Aug. 16 - Grandpa's 70th!

Sunday morning we loaded up EVERYONE (yes, dogs included) and headed into Grandpa and Nanny's house for Gary's birthday dinner and to see Grandma Joan who was up for her annual visit! The ride in went well, as did our fairly uneventful arrival and set up. Jasmine did get away once when she was let loose to enjoy the lake! A promise of a treat turned her around relatively quickly. The rest of the day was checking to be sure she didn't sneak out the doorwall or jump on anyone unwelcoming her greeting of hugs and kisses! Lady was a piece of cake. Off leash the whole day and content to lay around and watch the world go by. I would have loved to have more pictures (any) of Uncle Jeff, grandparents, and friends who joined us for dinner - but running interference kept a camera hanging around my neck a bad idea. Janice brought out old pictures and papers from her dad in college, as well as shots when she was little. There were even some as recent as the early 80's of the family. Good stuff! It would have been easy to spend a responsibility free afternoon tripping down memory lane and visiting with Grandma Joan, but duty called!...and often! Rob and I (and the dogs) took the kids out on the boat to let Jacob go tubing. He had a blast!...as did Jasmine! We ended up anchoring and doing some swimming. We hadn't planned for that, so we were not all dressed to swim, but someone had to keep Lady company. (She hates water) Jasmine must have worn herself out and been helped back into the boat, only to jump back out again at least a dozen times! She even ventured over to another boat to visit with fun looking people once until they were kind enough to throw a stick back in the direction of our boat to help coax her back to us! The airport was having some sort of free day and we saw some interesting planes in the sky. It poured on our way in and dried up in time for us to dock, eat dinner, and fish a bit off the dock before it was time to leave. It was a good day, but a long one that everyone was feeling. The summer sky tricked us into not realizing the time, though we felt it. We managed to get into our driveway at home about 10:30 that night.

Letting our creative sides out to play

A little rainy weather last week brought out our creative sides! While being cozy in whatever we had slept in, we pulled out paper (butcher paper in a big roll!) paint, glitter, glue, scissors, tape and got to work! Ever the independent one, Kendra went about business with her work on her own to surprise us in the end. Jacob, like the engineer he seems born to be, had an idea, began to put it into focus and delegated me to "fill in" the bigger shapes (ie - the sun, parts of the rainbow, the cloud that came with clear instructions of just how it should look). They are now proudly displayed and cheering up the laundry room!

River Rock Church Festival

We weren't sure what the weekend would hold for us. We had plans to visit Rob's Aunt Jackie, Uncle Lon and cousins up in Elk Rapids on Lake Michigan for Saturday but Friday pm Jacob started throwing up. He seemed a bit better by the next morning, but between not really knowing what was going on with him, and a big rainy storm front moving in for the day - we decided this may not be the year we get to visit. Sunday (today) was the church festival. Yesterday proved to be a good rebound day for Jacob and he seemed fine now. Rob had to be there early as he was participating in their grill-off competition, but I did not bring the kids until around 5pm. They had a great time! Big obstacle course inflatables, face painting, balloon animals from a clown, kiddie games, cake walk - I never made it down the hill to the food, drinks and grills the whole time! I did however get a work out from holding two brown bags of prizes and candies, 3 doggie bag containers of treats from the cake walk, 2 water bottles and a can of Sprite. My left arm is still cramped up a bit! :) (You can see why I have no pictures of the actual events!) We all made it home just before the next big storm front blew in and best of all - Rob won First Prize for his grilled chicken!!! The prize? Seventy-five dollar gift certificate to Herman's Boy! (coffee house/kitchen specialty shop)

Visit from Uncle Kelly & Aunt Julie

The kids were excited that Uncle Kelly was coming to visit! Just the mention of it sent Jacob to bring out and set up all the small die cast planes and their information cards that Uncle Kelly had given to him. Kendra took special care to be sure her armadillo from Uncle Kel was not buried in her bed sheets, but out on special display! And what did Rob and I do to prepare for a warm welcome? We decided to wear out the wonder dog! We heard that Julie had hurt her knee and was a bit unstable on it yet. Jasmine is not a kind greeter! She is all over people (we are working on this...) and since she is 77 lbs we knew something HAD to be done for this visit to go smoothly. So, Jacob and I took Jasmine on a L-O-N-G walk with intervals of running! Jacob rode his bike. At one point we went to the school playground and while Jacob played, I continued to walk Jasmine around the perimeter of the playground. Rob called me once they had arrived and we brought Jasmine home exhausted! Not surprisingly, she had energy to burst back and forth between them in the kitchen, but needed hardly a reminder to settle down! It took me 3 days to not feel the bruised feeling in my shins and fronts of my thighs. (Do you know what people look like walking a dog briskly while being almost dragged? Lots of leaning backwards and using the fronts of your legs for leverage!) It worked well enough though that I would do it again for our next visitors!! We played some board games and watched some Tom & Jerry cartoons together. Didn't have to twist Uncle Kelly's arm too hard for that viewing!! After teh kids were down we even got in some big people cards where Julie and I were properly beaten by Rob and Kel in Euchre. Sunday morning was breakfast at Bob Evans. (We had 2 free coupons for the kids!) The rest of the day was just hanging out until we grilled with friends Jesse and Wendy as a practice run for the grill-off at our church festival happening tomorrow (which is actually the week after Kel's visit now).