Put-in-Bay

Yes, it's been awhile but I've been a bit distracted by Facebook. It's quick and easy and I'm very short on time a lot...imagine that!! But I haven't forgotten about the blog so here is an update finally....

A couple of weekends ago we spent our Saturday at the little village of Put-in-Bay on South Bass Island out on Lake Erie. It's been since college that Brian and I went out there and I've been wanting to go all summer so we finally got a free weekend to go.

We drove to Port Clinton and hopped on the Jet Express for the 20 minute boat ride out to the island. The kids thought the ride was pretty cool. On the way there we rode on the top deck so we could look out and see all the other boats.

Once we arrived we set ourselves up with the coolest mode of transportation on the island....a golf cart. The island is fairly small so you can easily get anywhere with a golf cart or bike and it's so much easier getting through the crowds and finding a place to park when you're on a golf cart as opposed to a car. I think this was the favorite part of the entire day for Ian too. He thought it was so much fun riding around and he never wanted to get off the cart.

Put-in-Bay is a little village on one side of the island and it contains all the shops, restaurants, etc. The rest of the island has houses, winerys, a State park, a small airport and uninhabited woods or open spaces. We pretty much covered every part of the island that we could and spent most of our time just driving around enjoying the scenery. There are about 200 people that live on the island year-round and while it's beautiful there in the summer it's crazy to think they have to have everything flown in to them in the winter. There is even one school on the island that has grades K-12 and kids from the smaller islands nearby come there to attend. It's definitly a fascinating little community.

Here are some pics from one of our stops at a look out point:

Here's a picture of the big monument that is on the island to commemorate Commodore Perry's naval victory over the British in the War of 1812. You could take an elevator to the top but we decided to skip that and just enjoy it from the ground.

By late afternoon we were all so tired so we decided to get on the boat and head back home. Luckily there is one that leaves about every 40 minutes so we didn't have to wait to get back. We rode on the inside bottom deck on the way home but the kids still got to look out at the boats and other islands on the return trip. It was a great day and we can't wait to get back next summer!!

Our cross-country adventure

Since Brian has to be out at Ft. Lewis for a month and a half this summer he wanted to have a car with him so we decided to make a road trip out to Washington. It had been 20 years since I'd been out through that part of the country and I'd never been to Washington before so I was pretty excited about going. To make the trip go quicker (and be more relaxing!) we decided to leave the kids at home with my parents. My mom took them to daycare while she worked and stayed at our house with them during the week, then my Dad watched them on Saturday. I love my parents!!!!!

We left Tuesday the 2nd and made it to Mitchell, South Dakota by the first night. It's amazing how much quicker you can travel with no kids!! We did get pulled over once in Wisconsin for speeding but fortunately Brian just got a warning....good thing since he just got done paying a speeding ticket in New York. Geez!!

We found a hotel with our trusty new GPS and got extremely lucky to be staying in the same town as the famed Corn Palace!! I'd only ever heard of it from the AFN commercials but apparently it's quite the tourist destination. Before we hit the road again on the 3rd we went to take a couple of pictures of the crazy place. No, we didn't go in. It was closed that early in the morning and really I think the outside was quite enough for us. :o)

The next day we continued across South Dakota and decided to stop in at Mt. Rushmore. Unfortunately the clouds were very low on the mountains so there wasn't much to see. We didn't feel like paying the $10 fee to park and see nothing but a cloud (yeah, we're cheap) so we just did a drive-by and got a quick glipmse of it through the cloud. Oh well...I'm sure we'll be back someday with the kids.

Once we got into Wyoming, we stopped to see Devil's Tower and then spent the rest of the day driving through the state and into Montana where we spent the night. On Thursday we got through Montana, Idaho (where we stopped in a cute little town called Wallace for lunch) and then into Washington. Since we were making good time we decided to not head into Seattle right away so we found a neat B&B called Wellspring Spa outside of Mt. Rainier National Park and spent the night there.

It was a great place in the middle of the woods and instead of one building with several rooms, it consisted of many unique little cabins and even a tree house you could stay in. We chose the one with a private zen garden and hot tub!! Here are a couple of pics I took, but they really don't do it justice.

Our checkout wasn't til 11:30 so we slept in, enjoyed the breakfast the owner brought us in a little basket and drank our morning coffee in the hot tub. What a wonderful break from the road!

We headed up towards Seattle and stopped in the nice seaside town of Steilacoom for lunch before driving up to the city to see Brian's high school friend Abbey and her boyfriend Ethan. Abbey took us for a drive around the city and up to the top of the Space Needle, where obviously you get a great view of the city and Puget Sound.

On Saturday Brian had to report in to Lewis so Abbey and I headed downtown to the Pike Place Market to look around at all the neat stuff for sale and do a little shopping. What a fascinating place. It made me miss all the open-air markets in Europe!

Once Brian was done with work, we had lunch with Abbey then Brian and I said goodbye and headed down to his hotel in Fife so he could take me to the airport the next morning.

It was a great trip and I'm hoping that I can fly back at the end of July to drive back with Brian...although it will just be a straight trip back with no sight-seeing.

