Happy 11th Birthday, Aidan!

Aidan turned 11 years old on Monday, 18 July 2011. Since Jim was out of town on business that day, we celebrated Aidan's birthday on Saturday, 16 July 2011 as a family. He wanted to open presents first thing in the morning, so he did!

Cards first...

He got a fancy new watch from Dad.

Aunt Melissa and Uncle Ryan sent him a whole set of Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising books.

Mom and Dad gave Aidan an electric guitar, which surprised him mightily. :)

Of course he had to try it out right away, jammies and all.

We had doughnuts from Marge's for breakfast, and after hanging out at home for a while, we had lunch at The Omelette Shoppe, where Aidan indulged in his favorite swiss-and-mushroom omelette and bagel. Then we headed north to Double JJ Resort to spend a few hours at the indoor water park. As usual it wasn't too crowded and we all had a great time on the water slides and in the lazy river.

We stopped at Guitar Center to pick up a couple of guitar stands and a new strap and case for the electric guitar, and then had dinner at Panera. Aidan, of course, had a ham and swiss sandwich - he never has anything different! He seems to consume a lot of swiss cheese, hmmm.

We came back home for cake and ice cream. Aidan's cake was chocolate, with chocolate frosting and chocolate chips, and of course he wanted mint chocolate chip ice cream. The boy likes chocolate, what can we say?

Posing with his eleven candles.

Dad lights the cake on fire...

Wow, I didn't realize how much smoke 11 candles make.

Happy birthday to our boy! :)

On Aidan's actual birthday, we puttered around the house in the morning, getting some chores done. Grandma Margie and Mariah came to take us to lunch - at Panera, of course, at Aidan's request, where he had yet another ham and swiss sandwich.

In the afternoon I took the kids to Guitar Center again - we needed a strap lock for the electric guitar - I envision us visiting their shop frequently over the next several years. We then hit the town looking for a Harry Potter wand for Aidan, on which he had decided to spend some of the money Grandma gave him for his birthday. We struck out at Toys R Us as well as The Kostume Room, so we just ordered one from Amazon.com and then headed to Target to pick up a few sundry items.

We had originally planned to go to Pietro's for dinner, but as it was 90 degrees with a heat index of 104, none of us really felt like a big Italian meal. So we came home instead, and had blueberries, strawberries, grapes and birthday cake for dinner, and followed it up with a quick trip to the library for books, and to Houseman's for ice cream.

We then spent an hour or two playing games on the Wii - Sports Resort, Rock Band 3 and Mario Kart, and by then it was time to chat with Jim.

We try to remember to take Aidan's picture at exactly 8:08 pm, the time he was born. This year he was playing Angry Birds on his iPod at that time!

Above - Aidan at 2 years old, in a chalk drawing by an artist at King's Island. Below - Aidan at 11 years old, playing Angry Birds on his iPod. :)

Summertime

I can't believe June is over already, but here it is the first of July and Aidan has begun counting down in earnest to his 11th birthday. Shocking, no?

Jim and I were both able to attend Aidan's 5th grade awards assembly at school on June 9. He received awards for perfect attendance, perfect high honor roll (all As & A-s the whole year), and for being a finalist in the spelling bee. He barely missed receiving a high academic award (he had one A- with the rest of his all As), and also barely missed receiving an award for the mathematics competition - by one point! We are super proud of our smart hard-working kid.

Also on June 9, both kids had their recitals. Margie, Mark and Marcia joined us for a whirlwind tour of southern Kent County. We started at Hope Reformed Church at 7 pm for Esme's piano recital, and as soon as Esme performed, we lickety-split drove back to Byron Center and Nickels Intermediate School for Aidan's recital.

Aidan and Tyler played "Home on the Range" and "Amazing Grace" together for their guitar recital, and then Aidan played the melody of the Beatles' "All My Loving" while Tyler played the chords and Mr. Shepard played the bass line. It was awesome. :)

Our deck has hosted a family of robins for five springs in a row now, and this year we managed to catch one of the fledglings on film - from this year's second batch, I think.

Esme played "Flopsy and Mopsy" for her piano recital this year. She is taking a few lessons during the summer to stay fresh, and will start up full-time again in the fall. She'll be taking part in the local sonatina festival in November, so we are really proud of how far she's come in just one year. She's awesome. :)

Both kids took summer courses at the zoo this week. Esme's was called "Aquatic Adventures" - they studied all the aquatic animals at the zoo, including those from freshwater and salt water habitats. She had an awesome time, and made a puffer fish sculpture and a "triorama" (triangle-shaped diorama) with sea animals.

