Halloween 2009!

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Oh, wait, did you say it's Thanksgiving in a week? Woops, I guess I'm a bit behind....

ANYWAY, we had a great Halloween three weeks ago. :) The above picture is the only family picture we got, and one of the only pictures I got of Benjamin in the two nights that we dressed up. (And he didn't really like being picked up like that - I guess it wasn't respectable for a police officer to be picked up by his mom...) But luckily my friend Melody snapped these two pictures for me at the ward Trunk-or-Treat party on the 30th. Ben was a policeman, Eliza was Little Red Riding Hood, I was a witch, and Jed was.... a doctor. Or we can pretend that was his costume. He came straight from work. :) This will be the closest he comes to ever dressing up, so we'll take what we can get. :) My awesome witch's hat came from a Halloween package my mom sent us. And the cool black cape came from my mother-in-law who sewed it just to complete my witch's costume. So, thank you so much you two!!! :)

Here is Benjamin with a few friends, pausing long enough for a quick picture. He was a policeman riding a motorcycle. He had a cute "POLICE" sign on the back of his shirt too. He had a lot of fun zooming around on his motorcycle.

Eliza was an adorable Little Red Riding Hood. She had a cute little red cape with a checkered red&white skirt and white tights. The red shoes and red bow finished it off just right. She was a cutie. Here she is in the car on the way home from the Trunk-or-Treat party. She had a BLAST devouring candy after candy...

Jed and Benjamin drove home in Jed's car, and we both got stopped in front of a train for 20 or so minutes. We sat next to each other, me in one lane and Jed in the other, and we talked to each other through the windows. (Or at least Jed and I talked to each other and the kids, while they opened and ate candy as fast as they could.) It was fun! :)

The night before we had a family activity of decorating sugar cookies. This is the only picture that worked out. But Ben was enjoying himself too... in all the other fuzzy pictures he is holding a half eaten cookie and has crumbs all around his smile. :)

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Here we are on Halloween Night at our friends house after the trick-or-treating. Ben is not in the pictures because he was in the basement running around with all the other kids. :)

Eliza was so funny while we were trick-or-treating. She couldn't keep up that well, so we held her between houses and let her walk up the driveways herself. She didn't mind being held, but she DID mind if anyone so much as touched her candy basket! When I held her, I kept thinking that candy basket must be too heavy, so I would just support the bottom of it with my hand. Oh no, she would feel the difference and would quickly spot my hand touching her basket. She would tell me in no uncertain terms that it was HER candy and no touching! It was hilarious how protective she was! She wanted to carry it all by herself. :)

Benjamin had a great time walking from house to house. He was ENTHRALLED by some of the moving Halloween decorations. I had to wait for him patiently at many houses because he just couldn't tear himself away. On a few houses, he walked right past the candy to go up close to the decorations. When he did that once, he didn't realize until we were walking on to the next house that he hadn't got any candy at the last one. He was really worried at first that he might miss out on that candy! Such a funny guy!

Fall Activities

We went to the Henry Ford 'Greenfield Village' on October 21, on one of the last nice days of the year. It was so fun! This place is a blast. It's a restored village covering 90 acres that is set in early American times. We rode in a Model T car (above), got a train ride (below), went around on the carousel, walked along the streets and had lunch on a picnic table.

Here we are on the real steam locomotive train that goes around the entire village.

I love how Ben looks so GQ in this picture. :)

Here are the girlfriends that I went with. We all smashed together on one row of the train. It's more fun that way. :)

Eliza is saying "HI!"' to the horses just beyond the gate. She loves animals.

Little cutie.

The next evening we went as a family to the annual

AUTUMN FAMILY PARTY for the residents/med students, held at a local farm. Hay rides, pizza party, real pigs and goats... It can't get better than that, especially with my hubby with me!

The kids got rides in these little cows, pulled by a tractor in the front. Benjamin loved it, and Eliza would have if she wasn't so bundled up. She could hardly move around, so it was hard for her to enjoy the experience whilst falling off the seat and slumping to the floor...

Luckily, she got a second chance at enjoying the ride by sitting on Daddy's lap instead of Benjamin's. :)

Benjamin thought he was the luckiest guy ever to get to ride it a second time.

Don't ask me how Jed managed to smash himself into that little cow. What a great Daddy he is!

