Daniel & Annabel's Adventures

Mini-Golfing Fun!

When we stopped at Apple Holler Orchard on the way home from our Crystal Falls road trip, there was a single mini-golf hole and Daniel was very keen to try it. Since it was off season, there wasn't any way to try it- that wasn't open, but the idea was definitely planted. Grandma Mary Kay had also given the kids plastic golf clubs and balls for them to play with outside while we were up north, just another way the idea was planted. So...one of the first things Daniel did on that Monday after we got back was to make a mini-golf course right in our family room!

We decided it was time to actually try mini-golfing for real, since the interest was definitely there! We took the kids to our local mini-golfing course after nap time last Saturday afternoon. To say they were excited would be an understatement! Daniel was beyond excited to actually be mini-golfing! It was a fun first time ever mini-golf outing! The kids did great. They followed along the course really well and tried their best to wait their turn (hard to do sometimes) and putt the ball into each hole. Daniel had a pretty good swing to start each hole, he caught on pretty quickly, though he did like to push the ball into the hole, but we just let him have some fun and try it out his way. He even got a hole-in-one one time! Pretty exciting! Annabel mostly liked to chase the balls and pick them up and give them back to whomever they belonged to, so it was a little challenging to reinforce over and over that the ball stays put on the ground until it's in the hole, but she was just so excited and wanted to be so helpful, it was so sweet really. She was also fiercely independent and didn't want much help with how to hold the golf club correctly and such, which was fine. We helped her a few times and cued her to turn her club around a few times, but mostly, we just let her have fun and try it out for herself. I played a great game, if I do say so myself- pretty much all holes in two, which never happens for me, I was just doing really well at putting the ball in the hole on the second stroke. Go figure. Anyway, of course we didn't keep score, we just had fun playing, teaching, and learning. Daniel spent the whole time saying he wanted to play again and again and again! This course has two paths you can choose- over the mountain or through the cave. Daniel chose over the mountain and of course wanted to do through the cave right away, too. Next time. Oh- and guess what color ball Annabel chose?? If you guessed pink, you would be correct! Daniel's ball was green, Ben's was blue, and I had purple. Annabel still remembers what color ball each of us had and talks about it every day! At this course, when you're finished and returning your golf club and balls, there's one of those ball drops with pegs and if your ball lands in the center, you win a certificate for a free round of golf- and Daniel won! He was so excited! So we'll definitely be going back sometime! We had a lot of fun!

Here's Daniel's hole-in-one and a picture of him with one finger up!

Here's Annabel's "hole-in-one," which everybody got because this was the last hole and it funneled down to the hole...still, she was excited!

Splash Park Fun!

I told you we'd be spending our August days soaking up the rest of summer! We've been busy hitting different splash parks in our area. The kids are having a ball! Last Friday, we headed to a splash park a little closer to our house after nap time. We'd gotten there just after a big downpour of rain, so we had good timing on that account and there was next to nobody there which was really nice. Unfortunately that downpour of rain really cooled off the temperature, so it wasn't nearly as hot as it had been that morning when we were outside, but this didn't faze the kids much! Daniel jumped right in and got wet and played in the water and all. Annabel took a while to warm up. She had fun throwing our squishy water ball for Daniel to fetch and she'd try to run up to the water, but would run away for fear of getting wet. Eventually she decided she'd try fetching that ball after throwing it and that was the beginning of her fun with the water- that was all it took. So then, Annabel was soaking wet, dunking her head in, running through the water, and just having a ball. And then the water just stopped, except for one lonely and apparently malfunctioning spout that kept going. The kids were SO bummed. Annabel kept going up to the spout holes and shouting at it to go back on- she thought she was so cute and silly. And she was of course. After 15 minutes, the water never went back on so we headed home with disappointed children and promises that we were checking out another even more fun water park on Monday for a play date anyway.

So Monday rolled around with chilly temps- low 70's- and scattered rain predicted, not exactly splash park weather in my book, but I did promise the kids and they had been talking about this splash park ALL weekend. The play date part didn't happen- sick friends. But, I couldn't let my kids down. So we headed out with plans to get there early to beat the predicted lunch time rain. It turned out that splash park didn't open until 11:00- so much for getting there early! Good thing this splash park had a playground, too. So the kids played on that for a bit while we waited for 11:00 to roll around. And then they were more than ready to play with the water when it was time! This was nice splash park with lots of different spouts- some down low, some taller, some spraying from up above, and even one that dumped a bucket of water from time to time; so there were different "levels" of wetness and water the kids could play with, which I liked and the kids had fun with, too. This time, Annabel jumped right into the game of getting soaking wet, as did Daniel. The different spouts were just so fun for them. They had a ball! However, because it was so chilly to begin with, after about 20 minutes of water fun, the kids were cold and done, which was good timing anyway, because it started to really rain as soon as we got to the car. So again, more promises to come back when it's actually hot, which hopefully will happen again, but with the kind of summer we've had, who knows if that will happen! Anyway, good times! I just love watching the kids have fun with the water- and they play so nicely together when there's water involved, too...can't argue with those moments of truce!