Aidan's course was called "Photo Safari" - they photographed almost every animal in the zoo and learned a lot about photography techniques and display options. He took some awesome pictures! This is just a small sample, as he has only unloaded the pics from the first day so far.

This sheep is ready for her close-up. :)

A goat collage.

Aidan's teacher called this picture "professional grade". He is very proud of his turtles. :)

Jim and I went to see Huey Lewis and the News at the Frederik Meijer Gardens on June 8, as a belated birthday gift for Jim. It was SO much fun. We thank Grandma Margie, who stayed with our kids while we were out having fun!

Mini Pep went in for her regular service, and we got this car for our loaner. The kids were thrilled, they felt like movie stars. :)

We spent the Saturday before Father's Day with Papa, who naturally had a project for us all to do! We helped put up poles for his bird feeder town - of course he can't have just one bird feeder, and each one has to have a gauntlet of squirrel-resistant obstacle courses. And again of course, he won't use just Quikrete, he has to mix his own concrete. I managed to get a photo of all my boys in one shot - brother, husband, son, father. :)

On Father's Day we took Jim to the zoo just for fun. Here are all my peeps saying "who?" at the owl exhibit. :)

My big girl still sleeps like she did when she was a tiny baby. What a sweetheart.

I reached a major milestone on June 21 - 100,000 people in my family tree file. Amazing!

It's June!

Aidan seems to spend some amount of "free" time at school drawing pictures; he is continually frustrated by his lack of artistic ability/training, but for my money, I think he's pretty good at pencil and paper. Here are a couple of his masterpieces:

A couple of weeks ago, it was SO nice on the weekend that on Saturday we decided to go to the zoo. Jim, Everybody's Hero, gave the kids permission (and funds!) to ride the camel. They loved it. The camel even seemed to be enjoying himself. :)

In school Esme's class was learning what a family crest is, and the children each designed their own "personal" crest. Esme says she stands for truth, justice and bravery, but I thought it said "brainery," which is much funnier.

Due to a mix-up with ProFlowers, I received TWO beautiful bouquets for Mother's Day this year! This is the second one.

The super-wet spring we have had did have benefits. All the flowers and trees have bloomed SO great this year! This is our backyard pear tree.

Here is Esme with our phlox plants.

The second grade Marketplace Day was lots of fun. Here is Esme, the CEO of "Esme's Beady Bracelets," at work in her shop. She sold out!

We have a lot of beautiful sunrises and sunsets.

Here's our little crabapple tree, which starts out fuschia, fades into pink, and ends up almost white before dropping its blossoms. It's green now!

This is our fifth spring here, and FINALLY the lilacs have done themselves justice. They were beautiful this year, and smelled heavenly.

Aidan and Tyler had a nice day and insisted on taking their guitar lesson outside with Mr. Shepard. It was neat to find them out there when I arrived to pick them up.

Another super nice day - where to spend it? The beach, of course! The water was FREEZING but the kids enjoyed it anyway!

After an almost six-month wait, our kilts and accessories finally arrived from Scotland. We designed the tartan ourselves and named it the Bofa tartan. :) Mostly brown and purple with a little red, white and black.

Happy Mother's Day to me!

We spent part of Mother's Day at the Meijer Gardens - it was really nice to be outside there again!

Another pic from our visit to the zoo. They have put in a new retaining wall and planted it with all sorts of beautiful things.

In May we started attending Ada Bible Church's Kentwood Campus and have been very pleased so far. The kids are very pleased with their Sunday School activities and leaders. Aidan is actually happy in church for the first time since Immanuel UMC when he was four. I think that is very telling and really hope it lasts.

The children and I had eye exams in May. Esme's vision remains just peachy - might she escape glasses for a few more years? Aidan, who was the one who requested the appointment in the first place (we usually wait until school is out), ended up with a prescription 2x stronger than his old one. I guess he needed to go! My vision is only a teensy bit worse. We'll be picking up our new glasses within the next week - Aidan's have Transitions lenses.

The first two days of June have already been busier for me than all of May. The run-up to the last day of school seems to be more hectic every year! Yesterday I visited Esme's classroom to watch the children present their animal reports using PowerPoint, then went to the bank to deposit checks, Kinko's to have the Wetzel book printed, Home Depot to pick up some gardening things, and Cost Plus World Marketplace (picked up a little outdoor table). I spent the afternoon gardening, working on menus and grocery lists, and making some health insurance/benefits calculations.

