Our Vacation to North Carolina

We have been having a great time in North Carolina visiting family.  We came down and visited Mark's parents for several days and then spent a few days with his Grandma as well.  Also, we were able to have dinner one evening with out Aunt Kim and Uncle Roger who live about an hour from Mark's parents and we spent lots of time with our Aunt Ruth and Uncle Keith who live within a block or two of Grandma.

 

Since we have been in North Carolina we have done many fun things.  Matt and Lori and the girls were her the first few days and we enjoyed visiting with them and the four of us adults were able to go out White Water Rafting and the place we went to was where the Olympic teams practice.  After they went home we went with Mark's parents to Lake Louise and Chimney Rock and we were able to go up the mountain and my what a beautiful view it was.  We also took a boat tour and discovered that in one of the little alcoves on the lake is where most of Dirty Dancing was filmed.  

  Not quite sure where I went wrong - this house is about 20-30,000 square feet and was a gift from a wedding gift to their son when he was married.  Now, the parents also have their sand flown in from Florida where the sand is the only true white sand too and they also live on the lake...

We also had a great time going to a local amusement park - kind of like a Cedar Point but named Carowinds.  With much convincing Lilly went on the upside down rides and LOVED them.  She thought all the other rides that she went on were pretty fun except the one that was really rough - the wooden one - that truthfully none of us liked. It was the first one we went on and it was rougher that the other wooden one but it gave Lilly an aversion to the other wood one and to the really big ones for about an hour.  The water park was pretty fun too that they have there and we really were glad to have it once the mid-afternoon heat struck as it got down right hot.

Finally, on the way to Gma Rice's house we stopped and visited a drive through ranch that had semi-exotic animals.  While there weren't lions and tigers there were Zebra's and Giraffe's, antelopes, Water Buffalo, etc.  Mostly animals that wouldn't cause harm as they are all allowed to roam free amongst one another.

Birthday Fun!!

Yeah Yeah Old News, We went to Chicago in Jan. to celebrate the girls' birthdays at American girl and what a fabulous time we had!!I finally am posting some photos!!

   

The night before the trip into the city           

      

       

We were told it would be 0* so we were

                 all well bundled up!!

           

What a nice brunch we had - such yummy food and surrounded by

"little" friends.  All the girls had fun.

 All of the girls had there very own china - at every age...

What a tiresome day, poor Alice couldn't make the trip home upright.

Lilly and Alice were the best of  buddies over the weekend - Alice always wanted her  "iwwy."

Christmas 2007 with our friend Tennille, Sofia and Sammy.  The kids had a wonderful time - and so did the parents.  We all even got an early gift from Santa, matching pajamas.

    

    

                                    
Okay so we are really behind on photo posting...what can I say? We are busy people. Well, this should catch you up in fast forward speed!! Enjoy the update.

Sing Along Time

I love this video camera!

WARNING! LARGE FILE!
Kate's Song


Lilly's Song

A Snowy Day

All the girls had a great day today! Kate, Lilly, and Jessica all went outside to sled and play. For whatever reason, Lilly gave the best video for the day. Here are a couple of videos from their activities...

Lilly's Birthday

Lilly had a pretty good birthday yesterday. Instead of me telling you all about it, I thought you might enjoy hearing it from her...



We sang her a song...



And watched her open her present...

Caught on Video

For a second year we have caught Santa in the act... but this year we happened to have a video camera handy!



P.S. Can you tell I got a new toy for Christmas! ;-)

Christmas Eve, 2007 - Pajama Time

Every year my family gets new pajamas from Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. This year our friend Tennille (no Captain) was here with her two youngest. You can see the excitement...

December already!?

It is hard to believe it is already December. Where has the year gone? We are all well and we keep busy - go figure.

Katherine is doing great at school, she loves it and Math and Reading seem to be two of her favorite subjects. She continues to grow in her love of Art too and it is always a treat to see what she will bring home. Her teacher encourages her a lot as she has faith that Katherine has great potential in that arena. As of late her mummy picture was even one of the ones' chosen to be in the glass display case in time for conferences. It is really unique, while everyone did a pretty traditional sarcophogis she did a cat one. It is beautiful!! We have yet to get her into piano lessons but she loves to play it on her own and has begun picking up some basic reading skills of music and in any given week she plays at least 5 days.

