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...

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?

Wedding trip, part 2

The long night on not sleeping the greatest was not due to uncomfortable hotel beds or anything of the such. In fact the beds and pillows were the nicest we've had at any hotel we can remember. Jase tossed and turned and Meghan wanted to nurse at will pretty much the whole night.

When we got up in the morning we had the complimentary hot breakfast at the hotel and then Meghan decided to take a nap, but only if I laid down with her. So, Jase and Joseph went to a park with all the cousins, while Meghan and I slept some more.

Then we got prepped for the wedding before our late check-out and headed to the nearby BK to let the kids play some more. Joseph decided he wanted his hair cut, so we found a place at the mall and I got Jase a couple pairs of sunglasses on clearance at The Children's Place and a really nice dress shirt at Gymboree for 65% off. When we left the mall we only had about a 5 minute drive to the chrurch, but both Meghan and Jase crashed once they were in the car. Joseph had to get ready for some pictures before the actual wedding, so I stayed in the car and let the sleeping children sleep. We ended up having to wake up the kids to get them dressed for the wedding, so we knew it would be an interesting experience.





Meghan did well during the ceremony, but Jase wouldn't be quiet, so Joseph took him out and he played. The wedding ceremony was very nice and Meghan was quite attentive to the movements and people walking around. After the ceremony the rest of the wedding picture were taken and we were able to start on appetizers at the reception. The hard part for the kids with not much of a nap was waiting 1.5 hrs after the wedding ended for the full reception and dinner to start. After we ate, we called it night and decided to head back home. We got changed into comfortable car clothes and then went and had some cake.

On the way home there was a storm that we drove through and we saw an amazing rainbow for probably about 15 minutes. At one point the rainbow became really bright and you could see the whole rainbow, from end to end. There was even a double rainbow for a short time. After driving through most of the storm, it looked like we were going to drive into the "pot of gold". The best rainbow I'd seen in quite a few years, and the first rainbow that Jase will remember seeing.

Then as we were driving into Lafayette we saw fireworks. I had forgotten that the Taste of TIppecanoe was that night and it was neat to see some fireworks pop out over the tops of the trees.

Oh, and as tired as Jase was, he didn't sleep until we were 20 minutes from home...

Memorial Day Weekend

For Memorial Day weekend we decided to go up and visit Joseph's older sister and her family in Michigan. We were able to meet Joe's sister's fiance and Joe was able to go golfing. We were also able to go and see the new Indiana Jones movie (the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) and we were all pretty disappointed with it. No where near as good as the first and third movies.

Jase loves playing with his 4 cousins, especially Caleb, the only boy (until later this summer when the 5th baby comes, which is a boy). the three girls love Meghan and Meghan is a trooper for all the being held, played with, and passed around that gets done with little babies! Here are some of the fun times we got on camera...


Jase and the riding lawn mower (this is how he acts with all powered items, ride on it, run away, run around it, jump in front of it (well not the lawn mower) now you why we are glad we have hardwood floors and only have an area rug to use the vacuum sweeper on)



All the cousins loved Meghan and loved making her smile and laugh. Jase loved playing with all the Star Wars toys with Caleb



We were able to meet Joe's youngest sister and her 2 kids and Joe's mom at Binder park zoo for a few hours. The African "safari" was really neat to see. Feeding the giraffes is always a a huge hit with Jase.

We had a great time and look forward to the upcoming wedding and seeing our family again - this time to include swimming and another zoo!