Family History

Lately I have felt the urge to get moving on Carl's genealogy. My fabulous father has taken our lines by storm, and I have no idea where to start with that, but Carl's is a clean slate just waiting to be done! I have been spending the past two days with his mom looking through family albums and the oldest suitcase of all time! I have been having a blast with this, and have already made a huge discovery! Carl's maternal grandmother had a brother named Charles. Not sounding to thrilling? Well it is, considering the fact that neither Carl nor his mother or uncle knew about it! I owe this knowledge to the indexing system being put in place by the LDS church. They have begun scanning in all the records that could previously only be found on films and paper, digitally on-line so that anyone can search through them. Above is the 1920 Negaunee, MI census where we made our discovery. Carl's grandmother Loretta Connors was 5 at the time. This is really just so exciting to be doing finally! We are already 5 generations back and we have only begun. I just hope that I don't lose my momentum!!

Fun FHE Activity

This was a few weeks ago, but better late than never. Alex got to pick the activity for FHE and well, here it is. The boys had even more fun because Mackenzie their friend was over. Enjoy!

another random drive

The fall is coming, we are so excited! Nothing better than fall on the east coast, especially Michigan! here are some more pictures from a drive we took on Saturday. We started our drive out by going to our secret bakery. If we deem you worthy, you may be given the information on how to locate it's divine awesomeness... ;) After that, we went south-west to where ever the winds would take us. This time we made sure we took a lunch!


Not too often you get to see a horse drawn carriage that is not for hire!

We thought this was the coolest tree. This was somewhere in the vicinity of Maybee.

This is what we go for, this and forest. Nothing like taking a drive in the boonies!

Okay, this barn is purple...enough said.

These folks pulled up to the 4 way stop right before us. There was a kid sitting in the backseat wearing the biggest set of earphones I have seen since the 80's! Must have been wanting to drown out the noise of the engine he was sitting on top of!


We have no idea what this building was for, all we know is that the front of it is covered in tile mosaic. Something you don't see everyday in the middle of nowhere!



At this point, we were heading back toward civilization in search of a place to have a picnic. We weren't having any luck, but as we drove through Ypsi, we found this place in Depot Town. It is called Frog Island Park. I know that some or all of you have probably heard of all this before, but it was new to us! It had a wonderful amphitheater with a stage and natural seating. Also had a wonderful stretch of river that ran through/next to the park. After we ate, we explored for a bit and then headed home. All in all a great way to spend a Saturday!


Me and the boys sitting at the top of the amphitheatre after our lunch.
This is Jacob's new trick. He shows it to everyone, no matter who they are. So, what better place to do it then on a stage. He also did a selection of Hip-hop moves for us to enjoy. :)


This was on the seating section right below is. We have no idea what it is, it's just gross and I guess I felt the need to share. Perhaps some kind of shroom?
Here is Jacob posing on the bridge that leads to the other side of the park. Wish I knew what river this is. our luck it is probably the Rouge!


Someone felt inspired to staple this to the bridge. I am glad they did!


I had Jake take this shot of us. Carl is always the photographer, so we rarely have photos of the two of us together.This was right before we took off for home. I think that this would be a great place to start off a tubing adventure!

First Day Hooray!

The big day(s) came and went. Alex was the first to start on the 8th and jacob followed on the 10th. They were both super excited to start school this year! Jacob (if his school had grades) is in 5th, Alex in 2nd. Here are some shots of them:

Why is it that when boys reach a certain age, everything has to have skulls on it?!


Jake took this shot for us! Good Job Jake!

Poor Jake, his bus comes so early in the morning, just before 7 actually, that I was not able to get a shot of him that morning. But, here he is that afternoon in his favorite shirt he picked out for school this year. No, he did not wear the cammo shorts to school! ha

Disney's: A Christmas Carol Train Tour

This weekend we took a trip to the Henry Ford to go to the national tour of Disney's: A Christmas Carol. We had a great time! We tried to go Friday, but the wait to get in to the train was over 3 hours! That is a bit excessive since the train tour wasn't longer than a half-hour!! So, we got up bright and early Saturday to be there by the 9am opening time. Believe it or not, we still had at least a 40 minute wait in line! Here are some pictures of us there, and if you click on the link below them, you will be directed to the official site where you can see inside all the train cars.

Us in line, woohoo!! Note the sweaters, it is getting a bit chilly here in Michigan in the mornings already.

Jake was dressed for both Christmas and September. He was super cute!

Alex was thrilled by this cup. When we filled it up for him as we waited in line, he shouted "Look, I am drinking from a CONE!!"

This was at the end of the train part of the activity. Can you tell which of us is the poultry lover?

This is, believe it or not, a theater! We went inside here after our train tour to watch an exclusive sneak peek in 3-D, which was pretty cool after learning how they made the film.

Us inside the movie. The whole thing was lit up with blue lights, so we were temporarily smurfs.

more photos

One of the highlights of our tour was being able to morph our faces into characters from the movie. Our pictures should be emailed to us soon, and as soon as we get them we will post them here on the blog! They all came out hilarious!

Pump success!!

We are official pumpers as of yesterday! This is a photo of Jacob with his pump and his very last shot (unless something goes iffy or his pump breaks *gasp*) that we took yesterday morning before his last class. Things are going really well, in fact it seems too well to be expected. Our nurse we called today was pretty amazed. He was prepared to be doing some serious tweeking of the numbers and no change was needed. So, we will see how it goes and how long our luck lasts! ha So, wish us luck!

All in all this is pretty fun and a lot less stressful that at least I thought it was going to be. Plus, Carl came up with a fabulous alternative to combo bolusing for the pizza we had for dinner last night so that has made it even easier for us! (combo bolusing is a bit confusing for us right now and even more confusing for you I am sure) We will keep you updated on any new interesting pumping action!

Ice Cream Review

Carl came up with a pretty fun and delicious idea, for our blog. He thought that we could spend the rest of what is left of the summer trying new ice cream stands and letting our friends and family know whether they should go there as well. So, he decided to make our first one, our favorite place.


King Kone is located on Ford Rd. just east of Merriman Rd. We used to live across the street from it when we were in our apartment and would go there all the time in the summer! They have very inexpensive prices and creative ice cream concoctions. They sell these frozen cups of mixed up milkshakes and flurries that people order and they mix wrong. They are called Mystery Bars, are super cheap and fun since you never know what will be inside!



On this trip, Alex got a double scoop of Superman ice cream. This stuff is so nasty, it tastes like a nutty fruit mess. I am assuming that kids like it because it is blue and it is ice cream and it is called superman and those are the only reasons, cause it tastes terrible!!


I got a single scoop of one of my all time favorites ,Mint Chocolate Chip. Yum!!


Jacob does not like cones because they are "too crunchy". So he ordered a Sundae. Unfortunately I cannot remember which kind, but they have at least 10 varieties, so it is easy to get them mixed up!

Carl was not feeling the need for some deliciousness that evening, so he passed and was once again the photographer of our journey. I did get a shot of him this time, but it was a pretty silly one and I think I may get in a bit of trouble of I post it, so needless to say, he was there and having a fun time too! So, there is our trip to King Kone. I love them because they have hand-dipped ice cream. That is always such a nice change from all the soft-serve sameness!

This is just a bonus photo from another of our drives. It should speak for itself.