Happy Birthday and Happy Anniversary

Conrad turned 2 in August and I still can't believe he is that old. Probably because he is still the runt of the family. He actually is up to 50th percentile in height, so we are exited about that, but his weight is still around 15th. All my boys have had to wear clothes a size up and Netta has always been true to size, but Conrad can still wear a size down. We still refer to him as "the baby" and I have a feeling we will be calling him that for awhile. The even funnier thing is that he is so tiny, but he talks non-stop and actually really well. I love it when he says "What the heck?" and "Guess what. Chicken butt." Those always catch people off guard. I mean what little 2 year old says that?

Conrad is absolutely obsessed with Team Umizoomi and asks to watch it all day every day. So, it was only natural that we have a Team Umizoomi party. Luckily, King was also Team Umi obsessed when he was 2, so I got to make a repeat "Bot" cake. Hopefully Conrad continues to follow in King's footsteps, so I can repeat the same designs.

Conrad was lucky enough to get to celebrate his birthday once at our house and once at my parents'. Our 10 year anniversary was the day after Conrad's birthday and my parents and sisters were kind enough to work together to watch our kids while John and I went on a cruise, but before we left we had time for Conrad's second celebration. I also have to give my family props for putting the cupcakes together for this one.

 So to celebrate our big 10 year anniversary, John and I went on a Carnival cruise out of Miami that went to Key West, FL, Cozumel, Mexico and Georgetown, Grand Cayman Islands. Holy crap the whole thing was amazing. We have only gotten to go away twice with no kids since EZ was born for quick weekend anniversary trips, but this one was 6 nights and we wish we could do it every year! It was so nice to spend time together and get dressed up and eat nice quiet peaceful meals with a waiter and everything. As an added bonus I called our travel agent when I noticed that the cruise had gone down $200 to get the difference in on board credit thanks to our rate guarantee. Well when I called and he pulled up the reservation he said "Wow this is a huge difference. I see $462. Is that what you see?" and I said "Yep!" He had to fight a little with Carnival, but he got them to give us all of it. I still get giddy just thinking about it ;)

 We both got to go on stage during the juggler's act. He was really funny and I managed to make a complete idiot out of myself, because I couldn't catch a tiny ball in a huge net. John laughed so hard he almost fell off the stage. I blame the bright lights ;)

In Key West we went paddle boarding in the mangroves, which was a bit exhausting and feet numbing, but totally worth it. In Mexico, I got to fulfill my lifelong dream of swimming with the dolphins. I loved every second of it, but unfortunately, I did not love any of the pictures they took or the price they wanted for them, so I will just have to hold on to the memories. In the end though, the best part of the whole trip was Grand Cayman. The beaches were absolutely beautiful and they had the clearest, bluest water. We are already planning how we can one day take our whole family there for a long vacation once everyone is a little older. 

Besides just he amazing beaches, Grand Cayman also had our favorite excursion, swimming with sting rays. There is this sand bar where boats used to always clean their fish and over time it attracted all these sting rays. They became so tame and used to being around people that they are now like puppies. You get in the waist deep water and hundreds of sting rays swim all around you. The best part is that they aren't penned in or caged or anything. They just come of their own free will and it is amazing!

One unfortunate lesson were learned in Grand Cayman was that our sunscreen was not as water-proof as advertised, so I got to sport a styling hat for the rest of the trip.

One other highlight was getting picked on by the comedian on board. We were leery of sitting up close and rightfully so. He really made fun of John for working with appliances, which doesn't sound that funny, but he was. Of course it was all in good fun and in the end he even bought some appliances using John's discount. 

It was hard to leave the ship and it was especially hard for John to give up 2 appetizers, 2 entrees and 2 desserts at every dinner. I loved the food as well, but I am almost embarrassed to admit I will miss the Guy Fieri burgers the most. Holy crap I love a good burger. We know we won't be able to do these kind of trips every year, but hopefully we won't have to wait another 10.

End of Summer Fun

Summer was way too short here. In fact, this summer was really weird and colder than usual. I thought we would be living at the beach, but we actually only went a handful of times. Everyone told me that I would love it here once summer hit, but it never fully came. Luckily, we were able to find other fun activities to do. We had fun exploring all the death trap playgrounds in our area. They are definitely not regulating things in these small towns and we have plenty of huge metal slides that will either burn your skin or flat out kill you. Of course my kids love them, but I made the mistake of going down once with Conrad and I realized how dangerous it was and he got a taste of how fun it was, so we had to leave. 

We also really enjoyed the library's summer reading program. They had some sweet prizes and at the end you got a free ride on the carousal and a free ice cream cone from Kilwan's. Those cones, while delicious, are expensive at $4.50 a pop, which to me is a bit absurd. They also had a drawing at the end and Netta actually won 2 tickets to the Grand Rapids Zoo. We are learning that a perk to living in a small town is that you can actually win when there are contests. I had to include both these pictures of the kids enjoying their ice cream just to show how comically hard it is to get a picture of all of them smiling and looking at the camera. 

We also won some free photography through the guy who took EZ's baseball pictures. I was really excited because we loved his picture, but then we found out his prices for family pictures and we learned that the $200 we won actually didn't get us much. The real kicker was that you have to buy all the prints through him, which are really expensive and if you want a digital copy it will cost you a minimum of $500! All I wanted was one family picture for Christmas cards and sadly it was a struggle to get even one we liked. The kids were being kind of cranky, but then he also did not know how to work well with little kids. We miss our photographer Jessica from Texas :( Anyway, on the bright side he did have a little pond and some ducks in his backyard that we got to play with.

