Vacation!

This past week I FINALLY had my vacation!! It was filled with lots of activities...and an actual vacation!!

On Saturday, we took the kids and went to Crossroads Village with our friends, Matt & Desiree and their two kids, Dorian and Griffin. We had a great time looking around and riding the train! We're hopefully going to go back and ride the Genesee Belle (a paddle boat). Here are some pictures of Emma and Dorian on the train!

On Sunday, I was asked to sub for the Saginaw Eddy Concert Band last week. This is a band I used to play for in college and shortly after (until I started working nights in the drive-thru at the bank!). It's a paid gig, and I really enjoyed just playing in the band! Well, I got in touch with the conductors again, and although they were filled in the clarinet section, I was able to be on the sub list. They called me for the last concert of their summer season. We spent the whole day in Saginaw, since I had a rehearsal in the morning. We had a nice time at the concert and the kids really seemed to enjoy the music and just being outside!

On Monday, Emma and I went to the IKEA store in Canton with my mom and sister, Karyn. I had never been there, and WOW...I can't wait to go back!! I found so many things I would love to incorporate into our house somewhere...and now everywhere I look in the house I think, "Hmmm...I wonder if that **** we saw at IKEA would look good there??" LOL I did get us a new desk chair, which is awesome!! Here's Bradlee helping me put it together!

The rest of the week was just spent hanging out and spending time with the kids...which was AWESOME! On Friday, Tony and I left for Indianapolis, Indiana for the Drum Corp International World Championships. This is like marching bands on steroids! The corps are extra-curricular, non-school related groups. The Open Class is mostly high school students and the World Class is mostly college students, with a few high school students. What an awesome time we had!!! The marching and music was fabulous and the hotel was fabulous, and dinner at The Melting Pot was fabulous!!! Here's our view from our hotel room:

Here are Tony and me at The Melting Pot...it's a fondue restaurant!!! We had a spinach-artichoke cheese fondue to start, then a salad, then a coq au vin main entree (with lots of lobster tail and shrimp!) and a "yin and yang" (white and dark) chocolate fondue dessert! It was rather expensive, but we were there to celebrate our 6th anniversary and to enjoy our first vacation, and we sure did!!!

Here are some pictures from the DCI show...the winner of the Open Class (like "JV" team) were the Blue Devils "B"....ironically, the winner of the World Class (the "big guys", and Tony calls them!) were the Blue Devils!! The first picture here are the Blue Devil "B"s:

Here are the Blue Devils!

Here are Tony and me with the entire World Class corps behind us...it was so awesome to see so many young people so dedicated to something like marching band...it's definitely not something I grew up with at my high school!!!

While Tony and I were in Indianapolis, Tony's parents took the kids up north to our friends' (and Emma's godfather, Uncle Paul) cabin in Glennie. Emma was so excited to go! I got her a fishing rod and net and Tony's mom found her a fishing hat! Unfortunately, they couldn't get the pontoon to start, so they had to fish off the pontoon at the dock, but Emma was still able to catch 5 fish, all on her own! She wouldn't touch the fish, but she did touch the worms!! She was so proud of herself, but couldn't understand why they couldn't eat the fish! So, Uncle Paul came to the rescue and told her that they were only baby fish, so they had to get let go again so they could get bigger and then they could catch them and eat them! It worked! She was so excited to throw the fish back in! I only wish I had been able to see it!!! Here she is with her first fish!

Bradlee decided to have 3 new teeth come in that weekend, so he was a little temperamental... but he still had a great time with Nana and Beepee, Aunt Lynne and Uncle Paul! The good news is that by the time we got home, he was over the worst of it!!! :)

I also took Monday off, so we spent the day hanging out at home and then over at Tony's parents' in the pool! Matt & Desiree and the kids came over again and we all ordered Italian and had a great time with each other in the pool and great weather!! Here are Bradlee and Griffin enjoying their spaghetti!!

I had a wonderful vacation!! Here's one more picture of Bradlee and me! I love his face in this one...you can tell he's so tired...he had just gotten out of the pool and into his PJ's!

It's been a great few weeks here! Back on July 22nd, Tony and I took the kids to the Flushing Concert in the Park. The music was '60's and '70's and not very good, but we still got some great pictures!

Emma and her Daddy!

Emma - just happy to be outside!

Bradlee - getting into the diaper bag!!

"Walking" around with Pat (Tomasik)!!

There was a threat of rain, so we made a tent with the umbrella!

The kids loved sitting under it!

We had Bradlee's 1st Birthday Party on July 26th at our house. That morning, Tony was feeding Bradlee his morning breakfast of yogurt and stepped away for a minute. Bradlee decided he wanted to feed himself, so he got the yogurt (which was about half full) and the spoon and went for it! The result? Bath #2 for the day!!!

Again, there was a threat of rain, so we had things ready to go inside and out. We grilled outside and everyone had a great dinner outside...then it POURED....so we all headed inside for presents and dessert! Emma and I picked out a cupcake-cake from VG's with a Sesame Street theme. When we went to pick it up, though, we noticed that they had spelled his name wrong! So, they "fixed" it right then, and it looked okay, but not perfect. We ended up getting the cake free! Bradlee got his own little cake to enjoy as well. We had a great time with our family and friends that were able to make it...including my friend from grade school, Julie, and my college roommate (who lives in Waterloo, Canada and drove over just for the party!), Lauren!!! Bradlee, of course, decided it was a good day to mess his diaper all over his outfit resulting in bath #3....and then after the cake (see picture below!)....Bath #4!!! What a clean and great way to celebrate Bradlee turning 1!!

For Emma's birthday each year, we go to Red Robin for dinner with my parents, just like we did the day before we went to the hospital to have her when she was born...so we decided we had to have a similar tradition with Bradlee! The night we went in to have him, we dropped Emma off at Tony's parents' house and had Sorrento's (Italian) for dinner...so that is now the tradition! So on Wednesday (Bradlee's birthday, the 29th), we headed out to Flushing and enjoyed Sorrento's take out! What a great night we had! We had another little cake and some ice cream and celebrated again! Emma just loved giving Bradlee attention...and of course, having even more cake! LOL Here's the birthday boy and his daddy goofing around on Bradlee's birthday!

This week I am on vacation, so I am taking the opportunity to spend as much time with the kids as possible! Sunday night I played a concert in Saginaw, so we all went up there and spent the afternoon together...Emma just loves coming to my concerts! She loves trying to play my clarinet after each concert I play! She's pretty good, too! She can get a really good tone and I play the keys! We just have to work on her breath control! LOL

Today (Monday), Emma and I picked up my mom (also on vacation!) and my sister, Karyn, and went to Canton to the IKEA store. What a place! It was the first time I had ever been there, and we had a great time, just the girls!!! I can't wait to see what we come up with the rest of the week!!