Enjoying the nice weather...and just hanging out

The weather has been off and on nice lately...mostly nice though. It's warmed up considerably and it's been sunny a lot. It's at least not snowing, right? So, we've been taking advantage of it as much as possible. The kids have some great new outdoor toys this year, including a t-ball set, a little lawnmower and a golf set. We also got the grill out and have been enjoying our deck.

The kids also love playing in their rooms and the playroom upstairs now that all the toys have been consolidated in that area. It's impossible to keep it clean but it's so nice to not have it all over the house!

Alexis has moved into a toddler bed and is doing really well with it. We find her on the floor sometimes but she doesn't even seem to notice. Ian got the crib back which is now converted into a daybed for him. The most exciting change for us lately is that they are now in the toddler room together at daycare. It's really convenient to drop them off and pick them up in the same place and Alexis loves her new room! She absolutely has to do EVERYTHING that Ian does now, which can be good and bad. She wants to sit on the potty, brush her teeth and do all that other fun stuff that Ian does...but she also mimics all the trouble he gets in. They already plot together so I can only imagine what the future holds!

And finally, here's a really horrible picture (but our camera died so the only one I have) of Brian and I before the University of Toledo's ROTC military ball a few weeks ago. We had a great time and it was nice to be back in a military setting even if it was very different from the "real" Army. Brian and I enjoyed 4 years of military balls together at UD so it was very interesting to go back with Brian as a cadre member. It made me feel a little old...although some girl asked if I was a UT student so that made my night. Ha! Another cool thing was that one of the Majors in the program used to be neighbors with my sister in Maumee and both him and his wife graduated from UD. She also went to my high school. Random. Anyways, it's always nice to get out without the kids.

Easter....finally!

Wow, I've finally got videos uploaded and ready to post! I know it's a bit past Easter but here are just a few pictures from the fun day we had at my mom's house. The kids did really well searching for eggs. Obviously the eggs weren't hard to find but they got the concept of putting them in the basket pretty well. I have a video but I've tried several times to upload it and it doesn't seem to be working on here. Oh well.

Ian's favorite part of the day was waking up to his Easter basket to find a Thomas the Train toy in it. He's recently discovered how cool Thomas is and it's all he talks about so he was ecstatic to have a toy to actually play with. Now he tells us we need to get Percy. :o)

So much to do, so little time

Yes, we are alive!!! Yes, I will post something soon. I have pictures, I just need to upload them. I finally have some free time again with tax season being over with but now the weather is FINALLY nice and there's all that stuff to be done outside....hmm....I will get to this soon, I promise. :o)

Watch out! She's on the move!

I've been saying for months that she'd be walking any day now. But Alexis has finally decided that it's time to walk without holding on to things. And now that she's figured it out she's all over the place!

This video is kind of long, sorry, but Ian started a conversation about his cars (surprise, surprise) so I just kept recording.

Anyways, here she is:

When You Were Young...

If you know the band The Killers you'd get the title of this blog....if not, then oh well. The point is we love this band and were so excited to actually go and see them in concert on Thursday night!!!! Brian sent me an e-mail at work on Tuesday to say The Killers were going to be playing in Ypsilanti, MI on Thursday night and he could get tickets. My mom said she could watch the kids so we got tickets and headed up as soon as work was done. So, we were probably on the older end of the age group attending this concert but it was so fun to get out and see a live band again like we used to do all the time in college. They put on quite a show and even though I was soooo tired at work on Friday it was really worth going.

Now, an update on our water situation....yes, we have water again...for the most part. The plumbers got here late last Sunday night and could repair the pipes under our pantry, right where the crawlspace starts and is about 2 feet high. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no access to the pipes under our downstairs bathroom unless you are a foot tall and a contortionist. So we either have to rip up the bathroom floor or excavate under the foundation and build an access door.....awesome. We therefore just told them to shut the water off to the downstairs bathroom so we could at least have water in the rest of the house until we can get the work done. We had problems with pipes freezing when I was growing up too, but it's much different when you can just go into the basement to fix things. I'm just glad I don't have to go down into the crawlspace....yikes!!!

On a good note, Ian is starting to show an interest in potty training now! He does not want to go on the little potty we bought him but he really likes sitting on the "big potty" before he gets in the bath at night and sometimes even tells us if he needs to go at other times. They also sit him on the potty at daycare so that really helps too. Ian is very much a "do-it-my-way-and-on-my-schedule" little person so we'll see how things progress.

That's all for now.....sorry there were no pictures...next time maybe!!

Our Winter fun...and not so fun...

