This past weekend was a busy, family-oriented, fun-filled one! We started out the weekend by going to the Grand Blanc Homecoming parade. We met up with Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Jason, Aunt Julie, Anna, Joel, Heather, Stephen, Matthew, and Emily at Uncle Jason's and Aunt Julie's house. We all walked up to the parade together. The parade was super long, but it was nice. It was strange that they had no class floats, the Varsity football team was absent, and they didn't throw any candy. But the kids all still seemed to have fun anyway. After the parade, we all headed back to Uncle Jason's and Aunt Julie's for dinner and playtime. Then Carson and I headed home to bed while Daddy went to the movies with Uncle Jason and Uncle Danny.
On Saturday morning, we got up and headed to Holly to watch Joel play football. He is participating in a flag football program through some local churches. It was a fun game to watch. You can tell they really promote good sportsmanship in the program and all the kids seem to love it! They don't keep score... which is probably a good thing since oftentimes the kids were running towards the wrong goal. :) But its definitely teaching them some great things. After the game, we headed home to spend some time together just hanging out and getting some things ready for Kevin's work trip to Germany.
I'm playing catch-up. I've been slacking on the blogging front and haven't posted about some fun things from earlier this month that I really want to post about. First up, my cousin Kristin's baby shower. For those of you that don't know Kristin, she's my cousin on my dad's side of the family - our grandmas are sisters, so we're like second cousins or something. We grew up living 8 houses down the road from one another and have been close all our lives. Kristin and her husband, Joe, moved to Ocala, Florida a couple of years ago and are expecting their first baby in January - its a boy and his name is Brody Matthew Katich!
On September 12th, my cousins Josh and Mandy celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary by renewing their wedding vows and having a reception for close friends and family. Again, for those that don't know, Josh's and my dads are brothers, so we're first cousins. We don't see each other nearly enough, even though we live less than 10 minutes apart. But we always have a great time when we are together. Josh and Mandy had a short, but very sweet ceremony and a super fun reception with awesome BBQed food. Their neighbor is a DJ, so we had great music to dance to all night. Carson had a lot of fun playing with some of the other kids and just running around. We went over to Josh's barn later on in the night to check out his motorcycles and Carson loved them. He got to sit on a 250 dirt bike and was totally loving it. Then he got to see me take off with Josh for a ride on his crotchrocket bike. Kevin, Josh, and Michelle (my other cousin and Josh's sister) were trying to convince me that we all need to get crotchrockets and ride together... too bad it didn't work. :) I will say, it was fun and thrill to go 100 mph and not even feel like it... but that last bit there is why I'm still not on board... and probably never will be... now dirt bikes and quads are another story, though... :) Anyway, I'll work on getting the pics from this day uploaded into the albums soon, so check back later.
And finally, on September 19th, Kevin and I went to Lansing to attend a wedding for some friends of ours, Dustin and Thyra. Kevin used to work with Dustin at Faurecia. It was a beautiful wedding and reception. We hung out with another of Kevin's old Faurecia buddies, Larry, and his girlfriend, Erica, for most of the night. They're a lot of fun and we look forward to hanging out with them again sometime. I'll work on getting the pics uploaded soon.
Carson is now 19 months old. He continues to learn so many new things each and every day. His speech is getting better... more precise... and he is putting more and more words together. He's using prepositions and adjectives with his nouns quite often. We're having fewer and fewer tantrums due to communication frustrations/barriers these days, which is nice! :)
But he'll slap anyway and then look right at you to see what you're going to do about it. And he is very good at giving us the puppy dog eyes and making his little lip quiver when he doesn't get his way, too. Its hard not to laugh sometimes. :) I do hope we're through the worst of it at least, because it does seem to be becoming a lesser thing the last few days... let's keep our fingers crossed!
more and more independent about things, too. He likes to pick out his clothes, PJs, and socks almost everyday now. And if he can pick out something that is red, his day/night is made. Especially if his red socks are clean and in his drawer. :) Carson does not want to wear his red socks rolled over or under his clothes... he likes them pulled straight up and over top of his pants. He likes all of his socks pulled straight up, but only his red socks have to be on the outside of his pants. He's a quirky little one, already. :)
can put everything away on his own, with the exception of the hanging stuff in his closet), and he makes sure all the doors are closed and locked if they're supposed to be (he has some obsessions with locks, doors, and lights still). Carson even helped me clean out the refrigerator this past weekend - I would give him the stuff to throw away in the trash or put in the compost bucket and he helped me wipe down the shelves.
On August 27th, Sara's family lost their beloved Shelbi. Carson and Sara were headed over there around 6am that morning so that Carson could stay with Nana for the day. Carson, being the animal-lover that he is, always looks so forward to seeing Shelbi and getting "heh-bee keesses" (Shelbi kisses). Shelbi has always loved seeing Carson, too... probably partially due to knowing she'd get lots of treats while he was there since he likes to have a bite of snack for himself and then one for the dog. :)
Shelbi was 14 years old, so she did live a good, long life, but its always hard to lose our pets. They are truly an integral part of our families. We have many, many wonderful memories of Shelbi that will always be cherished in our hearts. Even Carson, as young as he is, will remember her, I think. He still asks about her at least once a day, or will tell us that "heh-bees gone" (Shelbi's gone).
