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When I was walking to the Anne Frank House Museum this weekend
(before heading down to my meeting – yes I am working this week!), I
took this picture. Scott, can you figure out why? The church in the
background is the Westerkerk Church whose bells Anne Frank like to
listen to while hiding away behind her father's office.

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>Here are a few quick pictures from my walk around Amsterdam today.
Miyoun is here, too (and its her birthday, so happy birthday
miyoun!). And we decided we must have walked 6 or 7 miles. We visited the De Gooyer molen windmill in the old jewish quarter, and walked
along many of the city’s canals. We also walked through the flower
district and by the University of Amsterdam (where we are staying
tonight). We also walked by the Palias, which is a huge neclassical ediface that served as an orphanage in the 19th century (so I sound
like lonely planet)? Its down the meeting in utrecht tomorrow, but I
hear there is a castle down there so i might try to sneak a peek of that!

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the city came by and chopped up the trees that had fallen… and the
girls thought that was a blast! Now we are having some fun in NYC, so
stay tuned for pics! In the mean time here is a member of the local
obama for president east lansing club!

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Frankie turned three this weekend, but you know it seemed like she
was already three!! She really wanted a "slide cake" for her
birthday, with chocolate and pink frosting. When we asked her what a
slide cake was she said it was a cake shaped like a slide. Well, all
I can say is that we tried our hardest. It's been so hot and humid,
I couldnt get the icing to keep from sliding off, but trying to catch it with your fingers is half the fun i guess! We've also had a lot of severe thunderstorms these past few days. Yesterday we were sitting on the porch cooling off as the clouds rolled in and the next thing we knew the tornado sirens had sounded. We we went down to the basement and turned on the computer which showed that the tornado was heading to east lansing then haslett. While I dont think the tornado is what actually came overhead, we did have 75 mph winds and when we emerged from the basement not even 10 minutes later we found we lost our tree in the front yard.

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There is a local establishment – the tasty twist – that is a little beatin’ down shack on the edge of the grand river strip. It sells soft serve icecream and the girls love to go there! There is one little picnic table but most people stand to eat their ice cream or sit on parking blocks like the sweet girls in this picture. Its a fun, fairly short bike ride from our place, and its always packed with the locals. We were
still surprised when the prez of MSU (Lou Anna Simon) was in line
just a few people ahead of us! Anybody care to guess what she ordered?

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Hope you all had a wonderful memorial day weekend. It was beautiful and warm here! We went for lots of walks, played in the kiddie pool in the backyard, and planted some more flowers! If Frankie had her way she would have stripped down completely on the way home from this walk, but I made her keep her shorts on!!

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The high here in Michigan was 53 yesterday. While it was beautiful,
it was brisk! I only mention this because scott is on the big bird on
the way to phoenix for a meeting, and the high there today is
supposed to be a record-breaking 106. That is exactly DOUBLE our high
yesterday! Im not sure what that means, but I hope he enjoys the heat!

In other news we all had fun at the races in marshall last weekend.
Here is scott finishing the 10k strong!

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Just a few cute pics from the children's garden at MSU on friday!

>Yesterday was a big day for Bee. It was the kindergarten round up day. She, along with lots of other 5 year olds around town, got to go visit kindergarten (with their parents) for a whole hour in the afternoon.

Bee picked our her favorite dress and “running” sandals for the event. We visited the three kindergarten classrooms, and played with the rice table, tried to do some sign language from a poster she saw, used one of the computers, and looked at all of the student art hanging up. We also visited the music room, the art room, the gym, and the library.

Several of her friends from K-club were there too and so she played with them during the scavenger hunt around the school, which was the last activity. Bee was hoping that today’s visit meant she was finally a kindergartener and was a little disappointed when I told her that today she needed to back to k-club!

Oh and during the scavenger hunt Bee found the little soft red seats by the office which she really liked. She also asked for an extra “Marble Muskrats” bracelet so that she could give one to Frankie. Thats our girl! We’re so proud of you bee!

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its warm and the leaves are all out! And, we even broke out the pool!!

Bee wanted to write the blog. I typed but she dictated:

We love to swim! Water is great! The water was cold but then the sun warmed it up! Frankie kept running in circles in the water, but then she fell down and laughed. Here I am with the Lansing Lugnut Dinosaur. He is so cute. He is my friend. Love Bee