The Land of Oz

All summer long we kept hearing the refrain, "How much longer till the cousins come?" Even when we tried to do other fun activities with the kids and give them a fun summer in spite of the fact that weren't traveling anywhere this year. Summer wasn't summer without "the cousins". So finally, FINALLY, the day arrived. Alison and Mike and their kids came from New Jersey and Susannah and her kids along with "The Uncles" (Timothy, David, and Samuel) arrived from Utah shortly thereafter. It was a visit worth waiting for. We all had a great time and crammed in many fun things into those days.

It was very exciting to meet the newest cousin Christopher, who is absolutely not like his petite "big" sister.

We paid a fun visit to the kids museum--always more fun when you have cousins and uncles to play with.

The main event ocurred on August 10th. Last year after Alison had taken her girls to the NYC American Girl store, we began hatching a plan to take them to the one in Chicago. Lynnsey got her first doll, Lindsey for her birthday and has been getting more and more addicted to the dolls and books.

Initially, we had planned to all take the train to Chicago and add another fun experience to the day, but prices for tickets spiked to a bit more than we had planned and so Alison and I opted to have Mike drive us over instead while Mom and Susannah took the train as planned.

The problem with that plan is that we left earlier than needed to anticipate traffic (which ended up not being a problem at all )but the train ended up being delayed by quite awhile. So we had to wait.

We paid a visit to the Lego store.

And we rode the escalator. Many times.

And the super-fast glass elevator. Once. (The kids loved it but the Mom's experienced some unpleasant vertigo.)

We visited a little visitor's center and then loitered outside for a long time.

And played Down By the Banks numerous times.

And finally, at LONG LAST, Mike arrived back from the train station with Mom and Susannah (and her two kids) and he took Bentley and Lydia to the kid's museum while the rest of us enjoyed American Girl!

The girls got lots of compliments on their matching outfits. (Lynnsey's is a K-Mart knock-off that we picked up that morning before heading out, but still super cute!)

Lynnsey made sure to pose with the Kaya doll for Kaya, who will hopefully get to go on her own AG trip someday.

We had lots of fun at the AG restaurant. Pricey but a fun experience. The chairs for the dolls were a nice touch along with all the little extras.

Hopefully in a few years when we take Kaya and Lydia, Rebecca can come again when she can appreciate it more. Although, she was sure appreciating the little cup of ranch dressing!

Lynnsey ordered the picnic lunch:

And of course, no meal is complete without dessert:

After that, we explored the store. We found the Girl of the Year display so that Lynnsey could pose with her doll Lindsey.

The girls were each allowed to pick out a doll outfit as a gift from Nana. (I have a picture of them all together but it's on Lynnsey's camera so I'll include it in another post.) Lynnsey at first was looking at some of the general outfits but she kept going back to the Josefina display. I could see the wheels turning in her head as she concocted her plan. She ended up chosing a Josefina outfit knowing full well that she could use that as an argument for acquiring the Josefina doll! As it turns out, she didn't have to argue too much. We had wanted to get her something special for kicking her thumb-sucking habit over the summer anyway, so when she said we could combine that with her Santa gift for Christmas, that worked for us. So hopefully, Santa will cooperate with that idea, and Lynnsey will be getting her doll in just a couple more months.

Isabel and Cecily have plans for dolls that they are hoping for too. It was fun to hear them on the way home talking and planning and giggling about it. I know a lot of people roll their eyes when they hear talk of American Girl Place and dolls, but I think it's just fine. I love that in an age when a lot of little girls seem to graduate to older "tween" toys earlier and earlier, that my daughter still loves to play with dolls. And I love that she is dying to read all of the American Girl books. We found a bunch at our library book sale a few weeks ago and Lynnsey has just been devouring them. I think it's fantastic that she can read a book with character's that she can relate to while at the same time learning about history.

Anyway, after our visit, Mike took Mom and Susannah back to the train station, so we walked down the street to the Disney store and took a look there.

And then we journeyed back home again. What a fun, exhausting day. Lynnsey is already asking to go again--this time to the New York store. Hmm...we'll have to see about that:)

Another thing that we did while everyone was here was a trip to La Casa Mexicana to celebrate Isabel's birthday. After Lynnsey's experience last January, Isabel was dying to do the same. And we were more than happy to oblige.

And another trip to the Sweet Tooth for icecream!