Enjoy tons of cute pictures! (and yeah, I'm not doing too well narrowing pictures down better like I said I'd try to do...remember when I said my blog book had over 2000 pictures?...I suspect I'm well on the way to that count again! Aiyiyi! I just can't narrow things down...Hi my name is Allison and I have a problem with too many photos! But if that's my biggest problem, then things are pretty good, huh?!)

Great-Grandma Ann's 90th Birthday!

We spent the last weekend of July up in Crystal Falls, MI celebrating Great-Grandma Ann's 90th birthday! Such a big deal and what fun to celebrate! We drove up Thursday and came home Sunday, so we had two full days up there. Aunt Wendy even came home from Florida to come with us on our road trip- the kids were SO excited to see her!

The drive there and back went well. Aunt Wendy, bless her heart, entertained the kids the whole way up, sitting in the middle seat between their two car seats. And the kids did great, they were very busy the whole time, got along just fine, and were clearly very happy to have Wendy there to entertain them. Annabel napped about an hour each way, there and back. On the way home, Grandma Mary Kay sat in the middle and entertained Daniel and Annabel. It was cute to listen to them talking and choosing things to play with up there the whole trip up and back (I was in the way back of our van). There were a few times when Annabel was just so quiet, I wondered if she was asleep, but no, she was just engrossed in her books or toys and quietly playing. Daniel we heard pretty much the entire time, of course!

Thursday night we stopped to see Aunt Suzi and Uncle Mike at their house before heading to our hotel. I managed to get ELEVEN mosquito bites, I kid you not, in the time it took for me to walk from our car to their front door, probably about 15 steps. I was on fire, it burned so bad because I had so many so fast so close together. Oh I just couldn't believe my luck! And of course nobody else got any, that night or the rest of the weekend. Anyway, Mike and Suzi's daughter, Hope (Ben's cousin), was there with her husband Cary and their new baby, Nora, 3 months old. Nora pretty much slept THE ENTIRE weekend- gosh, I never had a baby like that! Anyway, Nora was a sweet baby and when she was awake, the kids were absolutely enthralled with her and loved playing with her and giving her toys and showing off for her and oh my gosh, total baby love. Mary Kay wasted no time pushing for Baby #3! Hah- not happening, we really are just so perfectly happy with our two. But still, it was cute how much Daniel, and really, mostly Annabel had fun with the baby.

Friday we went to see Grandma Ann at the nursing home and she was delighted with our visit. The kids loved playing with cars and drawing in their mini-notebooks while we visited her. After our visit with Grandma Ann, we stopped at the Ben Franklin store in town, one of our must-do's every visit! We stopped at a few other stores, the lake property, had some lunch, and then headed out to Mike and Suzi's for the day. Friday was just a visiting day- Uncle Tom and Aunt Jody were there, too. The kids loved Uncle Tom- he's just so playful and such an awesome Great-Uncle! The kids were quite entertained by family and new toys and such. Hope brought her two dogs and Annabel was absolutely fine with them on Friday, even wanting to pet them and all. It was so cute. They were very well behaved dogs, one big- Howie, and one little- Daisy, so they were easy to be around and comfortable for Annabel as well. Annabel took a nap, after much coaxing, with Grandma Mary Kay in a rocking chair in the sun room on Friday, about an hour, which helped her a lot. Dinner meals were home cooked by Suzi, so nice, especially when you're traveling. We'd taken a loaf of bread up with us so Daniel and Annabel could have sandwiches pretty much all weekend, but this way, we didn't have to worry about his milk allergy and accommodating that too much. Anyway, we all had a great time visiting and playing.

Two highlights of Friday-
1- Jody had gone through tons of photos from Ann's house and brought them all up in bins for each of Ann's kids. I, well- we all, had a lot of fun going through their family pictures. Saw some neat pictures of Great-Grandpa Woody's (Ann's husband, Larry's dad, who passed away when Ben was a baby) store, looked at a very large family tree which always fascinates me, but the cutest pictures I saw were of course of Ben when he was little...but the most striking thing about seeing these pictures, was how much Annabel is the spitting image of Ben, at least in those pictures. People are always telling me Annabel looks like Ben and I really just don't see it, but man, in some of those pictures, I totally did. It was like looking at Annabel- that chin, that grin, and even that hair! I'll have to dig them up again and share, because it was just so uncanny, I thought.