A visit from Grandma and Grandpa

Ryan and Michel came to visit us for a few days in mid October. It was SO FUN to spend time together! They were our first visitors in over a year, and we were pretty excited to have them.
We carved pumpkins together on Saturday afternoon. I promise we were enjoying ourselves - I think I just forgot the prompt SAY CHEESE! when I took the above picture! =) It was funny how it turned out to be just me and Jed carving pumpkins, with Benjamin nowhere to be found. :) Benjamin really wanted the artsy kind of jack-o-lanterns from the carving booklet, so he chose the spider for him and Daddy to carve and wanted me to carve the witch stirring her bubbly cauldron.

They took longer than just a spooky face, and he was long gone, playing elsewhere, before we had really even made headway on our jack-o-lanterns. It was pretty funny. Michel and Ryan stuck it out with us, though. :) Actually, I really like carving pumpkins, and it was fun! :)


Michel spoiled us and bought some fun toys for the kids. This pink baby doll stroller for Eliza was definitely a hit. She loves it. We found her like this one afternoon - her baby is laying on the blanket next to the stroller, and she is reading a book to her. She was so cute all settled in her doll stroller with a book.

Canoe Trip

Jed, Benjamin and I got to go on a canoe trip down the Huron River! A man in our area lives on the Huron River and let us borrow his canoe. We strapped it on to the top of Jed's Honda and drove it up river only about 5 minutes. Then we floated down the river and fished as we paddled. Surprisingly, it took us 2 hours to get back to his backyard. The river goes back and forth in multiple tight S curves.
Jed had bought Benjamin a brand new fishing pole the month before and was excited to use it with him. It just happened to be a really nice day on the 20th of October, amid many chilly days. The trees along the river were so pretty with all the autumn colors. It was perfect timing. Jed was able to get an afternoon off, and we had a very fun outing together!

news news news!

Well, we have news to officially share!

We're expecting a baby in March! We are really excited to add a new little addition to our family. I'm 20 weeks along, so, we already know the gender...

Keep in mind that out of ten grandchildren, Eliza is the only girl in the family. So, in keeping with that masculine tradition, we will be having a

BOY!!

Now we can say that out of 11 grandkids, ten of them are boys in our family. So crazy!

When the ultrasound technician told Jed and I that it was a boy, I was SHOCKED. I just couldn't believe it! Which means, that out of our three kids my 'motherly intuition' has been wrong every single time. Sheesh! But of course we are both so excited about another boy!

When I went to pick up the kids from my friend's house after the ultrasound, Ben immediately asked me, "So, Mom, what is it?" I asked him what he thought it would be and he promptly (and predictably) answered, "A boy!" I told him, "Yes, it's a boy! You're right!" He was very excited and pleased about that! He has been firm about thinking it was a boy all along. Next time I will rely on his opinion instead of my own gut feeling. :)

Toledo Zoo fun!

I planned a zoo trip with some friends on October 1st. Jed and I bought a pass to the Toledo Zoo in May and then we never went back! So I decided I had to try to get my money's worth out of it, and I was glad that three friends wanted to come along with me. It was such a blast! I really love this zoo. It started out as a pretty cold day, but by noon time is was beautiful! We had a GREAT time.

In the picture above we were on the train ride, seeing the Savannah animals. Isn't that a funny face Benjamin is pulling? It makes me laugh every time I see it. He is so weird! Reminds me of his Daddy. :)

And this is just a random picture I took the other day. I thought it was cute how they were both reading books, side by side. Benjamin has always liked doing this, and it's not uncommon for me to discover him looking at books. Apparently Eliza is watching and learning!

Detroit River boat ride and flying kites

We went on a boat ride down the Detroit River a few weekends ago, in September. It was fun to see the American side of the river and the neighborhoods on the Canada side of the river. Some of the houses on the islands in the middle of the river are huge!

There are my two cute boys!

Ben kept asking me all morning if it was a REAL boat we were going on. After telling him ten times that it WAS really and truly a REAL boat, I finally understood that he was confused where the water was that this real boat was going to be floating in. :)

Jed had a Saturday morning off work and left the house mid-morning to go run some errands. But before I knew it, Ben and Jed were outside flying a kite in the air instead! Apparently, Jed got sidetracked with the windy day and decided it was perfect kite weather. He is such a fun guy!

