My new baby

Or...this happened today!



We traded in our van for a brand new one! This one is a darkish silver color, and is even fancier than our old one. We love it!


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Summer

Our summer vacation has been a wonderful whirlwind so far.  Katie had basketball camp in the mornings of the first week, and all three girls had vacation bible school every morning last week.  The afternoons were filled with all sorts of fun trips!

Swimming with friends

On the Rochester Hills garden walk with me

Playing on the RH farm/museum grounds after the garden walk

I took Jess out for breakfast one morning when Katie was at basketball camp, and Megan was at a sleepover.  She got all of my bacon, plus what came with her kids meal.  Lucky duck!

We got new packs for Meg & Jess, in preparation for our first family backpacking trip!  We are going for three days/two nights in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in the UP, the week after the 4th.  We have most supplies, and borrowed some more, but needed kid-sized packs for the little two.

Messy kids at the annual library ice cream social.  The girls have been wonderful readers, and have already earned lots of prizes in the summer reading program.

Our newest family member, Fuzzbutt, the Mexican red-kneed tarantula!

Picking strawberries

They were really picked over, so we didn't get much this year.  But they were delicious!

At our city's fireworks.

Ooooh, ahhh!  It was a great show, and the weather was perfect.

This is what breakfast looks like lately...mmmm

I took the girls to "Dodge Days" last week, a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Dodge Bros. starting their car company.  It was held on the grounds of Meadowbrook Hall right in Rochester Hills.  One of the Dodge bros. widows built the mansion here.

We got to take a ride in a 1931 Dodge!

Cool car!

It was fun to hear the story from our driver...his grandpa bought the car for $35 in 1960-something, and courted his grandma in the car.  After they married and had kids, it sat in a field for 20+ yrs.  In the late 1980's, they started restoring it, and have driven it many thousands of miles around US and Canada to various shows, and just for fun!

Dashboard of the car

We toured the mansion, this is one of the bedrooms.  We met Matilda Dodge's granddaughter in the mansion, she was walking her dog all around!

We admired the Dodge ram hood ornaments on the antique cars parked all over the grounds.

Girls outside the mansion

We also toured "Danny's cabin" and "Knowles cottage," two other buildings on the grounds, that were built just for the Dodge kids to play in!  This was a cottage in miniature, I had to duck to walk room to room.  But it had water, heat, electricity, etc, so it was a fully-working playhouse!  We met Anna Dodge's grandson in here, and he recalled playing in this cottage.

Last day singalong at Vacation Bible School.  Katie was a "crew leader" of preschool kids again this year.

DIA trip, just for fun.  This is Megan's favorite staircase.

Girls and art.  We spent most of the day in the African and Islamic galleries, it was very interesting to take the time to read everything.

On Saturday, we loaded up everyone's packs and took a 4 mile hike to and through downtown Rochester, to make sure we could all handle the load.  It was soooo hot and humid, but we all survived.

We stopped by the Clinton River to filter some water.  The girls loved drinking river water!

We got new, ultralight sleeping bags for Meg & Jess.  Meg tried hers out while watching a World Cup soccer game yesterday.  I think it's pretty comfortable!

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Fathers Day

We made breakfast for Dad: Belgian waffles with peaches and blueberries and whipped cream, and an egg, over easy.



Chris got lots of cards, and a fun present- a gorilla pod that fits an iPhone!


Playing with his new phone:



Chris was the dealer for several rounds of blackjack, then we walked downtown for lunch. A lunchbox at Sumo, of course! With $1 beers!



We continued our walk to the community garden to water our plants. On our way, I spotted this cool tree. Before I knew it, Megan was up in it, then Jessica, then Chris!






We took the long way home, down the trail and thru Bloomer Park. Here, we took a break after climbing the 200+ stairs. Our total walk was at least five miles!



Chris smoked salmon for dinner, and roasted beets and veggies on the grill. Yum!



After dinner, we went on a run (Chris) / bike ride (everyone else) on the trail. We saw several heron nests, with teenage birds inside. And Megan found several turtle nests by the river! All of the babies were gone, but it was still cool to see the egg shells.



I just realized that we forgot to call our dads - sorry! We thought about you and talked about you all day, and we love you very much!


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Ballet recitals

All three girls took ballet this year, and the 30 week term ends in a recital. Our dance studio is huge, and held 11 recitals this year. We were in three of them.

Megan danced to a song from the movie Brave. It was a beautiful song, with a costume and choreography to match!












Jessica danced to an instrumental version of Somewhere over the rainbow. Her class did great, but Jess was outstanding. She's such a little leader!












Katie danced in the prelude of the Sleeping Beauty ballet. Her song was short, but she was on stage for a long time, as the fairies danced.






We were blessed to have a big audience! The girls were SO thrilled to have the CCs and G and G Christensen there!!



























We had time after Megan's recital to have lunch at Big Boy. We have a long and sordid history with this place...many years ago we went here after one of Katie's recitals, and the waitress spilled a huge cup of ice water all over Katie. In costume! Fortunately, we all stayed dry on this trip!


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