Detroit Riverwalk

While none of these pictures is really good evidence of this fact, we spent the day with our buddies Stu, Chris, Fiona and Eilidh. After a lovely morning of playing in the park (the kiddos) and drinking coffee (the grown ups). After a delicious lunch from Slos to Go, we made our way down to Detroit's Riverwalk. In the first pic, you can see the fountain/water feature the kids were playing in (as well as Stu's back in the lower left hand corner). The second pic shows the neat little carousel there as well as some proof that this scene really takes place in Detroit. I'm pretty sure the Ren Center is the most recognizable sight in the Detroit skyline. Plus if you looks really closely you can see us all milling about in the distance. The third pic is me and Amity on the carousel, while the fourth is Chris, Eilidh, and Zara. We had a very good time at Riverwalk and encourage our MI peeps who haven't been that way to go check it out!

Playing with Cousin Timmy

We took shockingly few pictures during the few days we spent with Wes' family in Michigan. But here's a small glimpse of what went on in the early morning hours (while normal people were still sleeping)... Zara and Timmy played Mario Kart. Amity watched. Next year we're probably going to need a third controller.

Lake Huron

After 2 days in the car driving across Ontario (and here I thought Pennsylvania was long!), we finally arrived in Michigan. We spent a little time decompressing on the shores of Lake Huron, and though it was overcast and cool the 3 family members pictured here ended up wet enough that a change of clothes was required. We considered this brief beach stop a warm up for our upcoming trip to the Eastern shore.

Car Seat Sleeping

In addition to dancing, car seats are also good for sleeping. Especially when recovering from a fun filled week in Montreal with our besties the MMs. This post also serves to welcome Zara's new car seat to the family (and the middle seat of Taki car) while Zara's old/Amity's new seat moves a bit to its right.

More fun with the MMs

In the interest of brevity and not boring you to tears, dear reader, let me sum up. Amity looks very cute on the statue outside the science museum in Montreal. She might have looked cute inside, but the line was VERY long and so we didn't bother to go. Played at a park, had some ice cream, nice relaxing day. We also went to the pool on one of the days. You can tell because the adorable children making funny faces are wet. Finally, we spent a day together at Upper Canada Village (a museum similar to the one I did my diss research at, and also similar to one Charlotte has worked in) and had a fantastic time. You can't tell from the last picture here, but this was snapped moments before we said our goodbyes. While the kids look happy here, it wasn't long before the tears started to flow. It's hard to have some of your favoritest people living (comparatively) far away! Thanks for the fun visit guys, let's do it again, soon!

Montreal, with Pigtails

We had a fantabulous time, as always, visiting our wonderfulest buddies the MMs in their not so new hometown of Montreal. We barely caught sight of the big(ger) girls the whole week, but Amity split her time between hanging with the big kids and hanging with the really big kids (aka grown ups). In the first pic, she's taking care of one of Claire's babies. In the second, Luke (toddler whisperer extrordinaire) is reading her a bedtime story (Stephanie's Ponytail).

Another visit with Big Grandpa

Just like last year, on our way up to see friends in Montreal we stopped in to visit several members of my family in upstate NY. Thanks to K and V for hosting us! Here's a shot of my grandfather, Ted, with me and 2 of his 5 great-grandchildren. This shot was taken the day after his 94th birthday.

Car Seat Dancing

Sometimes you just gotta rock out, even when safely constrained by your 5 point harness. In addition to the display of mad car seat dancing skillz, this post also serves as our farewell to Amity's Britax Rounadbout car seat. We've bought a new super high height and weight limit but yet super narrow seat for Zara (is basically the same one she has here, only it can be used as a booster and is grey and is now made by Diono instead of Sunshine Kids) and Amity's inheriting the big girl PINK (though is a lot less pink, what with sun fading over the years) car seat. Also, Amity likes to wear PJs at ALL times of the day and night.

Smiles

Here's Amity on her last day of Camp CBI. Looks happy, no? As far as we can tell, she had a wonderful 6 weeks and is looking forward to school starting up in another month. In the meantime, we'll take her mind off the absence of school by taking an insanely long road trip to Montreal (by way of family in Upstate NY) and Michigan, be home for a week, and then spend a week at the Eastern Shore of VA with friends. That ought to take a bit of the sting out of being away from her "CBI friends."

Chopping Cukes

There are so many things we love about CBI Camp|School. Here's an example. Amity gets to practice all kinds of fine motor skills and self-efficacy chopping these cucumbers. Even better though is that the cukes she chopped were then mixed with a bunch of other ingredients to make a pasta salad. That pasta salad was then delivered to the soup kitchen across the street. Fine motor skills and helping to feed our community. Amity's a rock star.

Zara's 7th Birthday, Observed

Zara and her friend Vivien had a joint birthday party this year. Since we had two birthday girls, we figured we should have 2 cakes. 1 was an ice cream cake which was quite delicious but not pictured here. The other cake, as imagined by Z and V, was a marble cake decorated as a nautilus shell. Here we see the whole family working to mix the cake ingredients together. While Amity was napping, Zara tried her hand at frosting the cake. In the final picture, Wes is decorating as Zara looks on. While the eating is also not pictured here, this cake was fantastically yummy. And I don't even like cake!

4th of July Faces

We've spent the 4th of July out of town for the last few years, so Zara was especially excited to have the opportunity to dress up for it this year. As is typical in our house, Zara's excitement is contagious, so Amity wanted to wear a red, white and blue outfit and face paint as well. We picked Zara up from camp a bit early (they were in the middle of a USA vs Commonwealth counselor water balloon fight) and went to a pool party with friends, complete with grilling and mosquitoes. A perfect celebration!

Power-less

For a variety of reasons I shall not get into here, coupled with an extraordinary amount of luck/karma/whathaveyou, we've spent 6 years in this house and have never lost power for more than a few minutes. All good things must come to an end, and that streak ended with a whimper (from us) on June 29, 2012. Ironically, we lost power after the super windy, super rainy storm has passed us by. But no power when we went to sleep Friday night, and no power for the next several days, either. Worst part was it was clearly a very local outage - Olinda Drive, around the corner from us, had power, and so did houses just up the block. Maybe 12 houses in total were affected.

Other worse part would be the 90-something degree day temperatures. While it would drop down into the 70s at night, there was no real way, besides just opening windows, to circulate air through the house. We made it through the first three nights sleeping in the basement, but by Monday, even the basement was pretty unpleasant. The temperature upstairs had reached about 89 degrees, and downstairs was rapidly catching up. On the 4th powerless day, we packed up the house and took refuge with our friends Peggy and Avrom (and their kiddos E and S). This picture was taken that afternoon, and we luxuriated in the A/C. Amity and S got on quite well and were enjoying parallel artistic pursuits while their big sisters were at camp.

Power came back the following morning. I had never been so happy to see a Dominion truck before! Many thanks to the Tobiases (and the Zimmermans, and all of the other families who offered to cool us, feed us, shelter us, and let us use their internet and showers, but not at the same time). We have the power again.