Shelbi LOVED opening presents, she would tear in to them, whether they were for her or not. We could never leave wrapped gifts under the Christmas tree with Shelbi around... we'd come home and they would all be unwrapped! Christmas mornings were always fun as Shelbi helped open every single gift with us. It will be a strange Christmas this year without her.
On Saturday, we headed west to Greenville for a wedding reception. Aunt Julie's childhood friend, Pennie, got married and invited us all to the reception. Carson wasn't quite as rambunctious as he normally is, but he still had a lot of fun playing with his cousins. We tried to take an updated picture of the 4 cousins, but it didn't work out too well... mostly due to the fact that Carson just cannot sit still. :) We all had a lot of fun at the reception and it was great to see the family and to see Pennie and share in her wonderful day!
Yesterday, we headed out to Lansing and East Lansing for the evening. We stopped for dinner at Smokey Bones and then headed to Impression 5 (I5) Science Center for a quick visit. We purchased a membership at I5 just before our trip to Chicago in April so that we could get into the museums in Chicago for free. And while Carson and Sara have been to I5 for a couple different Toddler Science Days, they'd never really been able to check out the center. So we went to play last night. We all had a lot of fun. Carson doesn't understand the science behind most of the exhibits yet, but he'll pick it up if we continue to go there (which we will since we've already bought a renewal membership when they were on sale a couple weeks ago). He still was able to have a ton of fun, even though he didn't get the science behind them. His favorite exhibit was probably one of the light exhibits - he got to dim and turn red, blue, and green lights on and off. He is just fascinated with lights, so he spent quite a while playing there and watching the lights dim and change colors.
They had tons of fun running back and forth between the bean bag toss game and climbing up and down, just following one another and jabbering. And at the end of the night, after they were in their PJs for the trips home, they even gave each other a big hug! So cute!
We headed up to Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Van's trailer on Big Star Lake for a few days this week. We arrived early Sunday afternoon and after some cleaning in the trailer (it hasn't been used all summer, so the critters have been having the time of their life in there :)), we headed down to the lake for a couple of hours. The water was fabulous - great temp., awesome sandy bottom, and you can walk out forever. All four of us had a lot of fun. Jet loved bounding through the water and Carson loved watching Jet and swimming on his back in his life jacket - he's doing very well keeping balanced and kicking his feet, he'll be swimming on his own in no time! 
After swimming, we headed up to the trailer to get changed and headed into town for dinner at Pompeii's Pizzeria (very good!) and some grocery shopping for the vacation necessities that we hadn't brought with us (beer, hand soap, bottled water). We ended the night just relaxing at the trailer... its amazing how quiet it is in the woods... we'd forgotten how quiet it could actually get... it was so peaceful... and we weren't even bothered by mosquitoes, even without our Burts Bees bug spray! It was great!
On Monday, we decided to head north to Traverse City since the forecast for Lake County looked like it'd be pretty rainy. The weather in Traverse City was great for most of the day. We went to the (free) Children's Gardens downtown first. Carson had a blast running around, climbing in and out and all over the wooden train, smelling flowers, and watching the waterfall into the fish pond. Then we had lunch at a local place on the main drag in town and headed north up the Old Mission Peninsula for a scenic drive, some wine tasting, some light hiking on some trails and on the beach, and to see the lighthouse at the tip of the peninsula.. 
We picked up some really good cherry festival wine, some cherry sangria, and some late harvest riesling wines at one of the wineries we stopped at. Half-way up the peninsula, our check engine light came on. Figures, huh? We stopped at Auto Zone once we got back into Traverse City and it coded as something being wrong with the supercharger. Again, figures, huh? Kevin wasn't too concerned about it doing harm to the engine, though he was pretty bummed to have to drive with no boost for the rest of the trip. :) After that, we headed back to Big Star Lake. We stopped at an MDOT Roadside Park on our way back for a stretch - we climbed 144 steps down and 144 steps up... 
and Carson did every one of them with us! We waded in the lake (actually a reservoir on the Manistee River, so it was COLD!) after making our way down, then we headed on up the stairs to the car for the rest of the trip back to the trailer. We stopped on the north side of Baldwin at the Government Lake Lodge for a late dinner (another very good place to eat if you're in the area!).
We stayed at the trailer on Tuesday. Just relaxed and went on a walk in the morning. Then headed up to Mel's for lunch and ice cream. And then spent the afternoon on the pontoon out on the lake. It was so great to just sit out there, getting some sun, swimming, relaxing, and just having some great family time! We took a drive in the evening and were very happy to see that the check engine light was off! Danny had done some internet research for us and said that was a possibility, so we were very thankful it went off!
On Wednesday, we took a drive out to Ludington. Sara's parents were also on vacation this week and were staying in Ludington, so we met up with them. Carson was very excited to see Nana and Papa! We went to Stearns Beach on Lake Michigan for a few hours. Carson had a great time! The waves crashing on the shore scared him a little at first, but soon enough he was running into Lake Michigan and having a great time. He had tons of fun building a sand castle with Daddy and Papa. The beach was busy, but it was very relaxing and beautiful! 
After the beach, we headed downtown to House of Flavors for lunch and their famous ice cream. (Kyle, you were right, it was sooooo good!!!). 
After lunch, we headed down to Waterfront Park to play on their enormous playground and check out all of the sculptures. What a beautiful park! We spent a couple of hours there and had a lot of fun running around, playing on the playground, and watching the boats come in to the marina. 
