Visit to Up-North Michigan

Claire meeting her cousins for the first time. She loved them instantly!

Last week, while in Michigan we took a trip up north to visit some of my family that still lives up there. We visited my Aunt Cathy and my cousins. Then we took a trip out to visit my brother's former wife, Amy, and their kids. Amy posted these on facebook as promised! Thanks Amy!

(pictured: Claire, Sariah, Noah, and Christopher - with me) It was great to see my nephews and neice. I hadn't seen any of them in a long time. They are growing up so fast!

Claire and Sariah are kindred spirits.

We tried to kind the cemetery where my Grandmother Daniels and Aunt Tina were buried. They have changed some of the roads up there and we got lost. It was getting late, so we ended up saying good-bye on the side of the road :( But we ended up finding the cemetery minutes later on the way back on this very road. We were able to locate the grave sites leave some flowers and take some pictures on my phone's camera for my dad.

Noel and Mommy at dinner with Amy and the kids.

Sariah and Claire hanging out.

O.K. This is a long one...

Our first day in Michigan we got together with a group of friends from our days at MSU. We missed the friends who couldn't make it, but had so much fun catching up with the ones that were able to come. Aaron's mom was a great hostess! This little group has grown quite a bit - five years ago, not even all of us were married yet, and now there are five little ones with another one on the way. Thank you friends so much for coming to see us. We had so much fun!

We had to take the kids for a walk to Curwood Castle.



Claire and Xavier rolling down the hill.
Kameron and Noel - born only a week apart.

We saw some baby ducks, so had to make a trip back to feed them.

Noel had to snag some bread for himself while Daddy wasn't looking...

Katie and Dave were able to come with us to Potter Park Zoo.

Claire got a pony ride
Kam impersonating a tiger!

Noel Tiger
and Claire...
Daddy and Noel deep in thought
Kam and Noel with a Babboon
We took a trip to MSU to the red cedar river. Grandma was able to handle some business in the administration building while we hung out with this goose.
Noel making the goose a little nervous...
We went to the children's garden at MSU. This was one of my favorite places to visit when I was a student. We didn't live too far away and we would always takewalks here especially when it first opened.


Jumping chimes
On our last day in Michigan Grandpa took us on a ride in his fishing boat.

The kids enjoyed it - even though Noel was almost consumed by his life jacket.

Are we there yet?

Then we started the trek back to Texas. We had a great visit. I hope to be able to get some pics from our trip up north too. Michigan was so lush and green and pleasant while we were there we wondered why we ever left. Then we remembered, 13% unemployment, winters that last six months... We are praying for our friends and families who are seeking work and for those need to get homes sold.

The trip was really wonderful over all. The ride home we broke up over three days. We stayed in St. Louis the first night - I had the worst headache ever - and Noel fell off the bed in the hotel and sustained a mean rugburn - stayed with my parents in Oklahoma the second night. How cool is that? The kids got to see both sets of grandparents on our trip! Even though the ride home took three days it was actually a lot less stressful than the flight to Detroit.

Our Michigan Adventure

Call me crazy! I flew to Michigan to visit my in-laws with the children by myself. It was quite the adventure. After the cancelled flight in Austin, the three flights it took to make up for the canceled one, the many trips to the bathroom with my pottytraining toddler, the squished pinky finger of said toddler, the cries of a very cranky baby with some serious canker sores (turns out we think he caught, Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease somewhere), only eating crackers and peanuts all day because the three layovers weren't long enough to have meals, then finding out that the airline lost one of the kids' carseats, then a scary two hour car ride, we made it to Owosso, Michigan.

When we arrived, we met Aaron and his parents and promptly had some snacks and went to bed.

The rest I think I'll document in picture form. We had a great time and the children did too - once the blisters from their weird disease cleared up. We hope that it didn't get passed on to any of our friends or family that we visited!

Unfortunately, I forgot the camera when we went up north to visit my extended family and my nephews and neice. It really is such a shame because not only are the Daniels' grandchildren the cutest ever - but it's beautiful country up there. My former sister in law says that she will share her photos on facebook and she better!

