New Nephew

Joel and I are aunt and uncle to another little one!  JP and Katie (Joel's brother and sister-in-law) had their little boy on March 29.  Welcome to this world James Thomas!

The first picture that his mommy and daddy sent us. :)

Unfortunately, they live out in Virginia and I am 35 weeks pregnant and Joel is on a busy rotation, so we can't meet him in person until this summer sometime.  We are very sad about this, but we are so glad we live in the day and age of Skype.  Hopefully, we'll be able to arrange a little Skype date to meet baby James.  Kyper is excited to see his cousin.


Now, we just have to wait for little Tator Tot to join his/her cousins. :)

Stay-cation

We weren't in Holland the entire time Joel had off.  We had a few days at home as well.  We got back from Holland late Wednesday night, so we spent most of Thursday at home relaxing.  We did go to Lowe's though for a few things for Joel's latest project--dirt and chicken wire.  We hope to have a small garden this summer--actually we already planted some things in pots.  We decided that building a raised garden would do the trick.  Joel had gotten lumber and cut it before going to Holland.  On Thursday he put them all together along with a little helper.


 

 

On Friday, we headed down to Cabela's for some free entertainment.  We live about a half hour away.  They have a large aquarium that Kyper loves to look at.  They also have a lot of stuffed animals there, so we saw polar bears, baboons, an elephant, deer, quail, and many more animals around the store.  Kyper loved the fish, but another favorite part was going into all the tents the store had set-up.  Joel hopes to do a backyard camping trip with Kyper sometime this summer. :)  Sorry, no pictures from that excursion.


Over the course of the two days we also got the nursery 90% done.  We have a couple of finishing touches to do before we post pictures of it.  And to me, it won't be 100% done until little Tator Tot makes his or her appearance.  It is so much fun to be able to decorate for this little one.  We weren't able to do anything like this for Kyper due to the fact we moved from Des Moines to Detroit when Kyper was only 7 days old. 

Hopefully soon you will be seeing pictures from Tator Tot's nursery or an announcement of our nephew's arrival.  :)

Vacation

Joel is on a very easy month--ophthalmology.  It is an elective, so that means he gets a week vacation.  So, we had requested this past week off, but Joel got a couple bonus days.  The attending doctor he is working with took a week and a half off, so Joel got last week Wednesday through Friday off as well as the entire following week.  (With this rotation there isn't much Joel can do without the ophthalmologist there since many of the things are procedures he isn't trained to do.)

What to do with 13 days off?  Well, we knew we were going to visit Holland for some of it.  We had been planning on going the second half of the week, but that changed when we saw the weather!  Michigan has had a beautiful week of 80 degree weather.  Therefore, we headed to Holland last week Thursday night.

Here is some bullet points of what we did each day.

FRIDAY:
-Joel and I searched the thrift stores for a dresser for Tator Tot.  (We didn't find one, but that same night a friend posted on Facebook about a dresser they were giving away for free--we snapped that one up.)
-Joel and his mom went to the beach while I stayed back during Kyper's nap.
-We went out to dinner with Joel's parents, brother and sister-in-law and grandma to celebrate his dad's 60th birthday.

-After dinner we headed to the Ferrysburg pier.  Joel, his dad, his brother and sister-in-law stayed behind to photograph Jupiter and Venus.

SATURDAY:
- Breakfast with my brother and sister-in-law.
-Joel played tennis with his dad while his mom, Kyper and I watched.
-Naps
-Went to the state park with Joel's parents

Bathing suit, bare trees and snow fences.  Weird March weather.

33 weeks

-Hit the hot tub at Aren and Leah's and then had a fire.

SUNDAY:
- Church with my parents
-Frederik Meijer Gardens to see the butterflies and children gardens with my parents, nephews, and niece.

-Hung out at my parents and saw all of my family.

MONDAY:
-Kyper stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Phillips for the day
-Joel and I took a day trip to Ludington.  It was a lot of fun.  We walked the city pier, grabbed lunch and ate it at the State Park.  Joel then proceeded to hike to Big Sable Lighthouse (it was too much of a hike for me at this point).  I just did a little shopping downtown Ludington.  After we met back up, we went to the cottage at Big Star Lake.  We grabbed a frozen dinner, walked on the beach and Joel even took a really quick dip.

TUESDAY:
-Kyper and I had a playdate with my friend Renee and her two girls.  She also gave us both haircuts.
-Joel had coffee with a friend and headed to the beach with his mom.
-Kyper and I spent the afternoon at my parents and I got dinner prepped for my mom.
-We were supposed to head to my grandparents with dinner, but my grandma was admitted to the hospital.  Instead, my other grandma came to my parents' for dinner.

