C'S 4-WHEELER

I may have mentioned before that for his 4th birthday, C got his very own gas powered 4-wheeler. No more Power-Wheels for him! (IJ has inherited C's old 4-wheeler and enjoys running into things. :) )

So far C's been just riding it around in a big circle in our yard until he gets used to controling it, and he's getting pretty good at it. He's only had one incident where he rode too close to nana and papa's truck and scraped some paint off the truck's front bumper. That freaked him out a bit (he did not want to tell nana and papa what he did when R made him go and talk to them) and he's been paying more attention since.

Since C's been getting better R has taken him out on a couple of short rides down the trail near our house (R on his 4-wheeler and C following behind on his). The last time they went out R took the camera and got some video clips:

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

When they got back to the house R was telling me how well he did on the ride, and then I watched the videos. "You didn't tell me he hit a tree!" "Oh, it was just a sapling." Yeah, these guys are gonna make my hair go gray very early in life... :)

R'S NEW TOY

Just to let you all know, we're all still alive out here! ;) I know it's been a while since I posted on here, I've been bad. :) Lots of stuff has been going on around here since I last posted, like C turning 4, and our weeklong vacation to see family in Minnesota and St. Louis and the "Go, Diego, Go!" live show. Plus I got Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 and discovered digital scrapbooking, so now every time I'm on the computer I'm either on scrapbooking sites or playing on Photoshop. :) I know, excuses, excuses. ;)

Anyway, R wanted me to post photos of his new toy, a Yamaha motorcycle. We are just collecting the boy toys around here, with the trucks and the 4 wheelers and the snowmobile (plus C got his own kid sized gas powered real 4 wheeler for his birthday!). When R came home with it in the back of his truck the other night, I sent the boys down to look out the door's window. I said, "Do you guys see daddy's new toy in the back of his truck?" And C exclaims, "It's a new...neeew...um, snowmovile?" He he he. :) R's pretty proud of it, and excited about all the gas he's going to save this summer. :)

Here's the photos of the new motorcycle taken by R, and some photos of R on it, taken by nana:

And here's a short video nana took of R out for a ride:

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

More blogging to come soon...maybe...we'll have a newborn next month so we'll see! :)

THE DOGS STOLE R'S PIZZA...FROM THE REFRIGERATOR

That's right. Our lovely dogs, Cheyenne and Sasha, have learned how to open up our fridge. They could not ignore the tantalizing smell of R's leftover Papa Murphy's pizza.

Now, before you give them too much credit, our fridge door hasn't been catching right lately. If you don't close it just so, it hangs open just the tiniest little bit. But still, they would have had to nudge at it pretty good with their noses to get the door to open enough.

When I first caught them with the pizza out of the fridge yesterday, they had only managed to eat one slice. I figured one of the kids had went in the fridge and left the door open (which has happened before, resulting in the whole top of R's birthday cheesecake being licked off by Sasha, which then resulted in an emergency run to the store by nana and papa who found the whole situation so very hilarious...). So the dogs got yelled at and ran off with their tails between their legs, and then I reminded the boys to close the fridge after they open it (when I asked who was the one that was in the fridge, they looked at me like they had no freaking clue what I was talking about and then blamed each other, which is funny now that I know they didn't do it).

I spent the next half hour to forty five minutes with both boys on the couch, reading them stories. I then got up to head to the kitchen to make their lunches. I could not believe my eyes. There in the middle of the kitchen floor was the empty cardboard platter that used to hold the leftover pizza. Not a crumb of pizza was left. I never even heard a thing. We have sneaky, sneaky dogs...

When R came home, the first thing out of C's mouth was "Daddy! The dogs ate your pizza!". R sat on the couch and pouted for a while since he was really looking forward to eating that pizza. I felt for him, but you have to admit it's kind of funny. Guess he should have put his pizza in a container...

And maybe now R will fix the fridge door. :)

ONE LOOOONG WEEK...CONTINUED

Last Thursday I made the third trip in a week to a certain medical center, but this time it wasn't for me. Wednesday night C started complaining of a sore throat, which wouldn't have been a huge deal if nana hadn't contracted strep a few days prior. So C missed school Thursday so we could head off to the medical center, again, since they have a walk-in clinic. Now normally I would take the boys to their pediatrician, and I called the office first thing Thursday morning. But they didn't have any openings until Monday. Monday! Freaking hell, the whole town must be sick. Obviously if C had strep I couldn't wait until Monday, so off to the medical center we went...