We hade a BBQ with friends from MSU. We went to the zoo. We went and toured MSU and I got to see friends from my old job. We went up north. Grandpa Adams took the kids for rides in his fishing boat. We had a fine road trip home (we survived, gotta love portable DVD players) to Texas in the new van that Aaron's parents gave us. (We can't thank you enough!)

Pics to come...

Happy Anniversary!

Who would have ever put us together? This picture was taken 11 years ago in my apartment at Michigan State. Just a few friends getting together. There I am pretending to be cool with my beat-up excuse for a guitar and there you are in all your pre-mission Jesus hair-do glory. First came friendship.

But somehow we managed to get ourselves to Salt Lake 6 years later to look for true love and found each other again. Then came love.

Back to Michigan State to be with our friends and family again and finish up school.

Then came marriage. It may not look like it in this picture, but we were so stressed and scared we could hardly look at each other. Our first year was so crazy and hard with some new challenges unexpectedly discovered and the death of a beloved pet. We got through it and it made our marriage stronger.

Newborn Claire 2006 (Michigan)

Then came the babies... Life together was getting better each day and then right after our 2nd anniversary we had our beautiful little girl!

You love me even when I weigh almost as much as two of you! Thank you for that!

Newborn Noel 2008 (Texas)

You have made me so happy! You have given me Love, LAUGHTER, and my sweet babies. Thank you for a wonderful five years of marriage! I love you, I love you, I love you...

What a week-end!

Aaron's Birthday was Friday. We were able to get some sweet deals at this website. He had a free burger at Red Robin for lunch, then after he came home from work we went out to eat at Carino's where they were giving free entrees to Mom's. Aaron was very thoughtful and brought both Claire and I a bouquet of flowers for Mother's Day on his own birthday! I have the best husband ever. Seriously!

Here is my bouquet

You can tell Claire was very pleased with her mini carnations. So cute!

Earlier that morning we had made cupcakes for Daddy. (Then we headed out to a birthday party for Claire's friend, Rose. It was great and Claire had so much fun eating pizza and eating frosting and playing with Rose's presents, sigh, that's my girl). Here is Noel chowing d0wn on his cupcake. Much better than his own birthday - see here. Crazy how the picture is almost exactly the same!


Then after putting the kids to bed, we found this little guy hiding behind our clock in the kitchen!



Uh... so I worked up the courage to try to get it out of our apartment. Aaron tried to get the incident on film, but it was hard with the little lizard running all over, me flinching and being all squeemish and jumpy. After about a half hour of chasing it around our kitchen - which was still a mess from making birthday cupcakes- I decided to make a trap for him with a box.


So, here he is outside... I'll have to post the video sometime. It's so wobbly... it's bound to give people headaches - so much for our America's Funniest Home Video's entry...

Saturday morning we had our long anticipated Primary training then Primary activity (I'm the secretary). It was a lot of fun and I felt like I was definitely put to good use because I was exhausted when it was finally over. After lunch we went to Old Settler's Park and fed the ducks some old stale bread we had lying around. After the kids naps, we went swimming! The pool is open at our place! It was a lot of fun. Our kids love the water. I forgot the camera this day. But it was so fun to spend the day doing things together.

Mother's Day was a nice day. Aaron made breakfast and tried to let me sleep in a little. In our little apartment it's almost impossible to sleep if these kids are up, though. Here they are at our "tea party" before church.

After church and after naps, we went letterboxing. I've wanted to do this for a while. It's like a treasure hunt - kind of. At least that is what we told Claire. I think we all had a really good time. We have been trying to do more together and get out more.

Can you tell we recently cancelled our cable? Seriously, I feel like our family is so much better off without the TV on constantly. It was hard at first, but now I hardly miss it. We actually got a TV tuner for our computer and a HD antennae and can watch major networks on the computer. We can still watch some shows and we have PBS so the kids can watch things like Sesame Street if we really want. We are saving at least $30 a month and are spending more quality time together.