Today I went back to Esme's school to fulfill my last obligation as a second grade volunteer, then to Byron Center Meats and Costco for groceries, then to Kinko's to pick up my books (they are speedy quick there), then home to unload the car. I had lunch and it was back out to Target. This afternoon I have put all the groceries away, packaged the books, cleaned off my desk, and now it's almost time for the kids to come home! I don't know when there might be time for me to sit in my new patio chair and read a book, honestly.

Both kids' music recitals are on Thursday 9 June - basically at the same time. It took frantic phone conversations with both their teachers but we have everything worked out now - Esme will be performing at the beginning of Mrs Muller's program which starts at 7 pm, and Aidan will be performing at the end of Mr Shepard's program which starts at 7:30 pm. Whew! We'll try not to speed in between there! :)

Not many days of school left! Looking forward to a nice long relaxing summer! Hope you are too!

April 2011

In April both Jim and Aidan had sinus infections, which they both had treated by antibiotics. Poor boys. Thankfully now they are both feeling better. Aidan took his amoxicillin in pill form for the first time, and that went very well. He swallowed them all successfully. Unfortunately the medicine caused him to have a skin reaction - red bumps all over his chest, stomach and back. I think they are fading now, but if they haven't gone down more by tomorrow, I'll be calling his doctor again.

Jim has been working a couple of weeks on a contract with GM at the Renaissance Center in Detroit; he drives there on Monday and back on Thursday, and has been staying at the Marriott inside the Renaissance Center. He'll be there a couple more weeks and will then begin a project with Dress Barn in Columbus, Ohio.

Aidan's school music program took place in April. I volunteered (never again!) to help chaperone the kids during their rehearsal the day of the program and they were not very well behaved. However, they all pulled it together wonderfully by evening, and the program itself was loads of fun to watch. They did a short version of "You're a Good Man Charlie Brown," with a few of Aidan's classmates playing the parts of the main characters. Then they sang a few popular songs and they were very good. :)

Aidan's guitar recital will be Friday 3 June at 7 pm at his school; Esme's piano recital will be Thursday 8 June at 7 pm at her teacher's church. We're looking forward to both of these events.

We very much enjoyed Emily's 2nd birthday party at Scott and Cathy's house. She is a sweet little two-year-old! Her party had a monkeys theme - with monkey cake-balls, monkey bread, and monkey decorations; very cute. :)

We spent part of Easter after church with Grandma Margie, Edward and Mariah; Grandma made a ham and some potato salad and we had a nice meal together. After lunch I hid the plastic eggs for the three kids, who had a good time racing around Grandma's yard trying to find them all. Hope we got all of them!

In May we'll be up to our usual round of work, school, music lessons and volunteering. The weather in April finally decided to warm up to at least tolerable temperatures, but it's pretty much just now stopped raining, so we're hoping for a few dry sunny days. Aidan and I got in one bike ride last weekend - we took a quick spin to the park and back - but otherwise the bikes have pretty much just been waiting for us!

Here's hoping we (and you!) have a happy, healthy May! :)

In like a very cold lamb, out like a very cold lion.

It's officially spring, but it's not warm around here yet! We're still waiting impatiently for temperatures above freezing, so we can get outside!

The kids both had their spring school pictures taken in March. We didn't really pay much attention to picture dates, so they weren't really dressed up or anything, but they look good anyway. Aidan didn't even bother to take off his sweatshirt for the picture, and needed a haircut...

And though I usually like the kids to wear solid colors for their pictures, Esme was at least wearing flowers to go with the flowers background...

We still had plenty of snow at the beginning of March to get in some more sledding...

We all had a great time at Esme's school spring music program. They sang several songs based on the stories of Hans Christian Andersen. We particularly enjoyed the ones about the Princess and the Pea and the Emperor's New Clothes. Esme, as usual, was totally into it. WAY looking forward to her piano recital in June.

Jim and Esme went to the Daddy-Daughter Dance at her school in March. They both had a great time getting all fancy-dress, eating cupcakes and dancing.

