This Week...

...was a busy week. Dawson went to day camp at church everyday, Jamie went to Safety Town classes every morning (and graduated...see below), we worked a lot, to prepare for being off on vacation next week...

also, to add to the chaos of 4 of us, plus a dog and cat living in an apartment right now - we watched another dog at our apartment for a week.

At the end of the week we made it downtown to one of the best summer concerts we have seen yet.


And....when we get back from vacation in a week, part of our house will look a lot different! (*see more on other blog.)

Safety Town

Jamie is now officially a Safety Town graduate. She knows all about crossing streets, stranger danger, traffic signs, electricity, fires, bus safety and more. I guess that makes her even more ready for big girl school in just a couple weeks!

Extreme Makeover D.J.d.j. Edition

If you are interested in watching the drama unfold...We have started a seperate blog to follow our remodel process. We will try to keep it updated regularly with progress on the house. This way we can keep the cute kid pictures seperate from the technical or ugly house pictures. Enjoy!

http://djdjremodel.blogspot.com/

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All Stars

The regular baseball season is over for Dawson, but he was chosen as one of the players to represent his regular season team on an All-Star team (above). The tournament was 2 days long...3 games, and 2 weeks of practices before the tournament. Pretty hardcore, for a 6 yr old. He had a blast, and wasn't even one of the good players. (I don't know what some of those parents are feeding their 6 year olds. Some of them were amazing!) Dawson did great, better that I have seen him this year out on the field and did some really smart base running. He is super fast...maybe you should all start referring to him as 'Wheels'.

Tourney Bracket

I guess this begins early on. Nothing I can do about it, other than laugh.

He played a lot of 2nd base, and seemed to like it there a lot. He also chose #1 to wear...maybe instead of Wheels we should call him Sweet Lou?

Wheels getting ready to go.

The final championship game was under the lights at 9pm at night. (It was a LATE night for a bunch of 6-7 yr olds and the second game of the day for us!)

The fans at the final game.

Sock Check...to make sure he keeps the Brandon Inge look going.

They didn't win the last game, but runner-up isn't so bad.

Two Parks for the Price of One, Twice the Fun...

A Michigan's Adventure trip with Grandpa O, Kim, Taylor, Cassidy, Kelsey, Jack, Sarah & Emily, on a HOT HOT day...turned out to be pretty fun, and very exhausting for the kids. (They slept VERY well on the 3 hour trip home...after driving 3 hours to get there, and spending all day, having tons of fun on roller coasters & rides and playing in the water park. There was only one minor mis-hap with a mean boy in the water-park, otherwise the day was a success! Don't get me started on the story about the mean boy. I was NOT happy about it.)

No pictures from the water park, but here are some from the few hours we spent in the main park before we started to melt.

Surprisingly, Jamie LOVED her first real roller-coaster ride, and it was a pretty big one. I was shocked, and worried she wouldn't survive, but look how happy she was after it was over.

Jamie was very bummed that she wasn't tall enough for the rides that the other kids got to go on, so Grandpa and I stood in line for a while to take her on the Ferris Wheel.

Beach, Sun, Lake Michigan, Eating, Biking, Snacking, Family, Drinking, did I say eating...could any thing make for a better vacation?

The Vacationers

I think I could take sunset pictures everyday and not get bored with it.

It is only a matter of time, until it isn't cute to take pictures of sandy bums. But for now, I can.

A lot of 'soup' making happening during the week.

My favorite quote of the week from Rachel: "Uuggg what a disaster!"

No comment on the naked kids all in one pool.

Daniel chillin.

These 2 decided it would be a good idea to get married.

Grandpa taught Dawson how to sand surf.

We celebrated Josie's 1st birthday on vacation also. Happy Birthday Josie!