like lilacs for a week or two. Both Drew and Kate like to play around it. Kate, however, continues to NOT like the feel of grass. If you set her in the grass, she refuses to move unless just her feet are touching and she can walk. Just like their parents, Drew and Kate have some quirks! :)

I love this picture of Drew because it shows what a big guy he's becoming. He's totally a little boy now. Just tonight I was pitching whiffle balls to him and he was slamming them over my head. He runs with abandon, he climbs all over everything, and he suddenly seems much more grown up.

We're still working though on some of Drew's baseball fundamentals. For now, he loves to throw, catch, and hit. As he gets older I'll see if he's interested in learning the best way to do those things.

As you might have noticed in these pictures, our lawn was due to be mowed. Drew noticed it, and so he decided to help me out by mowing the backyard. You know you've neglected mowing too long when your three-year-old son notices that the yard needs to be mowed!!

I've got tons of vacation pictures I'm sorting through, so keep checking back for a new post with pictures of Drew and Kate at the beach.

Memorial Day weekend (finally)

I've been out of town a bit lately, so blog posting has fallen by the wayside. I'm back now, so it's time to get caught up on what our family has been doing.

Over Memorial Day weekend we headed up north into the Upper Peninsula to camp near Tahquamenon Falls. We stayed at the Lower Falls campground and we had a wonderful time. It was a little chilly, but otherwise the weather was perfect (no rain!!).

One of the nice parts of the campground was a gorgeous, new playground that the kids loved. We camped with our friends Dan and Sandra and their daughter Lorelei, and we all enjoyed the campground and the playground. Below is a rare Drew smiling picture initiated by the playground slide. Kate is fearless on the playground. She couldn't walk consistently at this point (she walked EVERYWHERE the day we got back from all the dirt of the campground, that little weasel), but that didn't stop her from scampering all over the play structure. We're going to need to keep an eye on her because she seems a bit lacking in the self-preservation instinct.

We were able to go for a hike one day, which might not seem like a big deal, but it was a momentous occasion for me. Last fall when I was in the midst of multiple knee surgeries, hiking didn't seem like a future option. On our hike, I managed to hike several miles over difficult terrain while pushing Drew in the jogging stroller. We were thrilled and grateful for the healing that I've experienced.

In the picture below we are standing near the lower Tahquamenon Falls. The water was high and the falls were roaring. We could hear them all night in the campground.

Dan and Sandra also stopped for a picture with Lorelei. As you can see by the hats on the kids, it was a bit chilly outside.

The area around the lower falls was beautiful (pictured below). It was a wonderful spot to spend the weekend!

Kate was everywhere on the campsite and without walking, she was literally crawling in the dirt. In an effort to keep her moderately clean, we set out a tarp for her to play on. She did a pretty good job of staying on it.

For the trip we rented a 2009 Ford F150 supercab. It was a lot of fun to drive and it served our needs perfectly for the trip. Drew loved it (I got a kick out of it too) and he wanted to drive it. In the picture below, he's wearing his fire helmet while "driving" the truck. You can tell Jana and I are into more fuel efficient vehicles because Drew kept on calling the truck a "monster truck." He was all excited in the photo below about driving a "monster truck." We enjoyed renting this vehicle, but it is not a vehicle we're interested in owning :)

We discovered on our trip that Kate loves to be up on my shoulders. Every time we put her up there she'd break out into a grin. You'll notice that there aren't many camping pictures of Jana . . . that's because she doesn't like to have her picture taken while camping. I'll have more of her in the future.

Dan was kind enough to attempt to teach Drew paddle ball. Drew's not too good at it yet (he's terrible), but Dan was very patient with him as he missed again and again.

Kate is sitting on our little fire engine toy, which was the hit of the trip. The children had tons of fun riding on it.

Lorelei would get on the fire engine behind Kate and they would scoot around. Kate would also get on the fire engine and Lorelei would push her around the campsite. As you can tell, Kate enjoyed it just a little bit.

I've got a number of pictures of Lorelei pushing Kate because they were so cute playing together. Lorelei was very good at pushing Kate around and Kate enjoyed riding.

Before we left the area we also checked out the upper Tahquamenon Falls. Those falls have a larger vertical drop and again there was a lot of water coming down that river!

Drew wore his fire helmet for a lot of the weekend. He was fascinated by the waterfalls and even remembered to tell everyone at daycare about the waterfalls he had seen during the weekend. He's still working though on properly saying "Tahquamenon." That's a mouthful!

Kate didn't want to be held and enjoyed walking around the trail to and from the falls. The drive to and from the Upper Peninsula went pretty well. We had some interesting moments (e.g. an unsuccessful peeing attempt by Drew on the shoulder of I-75), some normal, quiet moments (like below), and some moments when both kids were not happy about being cooped up in the car. All in all though, it was very smooth. We got Drew a "Where's Waldo?" book and he LOVED flipping through the pages and studying the illustrations for the hidden objects. He sat for hours engrossed in his book.

Kate didn't have much to do, but she also enjoyed some "reading." She sat for long stretches of time reading to herself out loud. It was so cute to hear her babble in the back seat!

We thoroughly enjoyed camping, but it was a lot of work with two small children. We were happy to get home for some rest! :)