Belachew Reunion 2010

The purpose of our trip to Michigan was to reunite Belachew and Geremu again. It has been a year since they last saw each other... As they have done in the past they greeted each other with hugs that turned into wrestling. It was so good to see them together again.

We also got a chance to meet Belachew's cute brother Hudson.

The boys all seemed to enjoy each others company and got along so well.

They stayed up late at night and got up early in the morning.

They were truly on "vacation time".

Here they are all ready to head down to the beach.

I loved the random hand holding, there were several times while we were together that I'd look up and the kids were holding each others hands. This happened between them all.

They all LOVED racing down the dunes.

The boys stayed busy exploring and "looking for treasures".

Did you know "X marks the spot"? Wild rides were provided by Nick. The 3 older boys would ride Nick around and try to stay on him while he bucked around. It was very entertaining to watch. When one boy would fall off they would chase the group around trying to get back on. I'm pretty sure all the boys had smiles on their face most of the time...

The kids sure did enjoy running along the beach...

One of the afternoons the adults were talking and we noticed that Geremu and Belachew were not near us. Paul stood up to see where they went and he told me I had to check it out...

As I walked closer to the boys I could hear Geremu singing "God Bless my Underwear" and Belachew laughing. It was so cute to see the two of them enjoying each others company.

A little while later I glanced up and saw them helping each other up the sand dune.

The weather was wonderful and the boys did an excellent job of entertaining each other.

It was hard to see the Belachew and Geremu say their good-byes as it has always been. They will have excellent memories of their time spent together, hopefully so much time doesn't pass between visits.

On our way home we got stuck on the SS Badger for most of the day. A piston had to be replaced and it delayed us for quite some time. They kept predicting another half hour then adding time on. The boys enjoyed the extra time on the boat and got to watch more than one movie on our trip home.

SS Badger= Big Ship, Big Fun

We got up early Sunday morning so that we could catch the SS Badger (car ferry), we were headed over to Michigan to catch up with some good friends.

Here Cullen and Nick are boarding the boat.

We all really enjoyed the 4 hour ride across the lake. We went to the movie theater to watch some movies, played a little BINGO, spent some time in the toy room and arcade as well as ate on board.

I did learn an important lesson while on board. I was up on the deck of the boat, my boys had just left to go to the bathroom. I sat up and the next thing I see is something fly in the air that seemed to come from where I was sitting. I suddenly realize that it is the money that was in my pocket. Instinct kicks in and I jump up to chase it down. I stepped on the money, bent over and pocket it only to realize that more money is flying around. I also realize about this time that everyone on the deck of the ship is watching me. I continued to chase the money down, apparently it came out in 3 chunks. I could go on and describe how at one point I slipped in my flip flops but luckily my cat-like reflexes kicked in, etc... My point is this, if you ever see this happening to someone (and you are one of over 50 people standing/sitting around watching) perhaps, if the money comes your way you could step on it. Seriously, throw a person a bone once in awhile (in their defense most of the people where pretty old). I did however receive lots of applause when the freak show was over. When Nick came back I informed him he missed the show... He just looked at me and shook his head. I think he would have been proud of my speed and agility.

Not only was the ship BIG FUN but it turns out Michigan is BIG FUN too!

I've got lots of pictures to blog... I'll post them tomorrow!

Tattoo Mike's Wedding

I have a good friend named Katherine I have known since she was little, I use to babysit her (I'm getting old). After I had Cullen she babysat for me, she went to school close to where we now live. Katherine also stayed with us for a bit while she student taught in the district both Nick and I teach.

My boys have both known her friend/boyfriend and now husband Mike, affectionately referred to as Tattoo Mike by my kids. Mike took Cullen to swimming lessons once when he was watching him. One thing lead to another and the next thing I know my 3 year old, Cullen, really wants a tattoo just like "tattoo Mike's". This past weekend Tattoo Mike and Kat got hitched.

Here the crew/family is headed out on Thursday night... Here Katherine is with her wedding party the morning of the big day...