2- Uncle Mike and Uncle Tom got a campfire going on Friday night which quickly became the highlight of the trip for the kids, especially Daniel. They loved warming up by the campfire and Daniel had fun listening to Daddy's ghost stories while we all sat around the fire. I think Daniel will remember that campfire for a long time and I have a feeling every time we go up there now, he'll ask for a campfire. Now, you might ask why a campfire, to keep warm, no less, in July...well, here's the other highlight of our entire weekend, really... We had COLD weather, record-breaking cold temps actually, coldest dates in July for Crystal Falls in over 20 years. Of course that would be the weekend we're there! Luckily I saw this coming and pretty much only packed pants for everyone, much to my chagrin. That fancy cute pink dress Annabel was going to wear to the party, not so much. It was pants for all of us all weekend. (Actually, I had to really dig and even ended up going shopping to get pants for Annabel because she has grown so much- all her pants from last year were too short!!) And I can't forget the rain. It probably rained 80% of the weekend, sometimes hard, but a lot of just steady rain. But we did get outside quite a bit in spite of the rain- the very second it stopped, we'd be back outside. The campfire lasted just fine because it was tucked under a very high tree giving us shelter from the rain, so we'd sit and enjoy the campfire all weekend, even when it was raining.

Saturday, we ran some errands in the morning and then headed back to Suzi's for Grandma Ann's 90th Birthday celebration. Suzi cooked lunch and of course there was cake. Daniel was very excited to help give Grandma Ann her presents and even help her open a few. It was fun to watch him helping her. I loved that. After that little celebration, which we all enjoyed and we could tell she did, too, we took some family pictures and generation pictures. The kids played a bit. Finally, around 2:30, Annabel's usual nap time, she started asking to go home. She was clearly overwhelmed by Saturday afternoon, with all the additional people there (Tom and Jody's kids, Megan and Mark came, and then Grandma Ann came to the house, and then Larry's cousin Roger and his wife Bobbi Lee arrived- plus all the others who were there Friday- it just got a to be a lot for Annabel!) and all the busy-ness going on, Ben and I decided to take her back to our hotel for a nap. It was clear she could use a good nap and a good break from all the activity and people. Daniel stayed at with Grandma and Grandpa and did just fine. Annabel fell asleep pretty much right away in the car and we were able to carry her into our room and lay her down and take a nap ourselves! Annabel slept for TWO hours! So that was a good break. After we got back to Mike and Suzi's, more people arrived, from Mike's family, so we kept the kids entertained while they visited and met the new baby, and then we ordered pizza for dinner. Daniel had a sandwich of course, while Annabel wolfed down several small squares of my cheese pizza, even sneaking a few pieces off my plate and being quite pleased with herself- she loved this pizza! Then it was bedtime, end of Saturday fun!

Bed time was interesting on this trip. We'd do our reading as usual and we'd planned to have Annabel in bed with me, and Daniel in bed with Ben, since we had two double beds. But of course, Annabel wanted to be with Daddy and Daniel. This worked out well enough the first two nights, but the third night, she really wouldn't calm down so she ended up with me, much to her dismay, she cried and cried, and of course she fell asleep after a few minutes of that. But the first two nights, oh my goodness, she is a TALKER! She literally talked herself to sleep both those nights, she'd just chat away, chat away, sing a song, sing a song, on and on. We tried telling her she had to be quiet, I finally said to Ben, without her music and usual routine, this is clearly what it's going to take for her to get to sleep- talking herself to sleep, so we had to just let her, which was hard because the rest of us were of course tired enough to just sleep. It was interesting to say the least!

Sunday we visited with Ann at her nursing home again and then we headed home. We stopped at an apple orchard Wendy had heard about, called Apple Holler Orchard, and though it is off season, the kids had a ball running around and playing there! That was a great little energy break! And such a cute place, too, with the standard mazes, slides, feeding goats, etc etc., but the kids just loved it! The drive home went just fine altogether! We were really glad to be back in our own beds and the kids of course were fine and caught up with sleep and back in routines like we were never away!

It was a great weekend, even if a little chilly and rainy! I did want cooler weather, because it had been hot here not long before we went, but I didn't want COLD weather. Oh well. We had a great time with family and that campfire was just awesome, too! And we SO enjoyed our visit with Grandma Ann. Happy 90th Birthday, Great-Grandma Ann!!

Here are tons of pictures from our trip!!

Daniel and Annabel entertain baby Nora!

Annabel masters these picture/color dominoes!

Daniel helps Uncle Tom carry wood for the campfire!

Annabel makes a ball of newspaper to get the fire going!

Annabel pets Howie! She was so pleased with herself!

Grandpa Larry shows Daniel how to hold his hands up to the fire to warm them up!

Enjoying the campfire! Daniel would have stayed right there all night!

What a wonderful family picture!

Awww...the two of us!

Still enjoying the fire!

Taking pictures of the fire, too...with Annabel's new favorite toy, a pink (of course!!) Minnie Mouse toy camera!

Wishing we could stay all night right here by the fire...

Shopping for party goods! The kids were really hoping the store had mini-shopping carts, I thought the likelihood was very slim, but lo and behold, there they were...the kids were in heaven!