For Jim's birthday yesterday we had a lovely relaxing time. It was the first day of spring break, so the kids and I were able to spend the whole day doing birthday stuff with him. We had doughnuts at Marge's for breakfast, I made a broccoli-mushroom quiche for lunch, and we went to Ball's Softee Creme in Lowell for our first Ball's ice cream of the season. I made Indonesian Fried Rice with shrimp and chicken for dinner, and then we had old-fashioned cream pie for dessert, complete with singing and a candle for Jim to blow out. He said he had a good time. :)

Aidan's been coming along well with school and guitar; hopefully he can stay the course through the end of the school year despite the many temptations to slack off and be obnoxious. Jim bought some more new instruments for the family and Aidan seems to be quite adept at the didgeridoo - he just picked it up and made it work the right way. It sounds really cool. Aidan's school spring music program takes place on April 19 at 7:30 pm at Van Singel Fine Arts Center; we're looking forward to that as well. There will also be a guitar recital sometime near the end of the school year. Aidan's hoping to have a friend over on Monday for a while, c'mon Tyler's mom! :)

Esme as always is excelling at school and piano. Her second grade teacher's baby girl Brooklynn was born in March, so she is home on maternity leave until mid-May. The substitute seems to have everything under control and the kids are doing well and working hard. Esme's piano recital piece, "Flopsy and Mopsy" is just about learned, though we're not sure whether she will need to memorize it she has plenty of time as there are still a couple months until recital time. Esme's friend Rachel will be coming over to play for a while on Monday, hooray!

Jim finished his project with MF Global on Thursday. At the moment he's on vacation (hooray!) but there are several possibilities in the hopper starting before the end of April - possibly Fairmont Hotels in Toronto, possibly Dress Barn in Columbus... He is just glad to have some time off, the longest number of vacation days he's had in a row in YEARS. His electronic bagpipes arrived on Thursday and he's enjoying playing them and figuring out their various special functions. Jim also gave up caffeine in March, and is feeling lots better as a result.

We don't have any specific plans for spring break except to relax, clean out the garage, have a couple of the kids' friends over, and have Mom and Dad for a visit on Friday. Anything can happen though!

I finished the Wetzel book in March and I'm planning to start taking orders in April. I'm hoping that taking orders before having them printed will work. I've begun working on the Hollopeter branch of the family now - or rather, I'm formalizing the work I've done for years on the Hollopeters by starting to complete the research for a book. As the Hollopeters came to America before independence from Britain, there are significantly more descendants in that branch of our family than there are for Glander, Byers or Wetzel, the branches I've completed so far. The research will probably take at least a year...wish me luck!

What's your family up to? Fill us in!

February 2011

Much was accomplished in February around here. :)

We managed to keep up with classroom volunteering (me), guitar lessons (Aidan), piano lessons (Esme), school (both kids), work (Jim), and the housework (me). Jim, Esme and I all had haircuts, and Aidan is going to be force-marched to Jude's Barbershop this afternoon to accomplish HIS haircut.

I started teaching the children French. I have discovered in the four lessons that they've been through that teaching a foreign language to 10- and 7-year-olds is a much different animal than teaching it to high school students. The book (a copy of the one I used to teach from) is working out terrifically. Their capacity for studying and remembering is NOT working out so well. So I am trying to adjust to lots of repetition and practice instead of pop quizzes.

We have planned this year's family vacation, and will be taking a week off in October to head to southern California. We're planning to fly through Houston to Santa Ana, and will be staying in Irvine while we make day trips to Disneyland and California Adventure in Anaheim, Sea World and the Animal Safari Park in San Diego, to visit the Thompsons in Glendora, and various other small side trips.

The children (well, okay, just Aidan) were somewhat disappointed to learn that our vacation won't take place until fall, so we are also planning to get some Michigan traveling done this summer. Our new license plate tabs feature prepaid Michigan State Parks admission, so we're going to try to hit six or seven state parks along Lake Michigan this summer, possibly a short family trip to the Grand Traverse Bay area, and maybe even a quick trip to Chicago during Spring Break (again).

The snow has already melted once, but then we got more, and it's melting again. Yesterday the plow truck came through our neighborhood and plowed two feet of snow into the bottom of the driveway, so Jim and I quick shoveled that out and cleared the street drains so all this runoff has somewhere to go. The driveway and sidewalks are clear and dry, and March has come in like a lamb today, so we're hoping for a warm-up and a stay-warm...but we live in Michigan, so we know it's better to be ready for anything!

We spent Mom's birthday with her and Dad at their house, and I was honored to cook in their brand-new freshly remodeled kitchen. It's awesome. Industrial-style appliances, a place for everything, everything works properly...it's like they've finally gone home. :) A new roof and a new kitchen, what will be next?

I have decided to give up for the time being on the Peckham project. While I have made a lot of progress, there really isn't much more I can do without talking to the family members themselves...and there really isn't any other place to do that than the annual family reunion in August. Now that I have a clear outline and know what information is still needed, hopefully I can whip through it then and start taking orders late this summer.