Lillian also is loving school. She has grown immensly in her reading in the few months she has been at school and it is best described by my Dad that if there weren't so many funny rules in our language she would have it down pat. Lilly is following along in the art department as well - she really enjoys dabbling in it on occassion. Lilly is as social as ever, the daily phone calls for play dates slowed down finally!

Our kitten is not such a kitten anymore. He is growing right along and provides us with tons of joy - well maybe not ZoeMay, he seems to annoy her to death! He is always after her, biting and carrying on. Once he calms down he is a real love. He always greets us at the door when we get home, he begs to be picked up and once he is he purrs unendingly and then he also loves to give kisses!!

Mark enjoys his new job - although the drive he would happily do without. It seems to offer him a lot of opportunities already - he gets to build his own team of employees pretty much from ground up and really have people he feels are compitent and able in the job. Always a good feeling.

I am still at the same job, working in a school of children with disabilites. I attend school a couple evenings a week while I am working on my Masters' in Special Education. The girls and Mark and really tolerant of me being gone these evenings - actually I think the girls love it as they have two great sitters that come and sit both evenings until Daddy gets home.

A Very Elvis Wedding

Click the slideshow to see the pictures in the web album (full screen and quality).

What a fun Month

What a fun month we have had! It seems September slipped us by and October is quickly passing as well. The girls are both doing well.


Katherine is enjoying dance class, making lost of friends, and having fun all around. Lillian is also enjoying dance class and has tons of friends - she seems to particularly attract the boys...

Lillian has already been cheering at football games...




Oh and by the way - this is Lilly - for those of you who knew me as a
small child, there is little difference. I will scan a photo soon and
put them side by side for you.

School is under way...

School has been in session now for nearly two weeks and the girls are enjoying it immensely. They even brought home their first homework a few days ago.



Katherine has the same teacher, Mrs. Sparling and thus the same classmates as last year with a few exceptions as there was some redistricting that took place this year. Katherine is at her first sleep over at a friends tonight, one of her girlfriends from last year and this, Valeria. The only challenge is that her family is Spanish speaking - her Mom speaks no English and her dad limited so her brother was in charge of interpreting for us. What a nice family and Katherine was very excited about the event.

Katherine is dancing again this year - tap and ballet as well. She is enjoying both thus far and has picked right up where she left off from in tap - ballet seems to be coming to her just fine even though it has been a while since she has taken it. She is also participating in Girl Scouts again this year.


Lillian has Mrs. Siarto and will again next year as they do looping (same teacher 1st and 2nd grade). She has lots of new friends and went to the first of what will likely be many birthday parties today. Also, the very first day of school she came home and announced she had given out her phone number and sure enough a little boy called mere moments after we walked in the door that day - and every day for the week!

Lillian has decided to resume dancing, ballet to be exact. She is thrilled to be back into it again. She is also in Girl Scouts again this year, in Katherine's troop.

As for Mark and I we are keeping pace with the girls, or at least trying to. We keep pretty busy with their schedules and I have returned to school to work on my Masters in Special Ed. so that ties me up a few evenings a week. Thankfully golf is over for now so Mark is home each evening. He tries to sneak to the course )or elsewhere) when he can...Just today he went to the U of M football game with Joe - yes you read right, Mark went to football, he is even planning to go again next weekend...if they can get tickets. I will be at adult Girl Scout camp as I am the girls' leader and very active in scouting and it is the annual scouting retreat if you will that all registered adults can go to so we can learn about fun activities to do with the girls and have fun being girls ourselves.

Made it through the first day and loved it.

The girls had a great first day and are looking forward to a great year.

Dawn of a New School Year

Our Summer Vacation is Flying By...

We are really enjoying our summer vacation together! What is not to enjoy. The girls and I have been doing a little of everything from Vacation Bible School, visiting the library, swimming at the neighborhood pool, and visiting the local petting farm (Pinka even did that with us.) Daddy has joined us on a couple adventures including the big summer kick off of spending all day at the local fair on the first official day of our vacation together and as of this past weekend we went camping and we even caught a 10 inch bullfrog - we think he was bigger but he fought being measured. (yes we really measured him - we were trying to win the contest.)