All of the medical center offices I was in Monday and Tuesday had toys in the waiting room. I knew it would be a long wait to be seen in the walk-in clinic, but I figured that office would also have toys, so I didn't bring anything with me. I'm sure you can guess where I'm going with this: not a single toy in sight in that waiting room. And the boys were not in any mood to sit nicely in a chair. They wanted to run around and play. They traded chairs every two seconds. They tickled each other. Then they tried biting each other's fingers on purpose. Finally a lady pointed out to me that there was a very small box of kids books behind a chair in a corner. The books kept them occupied, although they seemed to think they needed a new book every two seconds. And for some reason, IJ seemed to think that the guy sitting next to the box was the Keeper of the Books. The guy didn't seem to mind, even though he was reading his own book, and played along. So when IJ was done with a book, he would hand it to the guy, then the guy would rifle through the box and give him a new one. It was pretty cute, and I'm glad the guy was nice about it.

Forever and a day later, we were finally called in. The verdict: no strep throat. But the boys have been sick with colds for a while (seems like ever since C started preschool), so the doctor diagnosed sinusitis. So C and IJ are both on antibiotics (which will also take care of any strep germs that maybe weren't presenting themselves), so now hopefully they'll finally kick their stuffy noses. Cause the snot has been flying here.

On Friday we got our first significant snowfall, a couple of inches that have since melted. I think that usually by this time we should have a lot more snow, but that doesn't bother me any. I don't really enjoy the snow and cold. Particularly the cold. I was born in Arizona, in the nice hot desert. My father was in the Air Force and they closed the base where we lived, and he actually picked to be sent to the base up here when I was in first grade (the base here eventually closed and my father took early retirement). So it's my father's fault that I live in the land of snow and cold. But there are a lot of good things about living in the U.P. that cancel out the cold part, so Yoopers we will stay. :)

C is a different story, though. He has been asking me for weeks when it would snow and when winter would come. I do not know how I produced this snow loving child. He obviously gets that from his daddy. :) So when he looked out the window Friday morning he was thrilled. "We can make snowmen and snowballs and have a snowball fight and build an igloo!" I hated telling him that he couldn't go out and play in it yet, first of all since he was still sick, and second of all since I haven't been able to get out shopping and get him new boots, snowpants, and gloves (IJ is all set with hand-me-downs). So R brought both boys a snowball before he left for work, and told them to throw it at me. Which of course they did since they listen to everything daddy tells them. :) Then of course I took them downstairs to attack nana and get her all wet. Hehe, that was fun.

snow covered bushes

more of our snow covered bushes

Cheyenne and Sasha went crazy playing in the snow, running around and around our deck and leaping at each other. You would think they'd never seen snow before. (I took these through a foggy door window)

Sasha butt :)

weighed down power lines

Sunday C got to sing with his preschool class at the church service (C's school is at a church), but I will save that for a post on it's own since I have some video to share.

So now I'm finally caught up! :)

VETERAN'S DAY

R, at 24, is a veteran, and that always seems really weird to me. Whenever I thought of the word "veteran" before, I would think of old gray haired guys at the VFW. R even gets VFW magazines in the mail, and it seems that most of the advertisements are geared towards old men: ads for scooters and hearings aids and such. But I guess veterans aren't just old guys anymore.

The pictures above are from R's homecoming from Iraq in January. C was so happy that daddy was home that he took off running for him as soon as he saw R. I think C may have actually spied him before the rest of us. This of course made us all start bawling, but at least they were happy tears. :)

Happy Veteran's Day to all you veterans out there, young and old alike. And remember our troops who are over there fighting for freedom today.

A DAY AT THE FAIR

A little over a week ago, R and I took C and IJ to the Marquette County Fair. I kept telling C that we were going to the carnival, since he saw an episode of Dora where they went to the carnival and had to "collect tickets to win prizes" (or maybe it was a Dora game, I'm not sure). Because of that, he has talked a lot about going to a carnival. As soon as he saw the Ferris wheel looming above the pine trees, he started shouting "Mommy! Daddy! The carnival! It's the carnival!" He was so excited, and kept talking about the "collecting tickets to win prizes" thing. I didn't really want to tell him that that wasn't how this fair worked; I just told him that we would play games and he would get a prize.