Unfortunately, we didn't get to stay out long. It got progressively colder and more overcast until we had to run into the garage to get out of the rain.

Eliza had fun just watching from her wagon, where she was all bundled up.

We can't wait to pull out the kites again. This week is promising to be nicer weather, so we'll see!

September in a nutshell

September has been a fun month! Let's see...

- Watching BYU football games every weekend has been a major highlight of our month. Jed and I are huge fans and look forward to BYU football all year. We get together with other friends here in Michigan and watch it in groups. We usually are able to put Eliza to bed in a pack-n-play, and Benjamin just gets to stay up WAAAAY late on Saturday nights. :)

- Jed has been able to play city league softball on Wednesday nights this month with guys from the ward. That has been a fun thing for him to look forward to and for me and the kids to go and watch. He's always really busy with his residency, so this is a great activity for him.

- Jed and I went raspberry picking this month as a date. It was so fun! We picked four quarts of raspberries and it took us a mere 35-40 minutes. It was really fun! (Last month we took the family blueberry picking and that was a blast too. I love the U-Pick farms in Michigan.)

- I enjoyed a marathon morning of Mom2Mom-sales one Saturday. We had three Mom2Mom sales in the area, all on the same morning. I had a blast shopping for the kids.

(That's an understatement, by the way. But if I were to admit that shopping at these sales is so THRILLING and EXCITING that I think about the Mom2Mom season all summer long, dream about it and plan for it, and when I come home I make my husband look at, admire and discuss

every purchase with me, and then I describe in detail to my mother and sisters all about what I bought and how much I paid...... you would

probably think I was utterly NUTS. So I'll just leave it as "it was a blast.")

As an FYI, Mom2Mom sales are like garage sales but JUST of kids stuff, all under the same roof. And the clothes and toys are in pristine condition for really inexpensive prices. They only have sales in the spring and the fall.

(For example, in the picture I bought all those clothes (many of them are from The Children's Place and the Gap) for a total of $15 at one of the sales. I took this pic for my mom. See - I'm crazy about it!)

- We went on a boat ride on the Detroit River as a family. That was fun. I'll post some pictures soon.

- Jed finished Benjamin's sandbox. He filled it with sand, he and Ben resurrected all our sand toys, and then they played in it for a long time together. Benjamin and especially Eliza LOVE THIS SANDBOX.

Benjamin and Eliza are getting a ride in the wagon! Jed has taken them for a few long rides around the neighborhood in their wagon. What a good daddy!

Mackinac Island

For our 6 year anniversary, Jed and I went on a trip to Mackinac Island, an island in Lake Huron between Michigan's upper and lower peninsulas. It is a quaint and beautiful little island, where no motorized vehicles are allowed and the streets are dedicated to horse drawn carriages and bicyclists. We left our kids in the care of our friends, Ben & Jen, and soon they will go on a trip and we will take care of their kids. Great trade, huh?

We stayed in a little bed & breakfast type of place called The Inn on Mackinac. Isn't it the cutest building? Of all the beautiful little turreted and balconied hotels lining the streets, I thought ours was the cutest. :)

We took a ferry from the mainland to the island, and brought our bikes along. One of the first things we did was bike the 8 mile trail around the island. We took a break to sit on the beach and skip rocks. Even though the water was cold, Jed talked me into wading in with him. The water was crystal clear, so we spotted a big rock up ahead that we made our goal. Well, while we were picking our way to the rock, Jed saw a crawdad and we watched it for a moment. Suddenly I realized that the waves were reaching my rolled up pants and they were

already soaked by a couple inches! In

a panic, I raced for the rock to try to get onto higher ground, but I overshot it and went even farther than our rock. My pants were definitely

drenched by now, and as I was freaking out in my effort to get BACK to the rock, I nearly fell down in the water! Luckily I staid aright, but my pants were totally wet. (and the last half of the bike ride was about a million times harder than the first half, because of my sticky wet pants clinging to my knees!) What an oaf! Jed was dying laughing at my shocked expressions as I kept going in deeper and deeper!

We took another stop on our bike ride to hike up to Arch Rock, a geological phenomenon where the rock eroded away leaving a natural limestone arch.

