Trip to Michigan during the end of May

The last weekend of May we took a trip to Michigan to visit Joe's sister and her family and to visit Joe's brother Daniel and his girlfriend/fiance Ruth. We always enjoy going up to visit "the cousins" as Jase says.

The kids love to make posters/banners, so here they are making one to welcome Uncle Dan and Ruth. From left to right goes Meghan, Carys, Jase, Lena, Lilly, Caleb, and in the back is Aunt Lana and Ian.


Aunt Carol and Uncle Nate catching a nap...


Meghan with her cheese face (and she's eating something which makes it all the better).


The kids on the trampoline (it was just set up after being stored for the winter).


The next 3 pics are Meghan showing her attitude (I'm not sure what we'll do with her when she is a teenager - maybe send her to an all girl's boarding school?)






Mom and Dad Holdaway are at the table, everyone else is around...


Phase 10...


Phase 10 continued...


Joe and Dan playing roller hockey.


Jase really loved this lizard decoration...


Ian is a crazy crawling machine.


Who likes to eat grass...


Jase really does love this little guy - he's asked us when we are having a baby boy...we tell him we think we are done having babies and he tells us he is going to have 10 babies (I hope he lets his future wife know this!).


Uncle Dan and Ruth (with Lena and Caleb)


Another one of Uncle and Ruth


Meghan also really loved climbing in the exersaucer (maybe it was to eat the puffs)...

Swimming

Jase and Meghan took swim lessons last fall at the YMCA. By the end Meghan could keep herself afloat without any help from people or flotation devices. Jase liked the water, but wasn't able to keep himself afloat. Since we haven't been swimming since, both kids were somewhat cautious of the pool at the hotel.

A monster collage of pool pics (between our 2 families we had the pool filled - 4 adults, 7 kids):


I loved this action shot of Joe and the kids being splashed by one of the kids (I think this was Carys...)


Meghan when she got too cold swimming - I was getting her to say different words to get different faces - cheese is a smile and eyes shut, one of them is monkey, cookie, and dinosaur...


Maybe the next time we go to a pool, Meghan won't get ringworm...

Williamsport Falls and Potholes nature area (Falls Creek Gorge)

The last update post from a while ago...

Memorial Day weekend we decided to be outdoors and visit some of good ole Indiana.

First we went to Williamsport Falls.


We saw (and almost stepped on) a baby snapping turtle. It was a little bigger than a quarter, but smaller than a 50 cent piece. I remember growing up and seeing the baby turtles dig there way out of the sand and dirt along the river bank by my parent's house.


Then we found this skull - I'm thinking it is probably from a raccoon or opossum (the right size, not sure what kind of teeth an opossum has though).


There are a couple trails leading down to the waterfall. We took the second, which was dirt and had tree roots, and was totally doable for 2 adults and 2 kids (each adult had a kid).


Jase really wants to go behind the waterfall.


Joe and Jase walk behind the waterfall.




Joe and Jase climb down this big boulder


Then we climb up to a cave area - Joe and the kids


Heather and the kids


From the cave we see a trail leading up. We figure that this is the first trail down and we are already 1/3 of the way back up, so we go for it. Big mistake. We go up a little further on the trail and we meet about a 10 foot rock climb up. I am not a rock climber by any means, but Joe and Jase loved it. Meghan hated it, and I told Joe to never say I haven't rock climbed with him. We made it and we know we'll go back, we'll just stick to the second trail down, not the first!

Then we headed to the Potholes Nature area (Falls Creek Gorge). This was great. We were there early enough that we were the only people there, but it was still warm enough to get in the water. We stuck to the smaller creek with the little potholes (only 1-2 feet deep), instead of the main creek where they are 3-5 feet deep.


Joe and Meghan in a pothole


Jase playing in the shallow current


Meghan playing in the water. Do you see Jase in the background with his shirt on and mostly dry?


Now he is all wet! He walked into a pothole and got sucked in and under. It was only about 1.5 feet deep, but the current was really strong and thankfully Joe was right there to grab him. At first he started to cry (probably because the water was really cold), and then he started to laugh hysterically and wanted to do it again.


Meghan playing in the water - she loved it!




Joe holding Jase in the larger creek current


I really like this picture of Joe and the kidlets


This chute of water was a lot of fun for the kids too


We will definitely be going back here a couple more times this summer. Anybody want to join us?