We found a kiddie fishing game that both boys could play where they were guaranteed to get a prize. C grabbed a pink "fishing line", and I showed him how to drag it to "catch" a fish. It didn't take him very long to snag a fish, and he held it up proudly, "I caught a fish!". I led him over to his prize box while R helped IJ with his fishing pole. He picked a set of spinning tops that could be made into a tower, and IJ picked a plastic ball and bat. Then C tried to grab the fishing pole so he could fish again. I told him that he already had his turn and we were going to go do other fun stuff. He couldn't really understand that we had to pay money every time he wanted to play (and we had already spent $4 just for the boys to play once); he just wanted to catch the fish. If I could, I would have kept dishing out the $2 and let him play however many times he wanted, but that's just life I guess. He forgot about it pretty quick as we moved on to other things. I'm hoping R will take him fishing for real here one of these days.

One of my favorite parts of the day, though, was when we went to see the horse barn. As we passed by all the horses with their heads sticking out of their stalls, C started singing "Old McDonald", just the first part till the "e-i-e-i-o". Still, it was pretty perfect. :)

Here are some of my favorite shots from the fair:


This was a really friendly goat at the petting zoo. Either the goat just likes kids a lot, or it wanted to nibble on their clothes. :) The boys thought it was great, though. Every time IJ touched an animal, he would yell excitedly "Mama! I touch! I touch!"

Cute little piglets!

This was the "Dragon" roller coaster. Last year I went on it with C and he loved it; this year he was big enough to go by himself. It was weird watching him from the sidelines, he's growing up! He's going to be going on all the big coasters with daddy when he gets older-he loved the Dragon and went on it twice. He sure doesn't get it from his mommy.

In the giant time-unlimited bounce house!

Wave to daddy! They thought this was great the first couple of times around, then they got bored and wanted to get off while it was still going around. Yep, they definately take after R.

The boys and I on the carousel. I kept telling C to look at daddy for a pic, but he would always look in the wrong direction. :)

PEE PEES AND WOOD AND OTHER FUN STUFF

First off, as you can probably tell from my lack of posting lately, I am really behind on my blogging. I blame all those fun summer activities: fireworks and parades and nice warm weather (although lately its been pretty hot, even up here-yesterday it was in the 90's). And today I've been cleaning the upstairs, because my kitchen is finally progressing again!! Yippee! :) And I have even heard the glorious hum of my dishwasher today. Oh, how I've missed my dishwasher! I'll have a kitchen update soon with pics.

Today I wanted to share a few of the things that have been going on here lately. Or, more like some of the weird things you could have heard us saying the past few days. Like this one, said by me: "Get mommy's phone off your pee pee!"

That's probably one of the strangest things I've ever said as a parent. :) But wait, I've got more for you.

The other day, R came home from work with some cedar planks. He came walking in the door with one of the planks in his hands. C looked up and exclaimed, "Daddy, that's a big wood!" :D

And, lastly, C actually asked for a wedgie. He walked up to R and said "Pull the underwear up the butt crack." (Both boys like to say butt crack. They think it's just hilarious.)

***

In other news, C has started trying to write the alphabet. The first time he tried it, R wrote all the letters on a piece of paper, then held C's hand as they wrote the first line of letters together. Then R let C try to write the rest of the letters himself. Some he did fairly well, others he had a lot of trouble with, but for a first try, he did pretty well. So now I've been showing him how to spell his name, and we've been printing out letter writing pages off the internet. He made an alphabet train where he traced out all the letters and then cut out and glued the train together (I will try and remember to take a pic of it). And today I found nifty Leap Frog Alphabet Cards that come with dry erase markers. C's been enjoying tracing out the letters and then erasing them.

Here's the photo of his first try at the alphabet:

***

Finally, here's a video I've been wanting to share for a while and haven't gotten to posting it. The week after the 4th of July, we went to Negaunee's Pioneer Day fireworks. It was the first fireworks show for both of the boys. The video is just of the fireworks, but in the background you can hear C yelling "Wow! Woah!" He was pretty excited. :) (The flickr set with our 4th of July and fireworks pics is here. )

PUPPIES AND POOLS

I've had just a lovely day today. Sasha (our black lab puppy) has been really driving me insane lately. Today was really bad though. She not only chewed one of my new sandals in half, but she totally mutilated one of the kids' library books. Then she stuck her face in the diaper bag that was on the floor and got out IJ's old binkie, and then chewed the nipple part off and chewed in half the pacifier attatcher (that clips it to the baby's clothes). She had to dig down all the way to the bottom of the bag to get it. Now, IJ doesn't use a binkie anymore of course, but we do plan to have one more child. I would have liked to use the attatcher again. :( And I get to visit the library on Monday with checkbook in hand. Lovely. What happened to my cute little puppy that was so calm and I had to carry up and down the stairs because she was scared to do it? Who would sleep in a little warm lump in my lap? Now it's "NO!" every two minutes. Yesterday she was running around full force outside and slammed right into IJ, sending him flying onto the ground where he scraped up his leg. Aaaaarrrrrrgh!! :( All is good now though, since I'm watching the nascar race at Daytona. Superspeedways are awesome. :)