Last weekend we decided to head out to the resort at Maumee Bay State Park which is just east of Toledo on Lake Erie. My mom picked Ian up from daycare on Friday afternoon so they could head out and get checked in to our rooms. Then when Brian and I got off of work we picked up Alexis and drove out. The weather had started to get bad that afternoon and by the time we drove out there the roads were a mess. We made it though and had a really great weekend. It was nice to be inside a warm place and look out at the beautiful snow without having to go out and shovel it or try to drive in it (that awaited us when we left on Sunday).
We did go outside and play in the snow for a little bit but that didn't last very long. The wind coming off the lake was just too cold. So we spent the rest of our weekend indoors swimming in the pool and hot tubs, playing games in our rooms or sitting by one of the nice fireplaces in the lobby.
Here are a few pictures just outside of our rooms playing:

The weather the rest of the week only got worse. The snow kept coming and the temperatures began to get well below zero. The following Friday saw temperatures at about negative 30 with windchill. The poor furnace in our house just couldn't keep up. Our upstairs was warm thank goodness but downstairs we couldn't get the heat above 60 and that's when the trouble started. We've had the pipes in our downstairs bathroom freeze before but when we got home from work this past Friday we had no water in any part of the house.

Saturday morning we woke up and still no water so we called the water department to see if it was a problem on their end (they had been out in the alley behind us with a backhoe for several hours on Friday). They sent someone out who took a look all over and told us that unfortunately it was our pipes that were frozen. He suggested leaving the door to our crawlspace open to try to get some heat down there where the pipes were.

Since there wasn't much else we could do we packed up some things and headed to my mom's house to take showers and get ready for the day. We were planning to take Ian to the International Auto Show in Detroit so we decided to just go ahead and go up there.....oh boy....

The actual auto show was great. Ian loved all the cool cars and kept saying, "Let's go bye-bye in that one!" Fortunately, you could get in and look at most of them so he was excited to do that. He really liked all the crazy concept cars and was very interested in the Mustangs, the new Camaro and the Viper.

After the show is when our day started to get slightly off track. Surprise, surprise we started to get more snow. The temperatures had come up a bit (I think we were finally above 15 degrees) but the snow mixed with the fact that Detroit has a bit of a problem with construction detours and lack of funding for plowing or salting made for quite a mess. It took us about 3 hours to get home (normally it's 50 minutes) and I can't even count how many spin-outs and accidents we saw. Luckily we made it home safely.

Because we were without water we decided to let the kids sleep at my mom's house and Brian and I would go back home to make sure things were alright there....thank goodness we did. Around 2:00 a.m. I got up to go the bathroom and could hear water running. "Oh, thank goodness!" I thought....until Brian and I went downstairs to see that it was actually a burst pipe pouring water into our crawlspace. Lovely.

A long string of events followed but we eventually got the water turned off, put a call in to a plumber, and got back in bed around 3:30 a.m.

Which bring me to today....we are on our third day without water and are still waiting for a plumber but the crawlspace has mostly dried out and we are lucky to be able to go to my mom's house when we need to. As if my Dad and sisters weren't already trying to get us to move down to Florida with them, now they've got this to keep reminding us of. Ah well.....

Hopefully, next time I post a blog we'll have water......

Our Christmas (a little late...)

Yes, I know we are already in the second week of January but with work and the holidays and all the other craziness around here I am just now getting a moment to put up some Christmas pictures. Work is starting to get busier with tax season right around the corner and we now have 4 cats in our house!! We got my dad's two again since he goes to Florida for the winter and my sister Heidi just moved to Florida and couldn't take her kitty with her....Brian is thrilled, let me tell you. Hehe.
Anyways, our Christmas plans changed about 50 times before Christmas Day actually arrived...mostly because of my work schedule. Our office was open Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas so although we had planned to go to Rochester for Christmas we didn't know how that was going to work. Well, it's a long story and like I said our plans changed a million times but we eventually decided on Brian driving up with the kids on Christmas Eve morning since he had off of work. I ended up getting the day after Christmas off so I drove up myself early on Christmas morning and we all came back the Saturday after Christmas.
On Christmas Eve, Brian's family had a Christmas party with Santa and lots of gifts. I couldn't attend of course but I guess the kids had a lot of fun...but were pretty tired by the end. They weren't too fond of Santa at first, but once Ian realized Santa was the source of presents, he warmed up to the idea.

Before Ian realized Santa gave out gifts:
Ian and his cousin Reese dancing:

Reese and Lahna (Brian's brother's girls) and Alexis and Ian....yeah, trying to get the four of them to pose together is impossible...especially when Ian is trying to squeeze his sister:

And he's still squeezing:
Alexis and Papi (Brian's dad):

Uncle Mike, Ian and Reese:

On Christmas morning (before I arrived) Brian, the kids, Brian's parents and Brian's brother's family all opened gifts at his parents house. Wow! What a ton of presents!! Both of our cars were loaded on the way home. His parents had already gotten Alexis a kitchen and Ian a workbench and tools but the gifts just kept on coming!

Uncle Mike, Ian and Lahna:

Ian with his new guitar:

Aunt Meghan and Ian opening gifts:

Ian and Reese with a train set:

The rest of our time in Rochester was spent visiting more of Brian's family and friends and Brian and I even got to go out and get lunch and see a movie together without the kids! That's always a plus!!

Alexis with Brian's cousin Emily:

Oh, and Happy Belated New Year!!! Hopefully it won't be so long before the next post but I can't guarantee anything.