A most interesting mess

Lovely. Khloe discovered the paper shredder, which at the time of her discovery, was full. Once I had discovered that she had made this discovery, it was no longer full. On the positive side, this kept her entertained and happy for a very long time!

Love for Da-da

Awwww, she's our little hugger, and our little lover!
14 months

Paaaaaaarade!

There were firsts for all of us tonight! For starters, this was Khloe's first parade (since being a sleeping infant in a stroller at last year's) and she loved it! Just like other big occasions in her life - boating, parades - she acts like its no big deal and like she's been doing it for years. And second, we did something we've never done in 22 years of living in Port Huron: we put lawn chairs out downtown, the night before. Yes, welcome to Port Huron! Grandma, I and Kayla have always just gone to the parade riding bikes, but this was the first year going with two mobile kids, the parade was going to lapse well into Khloe's bedtime, and I was flying solo since Aaron was out of town, so Grandma and I decided that it would be best to set up a "home base" on chairs at the curb. Our "shaded side of the street-front row seats" worked out great!  As usual, Khloe entertained us by entertaining herself the entire 1.5 hour-long parade, and of course Addison and Kayla collected waaaaaaaaaay more candy than needed in their buckets, and they tried to keep up for awhile eating the candy as fast as it was thrown to them! It was a fun night!

 Kristen and Addison

 Kayla, Khloe and Mitchell
Khloe's favorite things about the parade were sitting in her little red chair, seeing all the balloons, eating an entire free bag of popcorn, sharing her candy with other kids nearby, and waving to almost anyone that walked by

 Kayla's favorite things about the parade were the gymnastics, cheerleaders, and the beauty pageant girls.

Khloe THOROUGHLY enjoyed her first sucker - a blue one! She held on to that stick oh so very tight until it was all gone! She was a very sticky mess from head to neck to arm to toes, and every spec of dust and gravel stuck to her after that, but she was a very happy little girl! 

World's longest bike ride

Saturday was slated as a boating day, until the north wind picked up and made the lake less than desirable for boating. Still, it was not a day to go wasted because it was warm and sunny. The Wadhams to Avoca Trail is a rail-to-trail system that spans a great distance east to west across the county. I have tried short distances myself in the past, but never with Aaron. A bike ride was the perfect family outing for this breezy, warm day so we invited our friend Kate along, packed up our bikes and a picnic lunch and headed for the Wadhmas trail-head. We had the bike seat for Khloe on my bike and the bike trailer hooked up to Aaron's bike for Kayla. Perfect! Off we go! We're happy, we're singing, we're talking and laughing... Fast forward an hour later...

We finally get to our destination, the Train Trestle Bridge over Mill Creek in Avoca. Whew, we weren't expecting a 9-mile ride to the train bridge hauling two girls, lunch for five, and provisions for two children! We were all little hot and tired to say the least, but we refueled and relaxed with our picnic lunch and some Gatorade. Off we go!

Fast forward 2.5 hours later and our 18-mile round-trip bike ride was complete! Thank you, God, for breezes and trees for shade!

It wouldn't have been soooo tiring had the entire trail been pavement, but 12 of the 18 miles was course limestone (a.k.a. really hard to pedal, gain momentum, coast, pull a heavy trailer). Will we do it again? YES! It was a beautiful trail, very scenic, private, wooded, and for the most part, shaded.We vowed to do the trail once a season (maybe minus winter) because it will be so pretty to see the scenery change. Next time we will be more prepared... with more water, more Gatorade, maybe a beer or two... And maybe start at the next closest trail-head!


It was a fun day!

 Our destination, the Train Trestle Bridge over Mill Creek

Ahhhhhh, summer

We're enjoying every single moment of our summer so far, and Sporties is just one of those moments!

 This week: baseball

 Warm-up and stretches

 Pitching practice

 First base huddle; running the bases

Pitching practice

Happy Fourth!

Whew, it had to be the hottest day we have ever remembered it being on July 4th, and definitely the hottest day of the summer so far. Nineties and HUUUUUMID. It felt a little off to be celebrating the holiday during the middle of the week on a Wednesday, but we still took advantage of the day off and did what anyone else would do - boat, go to the beach and BBQ with family! It was so hot, that instead of people taking their boats out on the water, we think everyone just stayed indoors. It might've been too hot for people to go boating because there were so few boats in the river, at the beach and on the lake. Imagine that???

The heat didn't stop us! We went by boat to the Jo's condo and had a great beach day, playing in the water, tubing, and cookout with 17 friends and family members. Kayla even went on her FIRST inter tube ride behind the boat - and loved it! It was so cute!

First, we kicked off the Fourth of July the night before with a fireworks tribute to America. It's an understatement to say that Daddy loves his fireworks! We stayed a safe distance away on our patio and made him stay a safe distance, too, in our neighbor's yard. Thanks to Mitchell, we had another pyrotechnician this year to help with our wagon full of explosives.

The pre-Fourth of July party with ice-cream cones and fireworks

(Notice everyone's wearing their nametags Kayla created for us)

 Chef Daddy

 Our lovely nametag creator

 We even got TWO nametags to wear! I think I'm also wearing one of Tikky's nametags.

 The arsenal

 Happy Fourth from the water!

Khloe's standard perch on the boat

Cherry girls

Apparently I like cherry dresses, and didn't even know I did. Khloe's not in this picture, but she had a cherry dress on too! Isn't that wierd how your subconscience works? Mine was telling me to buy cherry dresses!