Michigan Trip

I realized today that it's been a couple months since I updated this blog! Oops!! Boy time sure does get away from me sometimes. Ok, all the time!! I'm going to do a few posts this week, catching us back up to the present. First up, our trip to Michigan back in August. I had originally posted this on my stamp blog, and meant to copy it over to this one but I guess I forgot!! So here we go...

We spent a week in Michigan in mid-August, which was wonderful - got to see family while enjoying cooler temps - just what we needed after the ridiculously hot summer we had here in Texas!! The main purpose for our trip was our niece Gina's wedding. Here's Courtney looking so sweet all dressed up!Immediately following the wedding we headed Up North, where we spent our week in a rental house on Lake Louise in Gaylord. The kids had so much fun playing in the sand...and swimming...Carter went out fishing for his very first time with Daddy, Grandpa & Papa!He was sooooo excited when he caught his first fish!!Of course a highlight were the evenings we sat outside around a bonfire. Is there anything better than that during a Michigan summer Up North?? Here's a family photo:Carter helped Mommy toast marshmallows and tried his first s'more! He was absolutely CRAZY about them!! (LOL - this is such a goofy photo of him!!)We went on a couple day trips from the cabin, first over to Traverse City for some of my very favorite thing, Black Cherry Ice Cream!! Yummmmm!We also went up to see the Mackinac Bridge (aka "The Big Big Bridge" as Carter calls it, after one of his Thomas stories!)Then over to Mackinac Island, where we rented bikes to ride around the island. Such a beautiful place for a bike ride!!One night we went out driving after dinner looking for elk. We found a majestic herd out in a meadow, can you see them? The zoom on my camera isn't great, but we had binoculars with us! (and clicking on the photo enlarges it, fyi!)Later we found out that the city of Gaylord maintains an elk herd of their very own! Although I prefer to see them out in the wild, this was fantastic for the kids, they got to see them right up close, and Carter even fed them some hay! They were up in the pen area for feeding time, but they also had a huge meadow they could wander out into.Grandpa celebrated his 75th birthday at the rental house, so Carter and I made him some cupcakes.Courtney couldn't believe I let her try some! :-)Our final full day in Michigan was my birthday, and we spent it at my parents' home down in Clio. The kids LOVE it there - so much space to run around in, animals to see, tomatoes to eat right off the vine...! My dad has an AMAZING garden - here's Carter sitting on the crazy-huge pumpkin Dad had growing...!!Here's my parents, or Grammy and Papa as they are known.Courtney enjoyed smelling the flowers. Although if you look closely, she is actually trying to EAT these cosmos...!There isn't much Carter likes better than a birthday, because he knows birthdays and cake go hand in hand! He sat ready to begin dinner before dinner was ready...! But for my birthday, my own Gramma made me a YUMMY berry cobbler. Carter wasn't thrilled, but then he realized there was ice cream... :-)All in all, a fabulous trip! When we left Gaylord Saturday at lunchtime, the car said it was 57 degrees outside. When we landed in Austin on Sunday at lunchtime, the car said it was 97. Back to the land of the scorching temps... we miss you Michigan!!

A Day at the Museum

During our weekly library visit a few days ago, Carter surprised me by picking out a National Geographic documentary about a couple of paleontologists excavating dinosaur bones in Mongolia. I assumed once he realized it wasn't a cartoon about dinosaurs, he'd lose interest and turn it off. But much to my surprise he sat and watched the entire thing! (while mommy struggled not to doze off... sssshhh...!) And when it was finished he told me he'd really like to go to Mongolia someday! :-) Since Mongolia isn't really feasible at the moment, I opted for the next best option (HA!) to try to encourage Carter's rekindled interest in dinosaurs - a trip to the Texas Memorial Museum, a free natural science center on the University of Texas campus. They have several dinosaur bones on display - a very good tie-in to the documentary he had just watched. We had been before, but today was a lot of fun because it really felt like Carter was learning stuff while he was there, and understood it all a little better. Here are some photos...

Posing with a Saber-toothed Cat statue out front...Climbing the steps to the museum...In the Great Hall, Carter looked up and saw an enormous Pterosaur skeleton!The bottom floor of the museum is the Hall of Geology and Paleontology. We found skulls from several dinosaurs we recognized - Triceratops, Parasaurolophus, T-Rex.Carter standing next to the femur of a Diplodocus!There's also a paleontology lab, where Carter got to touch some bones from a mastodon. Here he's looking in a microscope with Daddy.Carter with a meteorite! He is familiar with them because they are what fall from the sky in his favorite movie as of late, Dinosaur!Upstairs from the dinosaurs, the museum also has several displays of Texas-native animals. Here we are sitting in a little "boat" in the fish room.Outside the museum there's a little sitting area, with benches made to look like the vertebrae from a Mosasaur. Here's Carter sitting on one of the benches. In his hand is his toy T-Rex skull that he carried around with him throughout the museum!And here's my sweet girl - not looking at the camera, but still looking adorable. :-)

A Day at the Park

When we stepped outside of the house this morning we didn't instantly melt or suffocate from the heat, so we decided to walk over to our neighborhood park. I managed to snap a whole bunch of photos, but I've narrowed it down to this bunch being my favorite. Oh and by the way, Courtney said her first color today - PURPLE! That's my girl. She is wearing a purple dress that Aunt Lori sent to her a while back, and was very excited about it when I put it on her. And yes, Carter is in bad need of a haircut! But I'm holding out until late next week, just before school starts again and as close as possible to cousin Gina's wedding - haircuts aren't much fun for Carter or me! But anyway, on to the photos...

Going up the slideBig brother pushing Courtney in the swingFun in the tunnelsI love this one, even though he looks mad...Riding the whatchamacallitsMy handsome boy!

Fun in the Sun!

Today was another scorcher here in Austin, with temps up around 105F! UGH! Those of you in the north complaining about the rain, can you pleeeeeease send some of it our way? Well on this hot hot day, we still did our Wednesday morning routine of visiting the Bee Cave Public Library. But instead of heading straight home with our books, I threw some bathingsuits in the car and the kids had a ton of fun splashing around in the little sprinkler park across from the library! (Note to Austin moms: another fun, FREE outing idea!!) Here's some photos...Courtney just after getting a face-full of water - love this one!Carter sat on one of the sprinklers, trying to hold back the water.Brother and sister working together to steal other kids' toys... note to self, next time pack our own toys...This view shows the sprinkler park with the library in the background. There's a small road that runs in between.Cute moment as we were getting shoes on to walk back to the car. Fun morning!

Carter & the Big Screen

Today Carter and I went on a date, just the two of us! Baby sister Courtney got to stay home with Grammy, who is visiting from Michigan. (I have more photos I need to share on here of some of the things we've done over the past month, I've gotten behind on my blogging!!) One of our local AMC theaters is doing a "Summer Movie Camp" with a schedule of kids' movies for only $1! This week's movie was "Madagascar 2", and since Carter loved the first one so much on dvd (he calls it the move it move it movie) I thought we'd give it a try - it was his first time seeing a movie in a theater on the big screen! We were going to meet a couple friends there, but unfortunately the show sold out before they arrived. But Carter had a lot of fun - he did soooo good sitting through the whole thing. And of course he also loved the popcorn! Here are some photos from Carter's first movie experience...

Waiting in line to get our tickets.At the concession stand.Whoa - look at all that yummy stuff!He was completely enthralled by the movie! (No, I didn't take this during the movie - it was during the credits - he was still mesmerized....) :-D