When we found out there was a county fair, we had to hit that up. Unfortunately, it was cold and rainy the whole time. The kids didn't mind, but I never would have thought I would be wearing boots and a jacket in August. Of course the crazy unhealthy food was a huge hit as was the free circus. It was definitely free for the reason, but the kids don't know any different ;) The also had a ton of animals to see and a bunch of cows that were about to give birth and if you were lucky you would get to see it. Our entertainment options are definitely way different than in Austin. HaHa

Sharon's Graduation

Our second trip to my parents this summer was for my niece Sharon's graduation. We started out the festivities with some leftover fireworks. We had to make up for the extreme lack of fireworks we had on the 4th. King had a blast even if he doesn't look so sure of it here.

Netta and Lucy had matching jammies that were once actually Grace's and Netta's. I love that we have Lucy to hand down Netta's clothes to. Rachel has been so generous with giving Netta clothes and it feels good to get to pass ours along as well.

Grandpa Steve won grandpa of the year by driving all the kids around the neighborhood on his motorcycle. King was the only hold out. In fact Conrad even took a turn and he would have ridden it over and over again, if the cop who lives in my dad's neighborhood hadn't come home ;) 

We took what it now becoming our traditional trip to the Drive-In for Ellie's birthday. Unfortunately, the only kids movie showing was Planes 2. The kids were fine with it, but me not so much.

Sharon's graduation was earlier in June, but we came for the party of course! My sister did a great job putting together an Asian themed party with great food and the biggest table of weird Asian candy I have ever seen. Luckily there was really amazing candy in the mix and it was a blast, although the thought of my niece graduation high school makes me feel really old. 

Another perk to coming for the party was that my Grandpa Bob and my Uncle Tom and Aunt Nancy also come to town for it. I have been really spoiled by them coming to visit when I come. Hopefully, now that we are closer to NY we can make the drive sometime to see them in Rochester. I have such found memories of my grandparents house that it would be so sad if my kids never got to see it.

Of course my kids loved all their cousin time and we learned that Uncle Jared is a master fort builder, The kids lived in this thing and took some great pictures in it as well.

Netta especially loved all of her girl cousin time. Here she is getting her finger nails and toe nails painted by Carol and Ellie. She is so spoiled. 

Mom Gets Away

It's no secret that this move has not been easy for me, but luckily in July my awesome friend Lara flew up from Austin to meet me in Chicago for a girls weekend and it was amazing!!! We got to live it up in style at the Hilton Garden Inn on the Magnificent Mile thanks to her husband's sweet hotel points. Gotta have some perks to a husband who has to travel a lot. We also got the hook up from one of her friends who got us tickets to see the Cubs play and hats to boot. 

Of course we did all the touristy stuff like the Aquarium, the Field Museum, the John Hancock Tower and the Bean. I almost felt guilty doing all this stuff I know my kids would love without them, but not guilty enough to actually want them there ;)

One thing we didn't know when we planned our trip was that the weekend we picked was Taste of Chicago, a huge food festival. This was a gift from God after how much I have struggled with the lack of restaurants in St. Joe. We ate there 2 of the days and we would have eaten there all 3, but it got rained out one of them.

It was also the weekend of the World Cup and since Lara's mom is German it was a really big deal for her. We didn't know where we wanted to watch it since we didn't want to go to a loud bar, but we just happened to stumble upon an practically empty bar in a fancy hotel that let us hang out and happened to have sweet appetizers for free if you just bought one drink. We really got our money's worth out of our Diet Cokes. 

It was so awesome to spent time with a great friend eating great food. I am proud to say I only cried a little when I got in the car after dropping her off at the airport.

Uncle Casey Plays in Milwaukee

We were lucky enough that the AVP came to Milwaukee this year, which meant we finally got to see Uncle Casey and his partner Jake Gibb play some amazing volleyball. They happened to be playing over 4th of July weekend, which made for a perfect family trip. I can honestly say that before this all I knew about Milwaukee came from Wayne's World, so I was surprised to learn that it right on the water and has some fun beaches. I won't say great beaches because our are better ;) 

We had a great time at the beach playing in the sand. The water was way to cold to actually get in. Conrad ate a lot of stand and we got to bury EZ and Netta. EZ got really made at Johnny for making him look like a muscle man once he was buried and not a character from Minecraft. We, however, thought it was hilarious.

The hotel had a pool so we opted to do our swimming in it's much more pleasant water. 

Afterwards Conrad and King were super styling in their towels.

That night we tried to drive and find a place to watch fireworks, but parking was crazy and by the time we found a place King and Conrad were both asleep in the car so we abandoned that endeavor. Luckily, the kids could see some fireworks from our hotel window.

Casey and Jake played great and were undefeated day 1 and then again on day 2. This picture was right after they finished playing a close game the second day. Conrad was so excited by the action that he decided to have a major blow out that resulted in us having to throw away his swim suit. Unfortunately, I had packed 2 swim suits for everyone except him, so I had to go to Old Navy to get a new one. But let's be honest, I was more than happy to do that.

That night was got to have dinner with Casey. King became his new best friend and wanted to hog all his attention.

The 3rd day they lost in the semi finals, which was a bummer, but we still had such a blast. In fact, EZ liked it so much he now wants to learn to play. Milwaukee surprised us with it's awesome children's museum and frozen custard and of course we love getting to see family!