Here are more details:

The official kickoff was the local fair - we arrived late morning and stayed ALL day and had a blast it was a perfect day and we rode all the rides we wanted time and time again as there were hardly any lines. The downfall - Lilly was about 1/2" too short for a few rides she wanted to go on - next time the pony tail will go right on top of her head. The favorite ride was by far a big water log ride. We went on it at least 6 or 7 times. Also, Katherine loved the Hymalain. She giggled the faster it went with the centrifical force pushing her into whomever she was riding with and could hardly wait to go again.

We kicked our summer off with Vacation Bible School with our church in Northville and had a reallly fun time. The theme was a country theme so the girls are always shouting Yee Haw about something these days.

Our local library has a reading link that you can track your minutes you have read and earn prizes from June 18-July 31. Katherine has more than 1400 minutes that she has read either on her own or someone has read to her - trust me most have been on her own - if she is being really quiet it is because she is reading to herself. Lillian has over 1200 as well. She is working on reading more on her own but still prefers being read to and Katherine often happily obliges.

Camping has been long anticipated - the girls have been bugging us all summer to be honest and we have been wanting to go as well but have had other things come up so we finally forced the issue and went. What a great time we had. We went pretty local - only about a 40 minute drive away. It was a really friendly campground. We rented boats for $5 for 2 hours and went out for a row boat ride -which is where we found or fabulous frog. Also, in the evening there was karaoke and both girls bravely participated and also there was a huge bonfire! We filled our jar with lightening bugs for a nighlight and had great fun all around. Oh and by the way the girls got to ride horses! We will definately return to this campground.

Skittles and Starburst

After helping Katherine do a load of laundry Skittles and Starburst
decided to stick around and check out the new washer. We think they got a
little sea sick watching all the water go in and really dizzy trying to
watch the clothes spin out. But, they really like being able to watch it.
Even Lilly's bunny Snowdrop hopped in and watched but she was too quick for a picture.

Tigee having fun at the Farm

The girls went to visit Pinka Farmer today when they took Grandma Dowler back to Uncle George's. Tigee (Katherine's latest Webkinz) decided she would like to stay at the farm and have some fun with Pinka.

Lilly & Nathan

It has been much too long since we last saw the Tinkhams... Jenny, Katie, and Nathan made the trek up from Indiana to visit and the kids got to play together. Katie is so grown up in her demeanor it will surprise you. Nathan seems to have matured quite a bit over the last several months.

The kids played at the local splash park and in the yard at Grandma and Pinka Trimmer's. After a pizza dinner from Mother's the kids and mothers went to the local township fair for an animal show, to ride rides and watch an outdoor movie.

What a day!

Katherine in the News

Last week Katherine's class had their first grade plant show. She and Jessica have been showing their green thumbs for the last several weeks trying to grow some small seedlings.

Katherine was pretty sad when she realized all she had were sprouts but it couldn't have been too bad since she made the school's web page!

Long awaited photos...

We recently visited Battle Creek and the kids went on the Gator with "Pinka Farmer" down to the woods mushroomin'. Unfortunately we were unsuccessfully but we did have tons of fun looking and the kids loved exploring the woods!

Lilly is forever picking up critters and while it is hard to see you can imagine my disbelief when she smiled up at me with her hands tightly closed and claimed she had an "itsy bitsy frog." It took a lot of begging for her to let me take a photo -she knew it would hop away, but after much convincing that it belonged in nature and now there would forever be a photo she agreed.






The left photo is of Hannah and I at the Mother's Day tea. She "cordially invited" me to be her guest. The kids sang songs and recited poetry as a group and then we went to their classes and had muffins (made by them) and lemonade. Each child also wrote poems for their parent. What lovely poems Hannah wrote for me... she is such a blessing and a joy.

On the right is Katherine and Natalie reading and Natalie was sure the book was over and wanted to be sure Katherine would be prepped to continue reading - no interruptions. My she is getting big.