Anyways, Sasha's not really what I was gonna write about today. A couple of days ago, R brought home a ten foot pool for the boys. He got it at Menards where he works, and because of his discount and that it was on sale, he got it for $40 when it was normally $60. Pretty nifty. :) C and IJ were pretty excited about it, and were ready to play in the pool before it was even filled up all the way.

A couple of days later when the pool water had warmed up some, we finally let the boys get in and play. It was still pretty cold, so they didn't last very long, but they didn't want to wait any longer.

Yesterday, the pool was nice and warm (it was sunny and 80 outside), so nana and papa got in with the boys. I was not planning on getting in, and was standing fully clothed next to the pool watching. Somehow I ended up getting soaked, because someone had to throw water at me (I do believe I have nana to thank for that). Of course, I had to retaliate, so I jumped right in and me and nana went at it. We both ended up pretty soaked. :) Then I tried to jump on the snow tube we were using as a boat for the boys. I landed on the tube, but the force sent me right over the edge and onto the ground! Nana and papa just stood there and watched it happen, laughing. They will pay. :) It was funny, at one point when all of us adults were having a ball in the pool, the boys had gotten out and were sitting in the van eating some cookies they had found. Hmm, I wonder who we bought this pool for? ;)

Here's a little clip of the boys splashing in the icy pool water on the first day:

Also, here's the flickr set with all our new pool pics. :)

VACATION! PART 2: NASCAR

Sorry everyone, I know I said I would write this "tomorrow", but I didn't get around to it, then there was some other things I wanted to do. But, hey, here I am now. :)

First off, here's what we learned for the next time we go to a nascar race at Michigan International Speedway:

• We will leave to head to the track at the crack of dawn.
• We will bring rain gear.
• We will bring food and a grill and barbeque dinner in the parking lot.
• We will get a hotel closer to the track (remember, we were staying in Grand Rapids because we were supposed to visit family, but Grand Rapids is a two hour drive away from Brooklyn, where the track is located).

Now, don't get me wrong, the race was awesome. But we did have some disappointments. We decided to leave for the track at about 8:30; the track gates opened at 8:00 a.m. but we didn't think we needed to get there that early (especially with having the kids with us, and strollers are not allowed). We figured, two hour drive, get there about 10:30, and that would give us plenty of time to visit vendor row and do all the other pre-race stuff (driver introductions began at 1:15). But what we didn't realize were that the roads to the track were regular little 2-lane roads. R, auntie, the kids, and I got to the 2-lane road close to 10:30, and saw a sign that said "8 miles to MIS". And then it took us two hours to drive the 8 miles. Two. Hours. It was not a fun drive either. IJ was having trouble falling asleep for his nap because we were moving so slowly, so he screamed at the top of his lungs for part of it. Everyone had to pee, including C who was wearing underwear, but there was no way we were going to lose our spot in line. By the time we got parked at the track and visited the porta-potties (where C started peeing before he was positioned correctly, resulting in pee being shot all over the porta-potty), we had only enough time to get to our seats.

We had pretty freaking great seats, too. Right in between turns three and four, and high enough up to see the whole track. The only thing we couldn't see were the pits, since Michigan has a row of stands behind the pits which were blocking our view. Driver introductions began, and we cheered for Dale Jarrett as he came around the track in the back of a black pickup, waving to the fans. Well, C cheered for "Wiffle", aka Greg Biffle. Nana likes Biffle (because he drives the National Guard car) and has corrupted C with him. Oh well, I can still teach IJ the right person to root for. :) As much fun as it was to root for Jarrett, I think it was probably even more fun to boo Jeff Gordon. It felt just so good. :D I even yelled out a "Jeff Gordon sucks!" even though there were a bunch of Gordon fans around us. Hehehe :). The national anthem was sung (including the Canadian anthem), and the jets roared overhead. At first I thought they weren't going to have the flyover since I couldn't see or hear the planes, and then all of a sudden they appeared out of thin air directly behind us. It scared me a little which R found amusing.