I am, however, getting close to being finished with the Wetzel book. There is still quite a lot of data I don't have, but eventually with these things there has to be a place to stop. I've about finished the mini-biographies and then I will start editing and doing a one last pass on looking for details. Once I have a final draft I will send out postcards and take orders, because I'm not printing more than I need this time.

I still have 4 Glander books and 23 Byers books, which represents an investment on my part of $600. If everyone who said they wanted one would pay for it, I could ship them out and not only have the space back, but also the money I put into them in the first place. C'mon, people!!! I think I'll send email reminders to everyone I can, because I can't afford another batch of postcards that get no responses.

Coming up this month...

• Parent-teacher conferences for both children - Aidan's is today, Esme's on the 8th.
• Esme's reevaluation on the 10th by her ENT doctor, to determine whether the hole in her eardrum has healed on its own, or whether she will need surgery to close it.
• I'm finally redeeming my birthday present on the 11th and having my "tropical escape" - a hot stone massage, pomegranate facial and foot scrub, followed by a pedicure.
• Esme's school music program on the 14th, 6:30 p.m. Van Singel Auditorium...be there or be square! :)
• The usual round of school, work, volunteering and music lessons.
• How about you? What's up with your family this month? Have fun!

January 2011

Aidan was in the top two finishers in his fifth grade section (~60 students), so he had the honor of participating in the all-school spelling bee. Jim and I were both able to attend the bee and it was a fun time. Samantha Boyce had the audience laughing and comfortable, though I'm pretty sure the same couldn't be said for the other participants in the bee. Aidan, for example, was extremely nervous, despite that we had tried not to put any performance pressure on him!

Here he is with the other top ten finishers - that's him in the blue shirt with the baseball on it, near the center of the picture. He's looking at the ground because he thinks if he holds his head up, he'll pass out!

Despite his trepidations, Aidan did very well indeed in the all-school spelling bee. He tied for third with Samantha Boyce; a sixth grader named Tyler placed second, and Cade, Aidan's friend and classmate took first place. The word that took Aidan out was "virulently" - a really tough one!

We are really proud of our son for doing so well. So proud, in fact, that we rewarded him with his own guitar. :) He had been renting a school guitar for his lessons until recently. He's really pleased with his new one. His guitar teacher keeps thinking of excuses to play it himself during lessons, because it has such a  nice sound.

I had a great 38th birthday! The weekend before my birthday, we went to Marge's Saturday morning as usual, then took the kids to Papa's house to spend the weekend. My mom's Aunt Doris Tillotson had passed away earlier in the week, so Mom was at the funeral, not at her house, but the kids had a terrific time with Papa. With his help, Aidan built his Scarab Beetle Robot from a kit he received at Christmas from Michael and Laura Qin. Soldering and everything, and it works perfectly. Mom got back late Saturday night and had time to hang out with the kids on Sunday. We picked the kids up Sunday afternoon and headed home, back to reality!

While the kids stayed with my parents, Jim and I came back to Grand Rapids for a weekend "on the town". We had lunch at our favorite sandwich spot, Cosi in East Lansing. Then we braved the snowstorm on the freeway and made it back to Grand Rapids, no problem. We had hot drinks at Biggby and went to see "The King's Speech" at the movies - it was terrific. We went boot shopping but didn't find anything - it seems January is a bad time to find boots in my size, 'cause everyone seemed to be out of stock! Downtown we checked into the JW Marriott, where they had already unpacked the flowers for me from my husband and put them in a vase in our room. :)

We ventured out and had dinner at the BOB (Big Old Building); at the Monkey Bar in the basement. They call what they serve "small plates" but I call them "awesome plates". We had potstickers, prawn with some sort of super-hot sauce served with lime sorbet, and very thin slices of duck. Both the duck and the potstickers were served with pickles like my mom used to make them - thin slices of cucumber soaked in vinegar just overnight. They were awesome. For dessert we had a teeny little chocolate lava cake and the most incredible ice cream sandwiches ever prepared. The cookies were chocolate chip - with both dark and milk chocolate chips - and the ice cream was vanilla but with a tiny bit of orange flavor. Awesome.

We watched the A-Team movie in our room and stayed warm rather than go out again, and picked up the kids the next afternoon. It was a nice weekend away.

On my actual birthday the children and Jim all gave me nice cards, and a trip to the spa, in addition to a perfectly sized little birthday cake. Thanks to my family for a super birthday. :)