Boating Trip

Friday night we went out on Lake Erie's bay with the kids, dad & his fiance', Mary. The weather was perfect, and we had a really nice time.

Dave promised Julie on the way to the bay that if she allowed him to actually put a hook and bait on her pole this year, maybe he'd look for a bigger fishing pole for her. In years past she only allowed a bobber to be put on her "Barbie" pole, b/c she didn't actually want to catch anything...this time she had a hook! My baby's growing up. :)


I think Joel found his dream job. "I drive it Papa, I drive it."




"The Crew." Dad, the kids, me & Mary...somewhere on the boat is Mary's dog, oh and Dave too (guess he's the one standing on the front of the boat taking the picture...pretty sure he took this and not the dog).


"My what a big right hand you have Joel." :)


"You're getting very sleepy..."


Beautiful Lake Erie sunset!


A great end to a fun evening...I think all outings should end with a blizzard from Dairy Queen. Can I get an Amen???

Our House!

Okay, I've had many requests to see our new place. Today it is OFFICIALLY ours. We have "rented" it for a month from dad, while we waited for the closing, and this morning at 9a.m. we oficially went broke! Yay! I tried to put together a collage of the before and after pictures, so I hope you can view this okay (click on the images to enlarge them). We have plans to put shudders on the house, and work on landscaping but we just haven't gotten that far yet...we've been a little...um...busy. To say the least...

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I just LOVE my new kitchen!


Living room and staircase before & after...not sure why we did away with the red walls. :)


The dining room and kitchen were seperate rooms before, but we opened it up to make one big room...have I mentioned that I love it?


Upstairs hallway & bathroom before & after.


The top bedroom is the before & after of the girls room, the middle bedroom is Joel's and the bottom picture is our bedroom.

Family Family and More Family

We have enjoyed two weekends full of family. Over the fourth my side of the family got together for picnics and fun, and this past weekend Dave's mom, Grandma, sister and her two youngest boys all came to visit for a 3 day weekend and lots more fun! I have lots of pictures from this past weekend where we went to the beach, played at Liberty park and watched the boats come in at the yacht club, and visited the Erie Zoo...here are some highlights from our weekend.


Julie watching a penguin swim away.

July 4th Fun

We had a lot of family in town over the July 4th weekend. The weekend began with my Grandma Andrews falling and breaking her ankle in 3 places. She had surgery, is now home, and recovering well. While Grandma spent the weekend in the hospital, several out of town family members arrived and we went ahead with our planned picnic at Doug & Andrea's. It was a very kid-friendly afternoon, and we all had a great time.


Julie enjoying her first sparkler...we didn't have these kind of luxuries in New York...no fireworks allowed!

Growing Kids...

Julie turned 7 last March, Joel was 2 last month, and Alayna will be 4 in September. They are growing so quickly, I don't know where the time goes. Here are a few recent pictures of the kids.


Joel loves sitting at the counter in our new kitchen to eat his breakfast every morning.




Hangin' out in the crib at my dad's house. I can get a lot done when they are all confined to one small space...ahhhh, kid cages, gotta love 'em. :)


Julie adores her baby brother and he thinks she's wonderful, also. When they are playing house she tells him to call her mommy, and he does.


Cooling off with cousin Danika in the turtle sandbox...ahem, I mean turtle pool.

Playing Catch-Up

I know, I am very behind on updating the blog with pictures. So, today one of my goals is to play catch-up a little bit and gets some pictures on here, starting with Joel's 2nd birthday.









You may notice that his little orange boat is in every picture. He LOVES boats!

Joel's Birthday Cake

It's an understatement to say that Joel loves boats! He absolutely loves them! He looks for them while we're driving places, and when he sees one we all have to acknowledge it. So, it was only obvious that he needed some kind of boat cake for his 2nd birthday in June. Being that I'm not a cake professional, and making an actual boat cake seemed impossible for me, I came up with this. I thought it was cute, and I might add it was tasty too.



Sand was made from crushed vanilla wafers. The palm tree came from the girls Barbie pool. I purchased swedish fish, gummy lobsters and worms for decoration, and the boat was from Toys R Us and now resides in our bathtub. :)

We've Moved!

Okay, this is not exactly "new" news...yes, we finally moved into our own home about 3 weeks ago. I promise I will post pictures soon of the before & after pictures of the house. Today is the first day we've had internet in our home.

We have been extremely busy since moving into the house. Besides the usual unpacking and finding places for things, we've had a lot of family in town for the fourth (which was great), we have more family coming to visit this weekend, and my grandma fell and broke her ankle in 3 places, requiring surgery and now is looking at 3 months of recovery. Sooooo, things have been crazy! I haven't worked in a couple weeks because of busyness, but I hope to return to work this next week at the daycare. Dave is working at the school this summer, and part-time for Doug when he's needed.

This post was meant to be a quick update...mostly to let you know we are still alive, still doing well, and we are on our own once again. We are grateful to my dad for allowing us to live with him, but being on our own feels great!