After our bike ride we played some putting golf on the beautiful grounds of the Island Resort. That was very fun! Jed beat me on the first 9 holes and we tied on the last 9 holes. One time I got very close to getting a hole in one and some people walking along the boulevard near us started clapping. :) We didn't realize we were being watched by passers-by. Later another friendly couple asked us who won at the golf course because they said they had been watching too. I wish I had really whooped him!

The next morning we went to the Butterfly House, a fun indoor conservatory where they have over 800 butterflies fluttering around. They gave us an identifying chart with little squares to cross off once we spot that type of butterfly. Jed and I had such a fun time trying to identify the different butterflies and crossing them off our chart. I loved it, and Jed got into it too because he loves me so much. :)

One of the best parts of our stay on Mackinac was when we snuck onto the grounds of the Grand Hotel. :) Yes, we were trespassers. You have to pay $10 to get past the front entryway, even to walk on the carriage road beside it. This is a famous hotel, and they don't want tourists descending on their patrons all over the grounds, which is understandable. BUT, as Jed and I were biking up the road to see the Grand Hotel, we saw a little forest bike path leading off the road. We took it for fun and wandered through some pretty ferned and cultivated forested area. We came to a bike rack, so we parked our bike and followed a walkway that led right through the fence and into the grounds. We passed people at the entrance but no one stopped us. We walked right onto the grounds and, to our great pleasure, we discovered that they had games of bocci ball and croquet set out for their patrons to use. No one was playing, so we started playing bocci ball. Some friendly Grand Hotelers came and chatted and took our picture for us. Others appeared and sat on the benches. We started playing croquet after our bocci ball game ended, and by the time we were done lots of people were playing bocci ball and hanging out at the benches. I think we must be trend setters. :) Little did anyone know that we actually weren't rich patrons of the Grand Hotel. :)

Jed was about to jump into their fountains, but luckily thought better of it. :)

By the way, the Grand Hotel is famous because (other than the fact that it is huge, old, has beautiful grounds, and has a golf course and other resort-type amenities) it was the filming location for the movie A Moment In Time with Christopher Reeves and Jane Seymour. The whole island is obsessed with the movie (in a quaint, funny way) and the movie plays over and over on its own dedicated channel at most of the hotels. :) (With that being said, may I warn you, I thought the movie was a bit slow. I watched it when I first moved to Michigan because, after all, it is Mackinac Island's claim to fame, but I was't that impressed by the end of it.)

After our games on the lawns we walked up the staircase to the hotel itself and wandered to the front of the hotel and looked around in the floral shop (where they make all the fresh floral arrangements for the hotel) and the golf club house. When we were ready to go back to our bikes, we tried to go the way we came and the 'guards' stopped us, saying we had to pay $10 if we wanted to go any further. Hmmmm.... So, we turned around, walked down the hill and turned at the forest path and retrieved our bikes. We laughed about how we should go back across the lawns and up the staircase and past the 'guards' as we were walking OUT of the grounds, and say, "Goodbye!" :)

We stopped at a bench in the woods to eat our lunch before we headed back to the wharf and boarded our ferry off the island. (What a handsome guy with such a studly bike!)

We drove to Bellaire, a town near the tourist center, Traverse City. We stayed at the Shanty Creek Resort, where we are friends with one of the managers there, and stayed in The Kings Court room for a great discount! :)

When we were driving to Bellaire Lake and nearby Torch Lake, our GPS was taking us for some wild rides! We were going on deserted dirt roads that wound through the thick forest, and we even had to skirt a fallen tree at one point! I made Jed stop the car and take a picture of me on our adventurous travels through the woods!

The next morning we were scheduled to play in a golf tournament with our friend on the resort's nice course, but we got rained out. Instead we went to an Arts Festival on the shore of Torch Lake. This lake was rated as the third most beautiful lake in the world, according to National Geographic. (I'm standing in front of it in the picture above.) The Arts Festival was SO FUN! Again, Jed enjoyed it with me because he loves me so much. :) There was jewelry, painting, woodwork, pottery, and all kinds of other creative things. We saw some amazing furniture (Jed enjoyed the wood artists the best) and I almost bought a ceramic serving bowl that was pretty cool. Anyway, I was excited that the Arts Festival just happened to be going on that day, and that they didn't cancel it even though it was drizzling all morning.

And that's our trip. We had a great time! It was nice to be together, just the two of us. Happy Anniversary, Jed! I love you! You are the best husband in the whole world!