Why me?

As I'm sitting here writing this blog post, Joe is trying to get the kids to bed. Jase is screaming for his juice (he is overly tired from the trip and having a cold or allergies, I'm not really sure). I'm sick with a horrible head cold and upper respiratory virus. So now where to start...

I've been wanting to blog for the last couple weeks, but it just seems like one thing after another keeps happening. For instance 2 weekends ago we were cleaning the church building and Meghan found a bottle of hand sanitizer on the bottom shelf of the pulpit and had it in it her mouth, on her shirt, and on her face. Off to the ER we went since we had no idea how much she had ingested. After 3 sticks to draw her blood, the blood alcohol test came back close to 0, so she ate very little, but she definitely had it in her mouth by the way she was pulling at her tongue...

Jase started out with what I thought was allergies a couple weeks ago (itchy nose and eyes, sneezing, nasal drainage), but allergy meds aren't helping at all now, so I think it may have changed to a head cold.

Then last Thursday my throat got a little sore. We headed up to Chicago Friday afternoon to meet Joe's sister and her family at a hotel and to swap babysitting while each couple went to the temple (pool pics in another post). I felt progressively worse after a night of sleep in the hotel room's king bed (all four of us in it after Jase fell off the pull out at 11:30p, and nonstop tossing and turning by the kids, along with the accompanied knees and elbows in the side and back).

Now I feel like I'm hacking up a lung every 10-15 minutes, can't breathe through my nose, and wish I didn't have to do anything (but alas today was Father's day, so I wanted to make Joe feel special and have some good food for us adults, since the kids just want mac 'n cheese and hotdogs anyway).

The kids have fought nonstop today - they just can't play together AT.ALL today, so it has been one VERY.LONG.DAY.

And Joe isn't feeling greatest either, as of Saturday night.

Oh, and did I mention that Meghan picked up ringworm from the hotel pool area.


Yeah, my life is sooo not cool right now - anybody want to switch?

Baby Ian

I just love this little guy so much!

We all do actually.

Jase likes the baby and the fact that he can't move to much yet and take his toys away.

Meghan like him because he is almost as big as she is, but again can't move much (and she likes to try and sit on him).

Joe likes to carry him around.

I just love that he is my nephew.


Until now I have been fine and content with not planning on having anymore kids of our own. Friends have kids and they are cute and all, but I still didn't want more. But now this little super chunk comes along and has stolen my heart.

I think maybe I want another one...

But not for another couple years.

Fall Break, part 4

Monday we headed to Heather's Gramma's house for the day and night. Thankfully it was just 2.5 hours in the car and we didn't have to stop at all.

Meghan loves Great-Gramma's doggies, Molly and Muffin. Meghan also liked playing with Heather's cousin Logan (I think he's going for a Beatle's look).


Before our trip Jase said that he wanted to paint with Gramma, so she had everything all ready for Jase to paint a dinosaur. Boy did he have fun!

Now Jase's dinosaur is hanging in the his bedroom.

Jase, Gramma, and Jase's second-cousin Lucy.

Jase and Meghan riding the "pretty pony"

Heather's Gramma relaxing (and not liking me for taking her picture)...

Our Labor Day

Finally I'm getting a chance to blog about our Labor Day weekend trip to MI to see some family and meet our new nephew, Ian. Ian is an adorable baby and was already 5 weeks old when we saw him. I loved holding him (when Meghan would let me) and smelling that new baby smell. Here is a photo of the little guy:

Jase loves his cousins and asks to visit them constantly. So, it was a long car ride up and leaving is always somewhat tortuous for him. While we were there he held baby Ian, fell down some stairs (thankfully it was only the last 4 stairs and everything was carpeted), got dressed up as a gangsta, fought constantly with his cousin Katelynn who is also three years old, played outside on the playset, tree house, and trampoline, played Frisbee, baseball, and stayed up way to late (he was the last kid to fall asleep each night).

Meghan also loves her cousins, but easily gets overwhelmed with all the attention and love she receives. Here she is with her cousins, Lilly and Lena.
Meghan loves to play and crawl in the grass. She loves to eat it too. I love this series of photos as it reminds me of a wild cat stalking it's prey. Here, Meghan was the cat and the Frisbee was the ever elusive prey...