And here I am with the beautiful bride.
It was so fun seeing neighborhood friends/families that I hadn't seen since I was young.

It was also good to see some of our friends that we have become good friends with because of Katherine.

Sand Castles

We headed to my hometown for a few days last week. While we were there we attended a sand castle festival. The work was really very amazing. So amazing it was hard for Geremu to keep his hands off of the sculptures. So after checking out all the sand creations we headed over to play some games.

The sticky wall was a favorite of Geremu's.

Slow Motion

Geremu has this thing where he likes to be first... I'm not sure where he gets that:) So as we were biking he decided to turn around to locate Nick and Cullen. You know, to make sure he was still ahead of them or something. Anyways, when he turned around he started to veer off the road. This is when my life started to move in slow motion. I yell frantically at him, "WATCH WHERE YOU ARE GOING!" As he nails a mailbox with his head and gets stripped off of the bike that continued to ghost ride on through the mailbox owner's flowers. I'm not kidding when I say I never knew a neck/back could bend that far back.

I slam on my brakes and drop my bike in the middle of the road and rushed over to him. Geremu gets up, shakes his head a few times, yells a bit at the mailbox and proceeds on to get his bike. He did not get hurt at all, I can't confirm that the mailbox and flowers had the same outcome. Geremu was wearing his helmet and his head was turned sideways at the time because he was looking back. We (by this time Nick and Cullen had caught up to us) did not let him get back on his bike until he went up to the house and knocked on the door to let them know their mailbox may or may not have been damaged by our kids bike helmet. What are the chances that the mailbox never closed before Geremu hit it?

Summer Update

I can't believe how fast the summer is going. This past week has been a relaxing week with the family and some school prep. It won't be long now until we are back at school, so I'd best be prepared. We have two last trips planned before we are calling it quits for the summer- stay tuned in to catch up on the fun:)

The boys are enjoying a night outside in the tent without Mama. I'm thinking I'll be joined at some point by my child that doesn't sleep through the night... So I've got that to look forward to.

Cullen has hives on his face and chest so he is looking really sweet. We are not sure what caused it but have a suspicion (he was in a pool shortly after it was shocked.) We have given him Benadryl, a shower with "gentle soap" as well as a baking soda bath. I'm not sure it helped at all but it doesn't seem to have gotten worse.

I'll try to post some pictures from this past week tomorrow.

A Great Effort

Saturday morning we had to go and pick up our triathlon race packets for Sundays race. I knew there was a kids triathlon but I hadn't really mentioned it to the kids. I put stuff in the car for them with the thought that if they wanted to do it we would be prepared. I was pretty sure Geremu would want to do it since every time we finish a race he usually ends up mad at us because "You no let me do it". I wasn't really sure what to expect from Cullen.

As soon as I mentioned the triathlon to the boys Geremu said he wanted to do it. Cullen on the other hand was a little hesitant. He told us he was afraid of the bike, he doesn't really like biking around other kids. Honestly I don't blame him, every time he gets on his bike his brother tries to play chicken with him. We really didn't want to push it, I was afraid that if I talked him into doing it and he hated it that he would never want to do anything like it again. So Geremu decided to go for it while Cullen decided to cheer his brother on.

Here Geremu is before the race. We spent a bit of time explaining to him what he had to do so he knew what to do.

Here is a shot of Geremu getting pumped up for his race... As you can see he could hardly wait for the show to get started:)

He started with the swim, the water wasn't too deep and he pretty much just followed the lead of the other kids.We were able to stay with Geremu and help him through the transitions. Once Geremu was out of the water we got his shoes, shirt and bike helmet on him and headed out for the bike. Geremu loves to bike so off he went...

He finished up with the run. As he was coming into the finish line the announcer said, "Put your hands in the air for Geremu". Geremu came to a dead stop (before the finish line) and put his hands up in the air- I wish Nick would have gotten a picture of it, it was pretty funny.

