Time Flies

I can't believe how fast this summer is flying right by!

Some of the noteworthy events from the past few weeks....

Shane has started walking. He's up about 50% of the time and crawling 50%. It is such a bittersweet thing to see your last baby taking his first baby steps. He is such a wonderful little guy I don't want him to grow up!

All three big boys went to VBS camp a few weeks ago. I was not sure what to expect from Jonah and Sam since they have never been to camp, but they were fine. Except for the part where Jonah peed outside on the playground instead of going in to use the actual bathroom. And then the part where Sammy peed in his pants and came home with a shirt and only a pull-up on. Other than that I didn't get much feedback from the kids.

Their enthusiasm for camp revolved around what food they served at snack time.
Kids: "Mom, we had ice cream for a snack today! Can you believe it?"
Me: "Wow, that's a great snack. What else did you do at camp?"
Kids: "Nothing."
Me: "Did you learn any new songs?"
Kids: "No. What do you think we are going to have tomorrow for our snack?"

We are heading to Michigan tomorrow. I am going to Grand Haven to stay with John's parents for 2 weeks and John is coming for the 2nd week. We are looking forward to seeing everybody and hoping that the drive is painless!

All Four Boys!

Being together on vacation also gave us a lot of opportunities to get some good pictures of all 4 boys. It is always tricky to get everybody to look the same direction and smile. I took some time but we managed to get some keepers. This one is my favorite!

This one was taken at a waterfowl nature reserve on Drummond Island. Last year we took a great picture of the boys sitting on a rock near a waterfall, but the water is so much higher this year that the same rock is now underwater. There were tons of mosquitos around the reserve too! We all went home with mosquito bites on our legs. It was too hot for pictures that day but we gave it our best shot.

These were taken in Mackinac in front of the Fort Mackinac lighthouse on our way home. It would have been fun to take the kids on the tour, but we were there at 7:15 am and they were not open yet. It's probably a good thing because Wyatt would have figured out how to get to the top of that tower and flash a signal. Then we would have have planes landing everywhere and boats grounding themselves.... So, maybe it was better that they were still closed after all!


Yet another story from the road....
On our way home Sam dropped his blanket onto the floor of the van by accident. He started crying and saying it fell. He wanted us to get it for him because he doesn't know how to unbuckle his seat belt. I told him that he would have to wait until we stopped at a rest stop. Then Wyatt (who knows how to unbuckle) piped in...."Sam, I would get it for you but I'm not going to jail for that!"

Drummond Island Fishing Report

A few weeks before we left to go to Drummond Island John started checking the fishing reports online. He told me that everyone was reporting that the Cisco were already biting and would likely have moved on to Canada by the time we arrived over the 4th of July. Usually the Cisco are biting best on Drummond Island right around the 4th of July. It had been so warm this year that the fish arrived early and would only stick around for a couple of weeks.


We were disappointed. The boys were really looking forward to fishing, but we figured that we would try fishing for little pan fish and minnows and the kids would still enjoy themselves.


So we were thrilled when John took the boat out and found the last of the Cisco hot spots. All you had to do was drive toward Canada until you saw the big pack of boats. We all went Cisco fishing and everybody was lucky enough to catch at least one fish!


One day John and I took all 4 boys fishing. I had some serious doubts about how well it would work but it was a lot of fun. Several boats drove up to see how we were doing with all of the kids and say hi. A few older fishermen told us to enjoy the boys while they are still little and enjoy hanging out with us. We get that sentiment a lot when we have all of the boys out together. We know that we are lucky and sure like sharing these fun experiences with our 4 little guys!



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Today I took the boys to Walmart and we stopped by to check out the fish in the pet department. As the boys we "ohhing and ahhing" about which fish were bigger and faster Sam looked at me and said "Mom, I want to eat all those fish!". Everybody within earshot nearly fell over laughing. That boy is such a ham!

A Picture.......Thousand Words

I still have a couple more Drummond Island posts left to write, but I wanted to post this picture that we took on our way home. We caught the 6:10 am ferry off the island and then stopped at a bakery in Mackinac and picked up a bunch of donuts just after 7am. Then I used my GPS to locate a nearby park so that we could let everybody out. I am not sure what the name of the park was but we had a perfect view of the bridge and a beautiful lighthouse. We snapped off this picture and after I got home I realized how good the picture actually was! I am going to have it framed and hung....it's definitely my new favorite!

Puddingstones

One of our other favorite activities on Drummond Island was hunting for puddingstones. The puddingstone (aka pudding stone, plum pudding stone) is a common name used mainly in England for a conglomerate consisting of well-rounded pieces whose colors are in such marked contrast with the abundant fine-grained matrix or cement that the rock suggests an old fashioned plum pudding. This colorful type of sedimentary rock was formed a billion years ago in the river channels of northeast Canada. During the Ice Age, they were pushed down through Eastern Michigan from Ontario Canada by the glaciers. The white is quartz sand which is combined with orange jasper to form stones of various sizes, shapes and colors. Some puddingstones may even contain fossils.


After dinner one evening we decided to take a boat ride out to Harbor Island with the boys to check out the shoreline and beach. We had to park the boat away from shore since it was fairly shallow and wade in to shore. As we were all walking I spotted a puddingstone under the water and picked it up to show John and the boys.


We have several large DI puddingstones in the plantings around our house that we moved from Michigan to Ohio to Pennsylvania. They are really large rocks that took Grandpa, John, and I hours to get into the boat in the first place. They are beautiful, but we have never talked to the boys about their significance. By the way Mom and Dad, did you know that one of the stones in the chimney of the cottage is a puddingstone?