We also wanted to do something a little different than our usual excursions, so one day we took a trip to Jackson to a fun little miniature golf course that Kalen and I found on our anniversary date. Of course we had to split into groups since there were so many of us, but it was pretty fun.

Of all of our kids, Spencer loved it the most. He keeps asking me to take just him on a date there.

Kaya was having so much fun at first, that we actually went back and bought her a pass, so that she could have her own club and ball. And then we spent the rest of the time forcing her to play so we could get our money's worth! I definitely think we need to wait a few more years for her to appreciate it.

After golf, we had a picnic lunch and then went to see the movie Hop at The Michigan Theatre where they were having a kid's summer movie series.

We enjoyed a cookouts one evening, complete with our favorite Dutch Oven Potatoes...

And since we couldn't squeeze in a trip to Lake Michigan this time, we headed to Swain's Lake instead.

I really love that it's not very deep, so the kids can go clear out there and feel adventurous, and I worry a lot less about them!

Kaya cracked me up. She struck a pose and proclaimed: "I'm floatie guy!" (Only she of course, pronounced it "fyotie".)

At the end of the week we had to say goodbye to the Bramhall's:( But the Utah relatives stayed another week. We made a trip to Full Blast water park in Battle Creek. It is right next door to the train station, so everytime we would bring Mom to drop her off, Kaya would see it and ask to go there. When it was winter, I would tell her we could go in the summer. Somehow, she decided that summer was the waterpark. So she would ask me, "Can we go to Summer now?" At long last, she got her wish.

It's always so much fun to have family come to visit. And it makes us appreciate Michigan more when they do, because we actually get out and enjoy the stuff that is right in our backyard!

I'm trying! I really am. It was shocking to me when I visited this blog to try to do some updating and realized how long ago my last entry was. So I guess I really need to get to work now.

Back in March we once again had our annual March Madness competition among our family. We all filled out our brackets and watched to see who would come closest to the grand prize which is a family activity of their choice. And for the first time in the history of our tradition, I. Did. Not. Win. Yes, you read that correctly. I also didn't win the Final Four prize for predicting the most teams who would make it to the Final Four. That person got to pick a dessert of their choice. The overall winner this time was Taylor. Spencer won the Final Four. And the Boobie Prize went to Lynnsey (who had the least correct choices). The person who wins this prize gets to be the one to choose all the music on the winner's family trip. Spencer's dessert of choice was "Spencer Smoothies"--mmm... And Taylor's activity was a trip to the Toledo Zoo. He's been dying to go ever since Kendall went on a Kindergarten field trip. So we finally picked a day in July and went.

We had been having a major heatwave and so we watched the weather religiously for a couple of weeks to figure out the best day to go. When the temps dropped below 90, we decided that was as good as it would get. It was still so sunny that day and we ended up roasting toward the end, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

We were a little envious of the polar bear getting to swim in that nice cool water.

And the kids were wishing that this little cave was really made of ice.

They had to climb on every statue in sight.

Our very, very favorite part of the day was getting to see the brand new baby elephant named Logan. He was the cutest thing ever!

We watched for the longest time as he played in this big mud puddle just like a little kid.

And this creature was Taylor's favorite. It is a South American Lungfish. He actually has been asking for one of these for a pet. Seriously. Actually the kind he wants is an East African Lungfish. Guess what our answer always is?

The kids had fun in the little play zone. If we would have had more time, it would have been nice to let them play longer since it was indoors and air conditioned. But is was a really big zoo and there was so much to see. It ended up being such a fun day. The kids are already asking to go back again.

And on July 30th, Spencer, my baby boy, turned six years old. I am not accepting that fact very well, but it's true. He'll be starting 1st grade next week! He was SO excited about this birthday because he would be able to have a friend party. He's had this party planned since he was four. It was to be held at the park and we would have hot dogs and chips and cupcakes that he could eat.

We held the party the day before his birthday because the day of was when Taylor and Kalen had to leave for scout camp.

He had a nice group of kids come and we had fun playing on the playground before eating lunch and opening presents.

We had popsicles instead of ice cream and we made allergy-free cupcakes (that were a lot cuter before this picture was taken). As far as parties go, this was a pretty stress-free one to have. Carting all the stuff there was the biggest issue. But is was so nice to not have to worry about any party games or clean-up at our house.

And then on his actual birthday, we held a little party here at home even though Kalen and Taylor missed out. We broke open the little paper bag piñata that Spencer had made at his storytime craft at the library.