WEDNESDAY:
-Visited my grandma at the hospital.
-Ran some errands
-Joel and Kyper went on a bug hunt

-Had dinner at Pizza Ranch with friends.

My friend Tricia and I are a week apart.

-Headed home

Up next: Stay-cation.  The last few days of Joel's vacation were spent at home (well and then back for a quick trip to Holland to meet our newest niece, but I already posted about that. :))

New Niece

My sister had her baby very early this morning.  So, we have a new niece and Kyper has a new cousin--we were all very excited to meet her.  Here are some pictures:

Welcome to this world Amelia Jean.

Up next on the blog: Joel's vacation

Of Paint and Polar Bears

I had an unexpected day off last week Friday, and my mom had come out to help with Kyper while Julie was at a conference in Kentucky. So, with the warmer weather we had, we decided to take Kyper to the zoo.

After seeing the red panda, tiger, new lion exhibit, fighting peacocks and frisky flamingos, we headed to our favorite exhibit...the Arctic Ring of Life. The highlight of the exhibit, for those of you who have never been to the Detroit Zoo, is the underwater tunnel where you can watch seals swim overtop of you, and if you are lucky, polar bears. Kyper likes this part of the exhibit and loves to watch the seals.

In the 2 years we have been members, and going regularly to the zoo, only once have we ever seen polar bears swimming. And, that one time we did see it take a dip, it was in and out in less than 30 seconds.

On Friday, as we entered the tunnel, I was immediately surprised to see a bear in the water! I whipped out my video camera to capture the incident, fearing it would hop out and we would not see it again. Little did I know, we would be in that tunnel for the next hour watching the action.

For the first 30 min., one bear was showing off her acrobatics, playing with toys and looping through the water. She would even stand on top of the tunnel on her hind legs (yes, 1,000 lbs. of bear supported on 8 inches of glass just over my head!), and dive into the water, just like a small kid may dive off the stairs of a pool in the shallow end.

Just as we thought, "this was great; what an awesome experience to see one of God's creatures up close, enjoying who it was created to be," she was joined by an even bigger bear..the male. They ended up wrestling and playing for another half an hour. I got some awesome footage and cool photos of the whole experience. We eventually had to leave, but the bears were still swimming and enjoying the water. Soon, we found ourselves "enjoying the water" as we walked 1/2 a mile back to the car in a downpour. That was totally worth it for the cool experience we could have.

Kyper, on the other hand, enjoyed the seals the entire time, completely oblivious to the fact that there were bears in the water (at least he got to watch them eat frozen fish). He also did good in the rain on the way home...even though he was cold and wet, he had no complaints.

Later, we found out the zoo has the female on loan for the breeding season, trying to make baby polar bears. If all goes according to plan (and the bears do seem to be hitting it off), the female will be pregnant this spring, and give birth in her "maternity cave" in November, with cubs emerging next April...we'll see what happens!

When you look at these photos and video, look at how the fur moves through the water and how it seems to float, the buoyancy of the bears--especially for being their size, and the cloud of bubbles it hides in as it dives into the water. I also thought it was cool how the bear always entered the water with an open mouth and bared teeth and wide open eyes...very intimidating.

And now for the videos:

On Saturday, my dad came in to town. Mom watched Kyper, while Dad and I painted the baby's room. We picked a nice bright green for our jungle theme. I can't share finished pictures yet, since we have a few final touches to add to the room before we can post the final product, but I did want to show you Kyp's involvement.

More to come later!!!!

Impromtu Date

Joel had last Thursday off.   I send Kyper to daycare on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, so I can do my grant writing work (or run an errand without a 2 year old).  Joel has had a Tuesday or Thursday off in the past and I sometimes cancel the daycare, so we can have some family time (and save a little money).  I didn't cancel this time though, because we had set up a time to meet with an accountant to do our taxes.  We went to the accountant and had some time, so Joel and I went on a little impromptu date.  We headed to lunch at Qdoba.  We then went to Carter's and did a little shopping for Tator Tot.  We bought a newborn girl and boy outfit to take to the hospital.  It was a wonderful time with my husband.

By the way, which outfit do you think we will be using on Tator Tot's b-day?

Click HERE and take a guess.  The name of the game is TatorTot.
I know I have a poll, but I like to know who thinks what. :)