So we explained what puddingstones looked like and set the boys loose on Harbor Island. It turns out that Harbor Island is a great place to find puddingstones that are nice and small. We found a lot of puddingstones.

Sam was the best puddingtone hunter. He spent a lot of time studying rocks in the water before reaching down and grabbing one. Then, without fail, he had correctly identified a puddingstone every time.

Wyatt was a decent puddingstone hunter. He picked up tons of rocks that were not puddingstones, but recognized which were which.

Jonah found lots of clam shells. I don't think that he found a single puddingstone on his own. But he had fun trying.

After we got home the boys got busy cleaning all of our rocks (and clams). They scrubbed them with brushes and tried to remember who picked out which rocks. Then they lined them up based on size. They were entertained for hours. It was a great adventure for our family and we are looking forward to doing it again next year!

Big Shoal

We are home. We drove straight through from Drummond Island to Pittsburgh. We were in the car for almost 12 hours! We only stopped 2 times on the way back!

The kids did great! They were basically exhausted from our rigorous vacation schedule and were happy to sit in the car and relax for a while.

John and I realized after Grandma and Grandpa left that we were on our first non-extended family-vacation since we had kids. Even though we missed Grandma and Grandpa we really enjoyed being together with just the 6 of us.

We let the kids take super late afternoon naps and then kept them up every night doing activities until at least 9 pm. They slept like rocks. And John and I were able to enjoy the sun setting so late (about 10 pm!) instead of being trapped in the cabin waiting for the boys to fall asleep at 7 pm.

One of our favorite activities was taking the kids to the beach at Big Shoal Bay. I think that we went there 3 times! It is a sandy beach in a cove on the south east side of the island in lake Huron. In addition to the sand on the beach there are tons of huge rock boulders sticking up which were fun for the kids to climb. The bay was really shallow and you could walk out into the water for a long ways until it got too deep. In a few years if we teach the kids to snorkel we can all check out the ship wrecks at the opening of the bay from the turn of the century when the island was used to transport lumber.Fun!


The beach also had a fresh water stream that emptied into the lake here. The water coming from the stream was about 40 degrees! It felt like melted snow! But the water in the lake was 80 degrees so there were pockets and pools of water that were really hot and some that were really cold. It didn't take the kids long to figure out where they wanted to play!


Even though Shane was born in Pittsburgh, he has Michigan in his blood! That boy couldn't get enough beach time! He crawled everywhere! At one point Shane crawled into the freezing cold spring water briefly before he decided that the lake was a lot nicer place to play. He had SO much fun on the beach. My baby even screamed and cried when we had to go home!


The best thing about the beach was how low maintenance the kids were! John and I sat on a picnic table and talked and enjoyed the sun while the kids played. They played SO well together! We didn't have to break up any fights or put anyone in time out! It was so relaxing! We can't wait to go back next year!

Fish, Rocks and Water

Yesterday morning, Grandma and Grandpa headed back home. It was awfully quiet when they left. The 6 of us jumped in the boat and went fishing. The boys took turns holding poles and reeling in the fish. They LOVED it- including Shane. In total, we cought 5 cisco. John grilled those fish and the ones from the previous night and we all enjoyed a fish dinner.

Today we loaded everyone up in the boat and spent the day at Shoal Island. The boys quickly learned what pudding stones were and were happy to identify all that they could. As you can see, they're proud of their loot!

The water was super warm and kept everyone busy for hours. The boys buried Shane in the sand and he loved it! It was a rare moment for John and I to sit back and just watch. Pure bliss! Then it was time for climbing rocks, building rock creations and rock excavation.

As the day ended, we gathered up the masses and headed back home for a camp fire dinner full of food on sticks- hot dogs, and smores.

We watched the sun go down over the water and they boys were asleep in no time. Another wonderful day on Drummond Island.

A Little Rainy

It rained on and off today but we still managed to have some fun! John and Dad took Sam fishing and found some BIG cisco. Mom and I did some shopping and spent some time outside in between the rain showers. We even had Dad get a couple of family pictures of us down at the lake. Mom was in charge of getting everyone to look and smile and Dad shot about 100 pictures. We ended up with 2 keepers so we were thrilled! Thanks Mom and Dad!

4th of July 2010

We celebrated 4th of July with a bang. Well, actually it was more of a boom. Dad and John decided to chop down a big tree that was leaning over the garage. It went smoothly and nothing went wrong...probably because John has watched all of the Swamp Logger series on Discovery channel. You can learn a lot from a bunch or rednecks in a swamp!

Then we spent the rest of the day thoroughly enjoying the 80 plus degree weather....frog hunting, swimming, tubing, raspberry picking, golf cart riding and jet skiing.

It was a perfect holiday celebration. Happy 4th of July!

Small Game Hunters

The boys discovered the thrill of hunting and catching tadpoles, frogs, and minnows with their nets today. They had so much fun, but I have a feeling that their Daddy may have had even more fun showing them the ropes.

I am not sure what happened to Sammy's clothes in between swimming and frog hunting, but he didn't let his attire stop him from having a good time!

Drummond Island 2010

We arrived on Drummond Island yesterday afternoon after 2 full days of travel. It was a long trip, but well worth it.

So far we have had 80 degree weather both days. We have enjoyed swimming in the lake, riding the jet ski, lots of golf cart rides, going out for ice cream, and rides in the red truck. Today we even ate a campfire lunch of roasted hot dogs and smores...yummy!

John and I went for a bike ride together after the kids were in bed and found a patch of wild ripe red raspberries. We may have to take our little migrant workers along to help pick tomorrow!

My favorite thing about Drummond Island... there is tons to do and everybody is tired at the end of the day. It doesn't get much better than that!