And then of course it started to rain. Now, we knew about the high chances of rain for that Sunday, yet we neglected to bring any rain gear. I think it was because we were in denial that it was actually going to rain (who wants their first nascar race rained out?). A really wonderful couple sitting next to us (who had a one year old at home) had a big red tarp and let the boys scoot over next to them to sit under it. Thankfully the rain didn't last for too long and the freaking loud ass jet driers came out and had the track dried in no time (I swear I think the jet driers are even louder than the race cars!).

Finally the announcement came for the drivers to return to their cars, and the grandstands erupted in cheers. Adam Sandler was the grand marshal, and probably did the best "Gentlemen, start your engines!" that I have heard in a long time. And then came the rumble of forty three race engines; two lines of cars pulling out on the track behind the pace car. Everyone stood for the green flag, and the grandstands erupted as the cars came up to speed. Watching nascar on tv is nothing compared to seeing it in person. The deafening roar, the whoosh of the cars flying by, the vibration of your seat and your internal organs. Plus, you get to follow whatever car you want at all times, not just the leaders that they show on tv. The 8mile/2hour drive, the sitting in the rain, it was all worth it just to see this sport in person.

The Tony Stewart wreck happened right in front of us, which was awesome. Well, not for Tony, but seeing a wreck that close? Awesome. I saw it start happening; I was waiting for Jarrett to come around turn three and saw Tony go sideways and the smoke come up. Everybody stood up to watch the spin, so I didn't see a lot more after that (I had IJ in my lap so I couldn't just jump up like everyone else). Still: awesome. :)

The race went on and there were cautions here and there for rain sprinkles, but nothing too bad. The boys started getting tired, and C fell asleep first in R's lap. We layed him down under auntie's feet in the little aisle between the bleacher seats and there he slept the rest of the race. IJ drifted off in my lap soon after. We got lots of comments from the fans around us on the cuteness of it all. Both boys were wearing ear protection, but still, I think only my boys could sleep through the noise and excitement of a nascar race. :)

Eventually the race got past 100 laps, the halfway point were a race could be called complete if it started to rain heavily. It started to sprinkle again, and the race was put under caution. I decided I wanted to get up and walk around then, since I was the only one who hadn't yet. I handed sleeping IJ off to auntie, and R and I went down to see if we could find some souveniers. We got to a booth that mostly just had shirts and hats that said "Michigan International Speedway", when the rain started getting heavier. And heavier. Until it was pouring. We figured we had better get back up to the stands and save auntie, who was alone with both sleeping boys. R bought two rain ponchos, and we fought our way back up to our seats, like two fish swimming upstream. We made it back to auntie and the nice couple from earlier had their red tarp covering them all. Auntie put on one poncho and tucked the still sleeping IJ underneath, while I put on the other and we both covered the still spleeping C. The red tarp couple took off, and we sat in the pouring rain for a bit. Until we realized, that is, that the race had been called; Kasey Khane was the winner. We turned to auntie and asked her why the hell we were still sitting there. Her response? "I thought you guys knew!" No, otherwise we wouldn't be sitting in the grandstands in the pouring down rain! Sheesh. :) C got a rude awakening when R whisked him up to carry him and he started getting soaked. We splashed through the rain on the looong walk back to the Explorer. It was raining so hard, not even the ponchos were helping us. By the time we got to the car, the only person who wasn't soaked all the way through was IJ. My pants were drenched all the way up to my thighs, and I said screw it and took them off and sat in the car in my shirt and underwear. :) We were soaked and disappointed; after months and months of waiting for the race, we weren't going to get to see a green flag finish, the winner's burn-outs, or the victory celebration. But what can you do? You can't control the weather, unfortunately. :( The suckiest part was that after that downpour, it didn't rain again for the rest of the day. It makes you wonder if maybe they shouldn't have been so quick to call the race...