Cullen greeted Geremu at the finish and said to him, "You should be so proud of yourself Geremu!" It was so stinkin' cute, Cullen was SO proud of Geremu. I just love the below picture, Geremu totally looks up to Cullen and Cullen couldn't be more proud to have a brother like Geremu.After Cullen saw how spread out the kids were during the bike portion Cullen has decided that he will continue to practice biking and next year he wants to try the race.

We were just headed over to grab our race packets for the following day when we heard Geremu's name being announced. So we headed over to where everyone was gathered...

Only to find out that our little guy had taken 2nd place. He totally did not understand what was going on when they made him come up for his award and get his picture taken. But after we got away from the crowd and Cullen kept on "graduating" Geremu (Cullen thinks congratulations and graduation is the same thing- that's a whole other story) Geremu started to smile about it all. I could not be more proud of my two boys. Seriously, how did we get so lucky to call Cullen and Geremu our own?

Triathlon

Sunday morning we got up early, REALLY early, in the pouring rain, thunder and lightning to complete in a triathlon. It was the same group as last year (Erica, Curt and Patrick), as well as, a newcomer (Callan).

It was done thundering and lighting by the time we arrived to the park. It was still raining and 62 degrees when we were waiting for our waves to take off (I was shivering), but we could see blue sky across the lake. By the time I had gotten out of the water on the swim portion the sky was no longer black and cloudy but had turned blue.

I was able to snap a few pictures of some of our group members finishing up their run.

Here Callan is just a block or two from the finish. Here Erica is finishing-up her run. Patrick look pretty darn good rounding one of the last corners.

Nick and I stuck together for the bike and run portion, we were in different waves so we started the swim 2 minutes apart from each other. We had a lot of fun and continue to enjoying doing this type of thing together.

Erica's mother, Beth, came to our house early in the morning. When the boys woke up she got them ready before coming out to watch us all finish up. The boys were happy to see her again.
After all the mornings fun we came back to our house for lunch and to enjoy some time together.

Amanda's Wedding

We enjoyed a jam packed weekend, one of the highlights of the weekend was Amanda's wedding. Amanda has been babysitting our boys for some time now and the boys LOVE her. The boys got to the wedding and waited to see Amanda. They had a good time pointing out people to us that they knew and we didn't, "See, there is Amanda's Grandma!". When Amanda came into the church Cullen informed me that, "She looks just like a princes, look at all the jewels on her dress!" The wedding was so nice and Amanda did look beautiful.

Amanda's wedding had a photo booth and if Geremu had it his way he would have stayed in there all night:). Below the boys are showing Amanda the pictures of them from the photo booth.

When the dancing started that is pretty much all Geremu did...

The flower girl was Amanda's cousin, Geremu and Cullen know her through Amanda. It was pretty obvious that both of my boys were happy to see her again. Geremu was happy to have another dancing partner besides Cullen.

Cullen preferred to dance with Amanda...

Honestly, Cullen can't get enough of Amanda, he just "wanted to spend some time with her". We had to explain that it was Amanda's special day and that she needed to spend time with everyone at the wedding. Amanda was/is so sweet to the boys, she kept telling me Cullen was fine and not to worry. Even when I would take Cullen away from Amanda, she seemed to be on his radar all night- LOL.

Geremu enjoyed working the dance floor. If he wasn't dancing with the flower girl or Cullen he preferred to dance by himself. I have to say he did pull out some pretty good moves.

We knew it was time to get going when Geremu stopped dancing and sat on the side of the dance floor watching the action, with this look on his face... He was asleep before we even pulled out of the parking lot at the wedding.

It won't be too long until Amanda is back with the boys on weekdays, and they are really looking forward to it. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if Cullen requested that Amanda come to our house in "her princess dress".

Missing Up North

Well slept in our beds at home one night and in the morning Cullen told me, "I miss up north". Can't say I blame the kid it was a BLAST! After my family left my Uncle Tom and his kids came up and we hung out. I also got to spend a little time with my Aunt Janet and her family. I'm a little on the tired side today, I'll blog about our weekend tomorrow, it was FUN to say the least. So for tonight I'll leave you with some pictures of our time up north...