>we took a little family vacation this week, and packed up the kids, some clothes, and some beach items and headed out to the kal-haven trail. Scott pulled the girls while I pulled the clothes through the green, lightly rolling hills of south western michigan. We stopped half way in Bloomingdale for popsicles, blueberries, and nice cold water. We spent a couple of days in south haven at the beach. Frankie fearlessly waded out to her shoulders, while Bee became an expert sand castle and moat builder/digger. The sunsets were beautiful and the weather was perfect! I cant wait for our next bike trip!

Here are a few action-packed flicks from the covered bridge about a mile west of south haven.

And now for some fun pictures!

This picture was at Bloomingdale’s Old Train station, and the girls loved the flag decorations, the train, and the creepy boy! (picture of creepy boy is too creepy to post…)

Bee getting water for the moat

Scott taking frankie out of the water… that girl was a little duckie!!

enjoying popsicles halfway home!

>Colleen (my SIL) tagged me to list 4 things I have learned/did in the past 4 years and 4 things I hope to learn/do in the next 4. So here goes:
1. had not one, but two kids and am learning how to be what I hope is caring, loving, good mommy
2. bike trip with scott and girls to the lake along the Kal-Haven trail (where we carried everything on our bikes!).. see upcoming post
3. started a blog with scott for our family, and also started a blog with my sisters and parents for our family
4. visted Japan with my family

what would be new adventures
1. visit a few states we’ve never been to before (the dakotas, montana, alaska)
2. teach the girls to read
3. teach the girls to ride bicycles
4. plant and cultivate some blueberry bushes in our yard (yum!)

OK, stay tuned for the details on our bike trip. But suffice it to say that was a BLAST!!

>…3 posts in day…

here is a picture from our garden. We’ve been eating tomatoes this week!

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We were looking at some old pics today and came across this!

Lets get a written record of this song! Frankie, our daughter, wanted us to sing it over and over yesterday! I learned it in 4th grade music class way back in 1977-78. My sisters and i LOVED that song! I still do!

Orion is arising

Orion is arising
You can see his stars ablazing
Way out here in the middle of a deep blue country sky.
And still what is amazing
You can see his stars ablazing
Way out here where nothing hides it from my eyes.

And sleeping outside in a bag as a kid
It seems like the best thing that I ever did
And chasing the shadows
and the tracks in the snow
Don’t you know?

The world is getting older
and I really start to wonder
why we’re clouding all the country skys to gray
The world is getting colder
I can hear it in the thunder
and the rain may come and chase us all away!

And sleeping outside in a bag as a kid
It seems like the best thing that I ever did
And chasing the shadows
and the tracks in the snow
Don’t you know?

The moon is on the wane
And it looks like it might rain
Or maybe snow.

And how are we to stay here
When there’s no room left to play here
Or to grow
Don’t you know?
Don’t you know?

Speedracer adds: Google helped me find the back-story, along with reminiscences of a lot of Gen Xers.

Update: Here’s a blog post with a performance by the songwriter.

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Koompa is 14 years old today… I say we start the year long celebration of our centurian doggie!!! Here is an oldie but a goodie. And if I get the chance tonight I will can in a couple from way back when!!

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Bee’s ballet class is going great. She just loves it and her teachers tell me she is so animated during class. Today, I picked up frankie from school early and we went to watch Bee’s class. I forgot the camera so I took a few pics with my camera phone. the light and resolution arent great, but I hope you can see her happy smile. She was the best at the front and back twirls!! She worked hard on her skip! And, during “free dance” she started everyone running around the room. that’s my bee!

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our neighbor’s kid was over playing and he was pretending to be a dog. I happened to have the camera in hand when he was trying to lick bee “just like Koompa”.

In other news, its pouring out this morning. while I appreciate the cooler temps this morning, I realized in the middle of the night that I left my office window open at school. With western exposure, Im thinking I need to come in with few towels. I hope it didnt get too many papers and books wet. ugh.

Cho cho and Balla have up and moved to kalamazoo. Im hoping they like their new digs. Miss ya crabbies!!!!!!!!

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OK, the answer is sloppy discs. I only partly get it. sloppy – floppy. but Im still stuck on what discs have to do with pigs. someones gottta help me on that! In other news, Bee is doing the library’s preschool reading program. She had to do seven activities this week. here are a few she did: read to someone younger than you for 20 minutes (that was easy, she does that anyway!), read a ghost story (we decided pale green pants worked well enough for that), read a nonfiction book about science (fun!!), and draw a picture about a book you just read. So this afternoon we will head over to the library and get her prize. Franks is a bit jealous too because she isnt old enough for the program, although she did read her maisy book to her doll yesterday. it was so cute! OK, a couple of pics from the playground!

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the girls were eating popsicles last night and they have the kind that has a joke on one of the popsicle stick and the answer is on the other end (covered up by the popsicle). so, you have to eat the popsicle to read the answer. Frankie’s popsicle stick said, “what did the pig put inside the computer?” Honestly I was racking my brain to come up with that answer. Pork, pickled pigs feet. none of these sound like discs. what else? memory? pigs dont have good memory do they? So Im talking to my mom on the phone and she saying maybe bacon? But frankie didnt want the rest of her popsicle. How could I not find out what the pigs put in the computer??? anyhow, franks was too busy playing in the pool to care about the answer to the pig joke!