Then began the waiting game to leave the parking lot. R pulled out of our spot and we got up to the line of cars heading out, and then we sat. We have a dvd player in the Explorer, and the boys watched the entire movie "Robots" and the beginning of another movie before the line even started to move. Yeah. It was even worse trying to get out than it was trying to get in. We moved soooooooo slowly, even though both lanes of those little 2-lane roads were being utilized for outbound traffic. As we sat waiting for the line of cars to move, we saw all these other people staying put in the parking lots, breaking out their portable grills and grilling up some dinner. These people had the right idea. Wait until half the people leave, fill up your belly, and then make your exit. We were all starving even before we got close to the interstate or highway or whatever, and we still had a 2 hour drive after that back to Grand Rapids! (And remember, it wasn't like we could stop for dinner--we were all missing various articles of wet clothing, except auntie who just wore her wet clothes, and we didn't have extras with us. I was in my underwear, for cryin' out loud! :D)

But, you know, it was all so totally worth it. Just to see Dale Jarrett's #88 UPS Ford up close, and to boo the hell out of Jeff Gordon. So worth it. :)

And thus ends another really long ass post. :)

VACATION! PART 1: GRAND RAPIDS

We're back from our vacation! Well, actually, we've been back since Tuesday, but I had things to catch up on, nice weather outside...I know, excuses excuses. :) R, auntie, the boys, and I were in Grand Rapids Friday and Saturday, and then on Sunday we drove down to Brooklyn to the Michigan International Speedway for the nascar race (I have a lot to say about the race so I'll write about that tomorrow). This trip marks the furthest I've ever been downstate, otherwise I've only been across the bridge a couple of times to Mackinaw City. For some reason I expected it to look a lot more different than the U.P. (trees trees and even more trees), but really until we got to the city it didn't. Well except we were driving on interstates and all that and the U.P. doesn't have that (thank god-I make R do all the driving when we visit cities), but it was still lots of trees and farmland. I'm not sure what I was expecting, maybe for all of it to be more city-like I guess? I dunno. :)

Our main reason for going on this vacation was to go to the race in Brooklyn, but we decided to stay in Grand Rapids because R has family living there (one of them his 98 year old great grandma!). We had planned on visiting with them, but plans change and they were all going to be attending a funeral--not a good time to visit. :(

Friday night after we arrived in Grand Rapids we went to a mini golf/family fun place. Mini golf is fun, but I wouldn't say I'm that great at it. Hehehe, but at least auntie was worse than me; it was very amusing watching her. ;D We started off trying to get C and IJ to take turns and follow the rules, but of course that didn't last long. Eventually we just let them do their thing at a hole, and then we would try to hit our balls around little boy feet. :) C was actually really good at hitting the ball with the club; he'd start at the beginning and keep hitting the ball until he got it in the hole. IJ gave up on using the club, and would just take his ball, walk it over to the hole, drop it in, and then celebrate. He thinks he's pretty awesome at golf. ;)

After golf, R and I took the boys to ride on the go-cart track. I told R to take IJ since I figured he would be the better driver and wouldn't hit anything, and would be more able to take it easy with him. I took C and actually drove a lot better than I thought I would and pretty fast, too. And yet R was driving even faster! So much for that idea. :) Both boys enjoyed it though; they like to go fast.

That night R and I left the boys in the hotel with auntie and had dinner at an awesome mexican restaurant which if I remember right was called The Cantina. I looooove mexican food, especially refried beens. I don't care what the hell they look like, they taste so good. :) This place also had probably the best strawberry margueritas I've ever had. That was an awesome dinner.

On Saturday we visited the John Ball Zoo, where IJ got to go on a camel ride with daddy. We had asked C first if he wanted to go and he said no, and as we were going to walk away IJ piped up with "Camel? Ride? Me?" So R took IJ and of course as soon as C saw that he wanted to go, too. Auntie and I reminded him that he had his chance, and he said no (he was being a little crabby because he wanted a snow cone and something out of every vending machine we passed, so I think that's why he said no to the ride). He threw a tantrum of course, but oh well.

I think the best part of the zoo were these two bears that I think understood they were "on display", because they were throwing poses left and right. It was crazy! They were like two big hairy supermodels. :) I took about ten pictures of these bears, but of course they did the best poses after I turned the camera off. Figures. :) I think the boys liked the indoor aquarium the best ("Mama! Fish! Mama! Fish!") and the zoo's wooden play train. I thought they would like the petting zoo a lot more, but IJ was kind of scared of the animals and wouldn't pet them, and C only petted a couple (although he asked me if he could pet one of the turkeys that roam around the zoo that was near the gate...um, I guess a sharp looking bird beak isn't scary to a preschooler...).

We finished off Saturday with a trip to everyone's favorite headache-inducing place, Chuck E. Cheese. Thankfully we don't have one anywhere near our house, so C only gets to go on special occasions. Once or twice a year of Mr. Cheese isn't too bad. :)

Here is the flickr set with all the Grand Rapids photos (I'll add the race photos tomorrow). I'll be back tomorrow with a recap of the Michigan race. :) (Holy hell this turned into a long ass post...)