Some good news... We sold our house. Well, we don't actually close on it until June 30th, but we have accepted a non-contingent offer, passed inspection, had it appraised and the buyer is pre-apporved. So, hopefully, there will be no problems! We plan to leave here June 21 and arrive at our new house on June 29th. We have some fun stops planned. We will visit the Wisconsin Dells, Mt Rushmore and Yellowstone. We will see our neice (who has never met Joshua:() and hopefully see some other friends (Susie if you are reading this, we are inviting ourselves over! Do you have a basement?). All in all, we are ready to leave. Yes, we will miss Michigan, or at least some parts of it, but we are ready to move on and be closer to our families. We hope to see some old friends and maybe someday, our Michigan friends will visit us!

Enjoy some new pictures~

Sheila

Memorial weekend at Lake Michigan with some friends. Again, it was a bit cool, but Sarah was brave and went in the water a bit. Joshua liked the sand and Donald and I were happy to just relax a little.

A fun activity one afternoon was building a fairy house in the backyard. Sarah keeps checking to see if any fairies have moved in yet. We told her they probably just sleep there at night, then move on to the next place so we will never see them!
Lake Michigan May 24, 2008

Sarah's last day of school was a bowling party and picnic. It was a lot of fun...
More than once I had to throw a second ball to get one of the kids stopped balls moving! Joshua's ball rolled backward a few times too! I have a lot of other pictures, but they all have other kids in them and I know a lot of parents don't want their kids pictures posted on line, so you will just have to trust me that it was super cute!
Joshua played with the score board at the bowling alley. We had to have the employee help us fix it. I don't think the other mom was thrilled to be paired up with me, but I wasn't happy to be with her either since she is the one who dinged my van door and then denied it even as I had to pull her door off of mine...
Sarah's last day of dance. Miss Kelly was just too good to describe!

Sarah driving one of the trucks
On the way home, we asked the kids what they liked best. Joshua knew right away that it was driving all of the big trucks. Sarah thought for a minute and then told us it was riding the pony. We thought that was really funny since you can see she doesn't look all that excited. The pony didn't walk around or anything either, it was just for the kids to take a turn sitting on!
Sarah on the bouncy pony.

Joshua driving one of the many big trucks they have for the kids to climb in and learn about. He drove a trash truck, fire engine, 18-wheel big rig, ambulance and snow plow!
Driving on the Sheriff's boat. They did a little drill with them about the importance of wearing a life vest. Joshua just liked the driving part.

Joshua on a bouncy pony.

The first weekend in May we went to Holland (Holland Michigan, not the Netherlands!) for the Tulip Festival. It was a cool day, and very windy, but the kids still had fun. Joshua even had an upset tummy and he managed to have fun.

WHAT? You didn't see any pictures of tulips? Well, we did see them, but since it was so cold and windy, we just did the kid stuff and went home. We didn't even stop to take a picture of a single tulip! Oh well. We have pictures from 2 years ago...

Easter 2008. I know it is a bit late, but our pictures haven't been very organized lately and we have some cute pictures to share!

Ash has a keyboard and Joshua loved it. I can't wait until he is old enough for music lessons. Both kids bought a little mini guitar at Olvera St and could actually make some music on it.
"Auntie" and Sarah at the rehearsal dinner.
Wayne helped keep the kids occupied while we were gone too. This day he built a gingerbread house with the kids. They just love Uncle Wayne!
Joshua hanging out in the gazebo before the wedding. He didn't get to stay for the ceremony (thanks for babysitting Aunt Amanda and Grandma Peaches!) but came out for some pictures.

Ok, So I can see how Donald gets things so out of order. It is because we have way too many pictures! I see a bunch more I want to post just from the wedding, and then more from other parts of our trip. The kids got to do a whole bunch of cool stuff with Brenda and my parents while we went up to Chico, but I don't have those pictures. Brenda and Ash took them bowling (very cute) and my mom and Brenda took them to a two -story carousel. They also took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese, which is Joshua's favorite place to go! I know they were quite spoiled, but it was our first time leaving them and I think all the busy, super fun distractions helped them be less lonely for us. I will also add that our trip to Chico was fun, but difficult. We did find a beautiful house and can't wait to move! The new house has a GREAT kitchen and I love the floor plan, plus, it has a pool in the backyard. We are anxious for weather actually hot enough that one would want to swim!

For now, I will just post a few other pictures from the wedding and now that I see how simple (but time consuming) this is, I will post more! Watch out Donald!

I just found more pictures from our fun day at Olvera Street. You can see Sarah's pink straw hat in these pictures. I love the one of the kids holding Donald's hands as they walk back to the train. Since Sarah could first walk, I have been taking pictures of them from behind and just love seeing Donald being so tender with them and also love seeing how much they have grown!

One of the best nights was roasting hot dogs and marshmallows with Vickie, Amanda, Mike and Clayton. Vickie loves doing this with her grandkids, but this is really the first time that our kids have been old enough to enjoy it and participate. After they were done eating, Vickie brought out the bubbles and the kids had so much fun! Joshua had spilled something on his clothes, so he is wearing one of Clayton's shirts, that is why it looks like he is in a nightgown!

Sarah fell in love with this pink straw hat. It is the type of hat you would expect an older woman to wear, but she just wanted it so badly. I told her no as her money was already spent. Then we were hanging out waiting to head home and Donald left for a few minutes. He came back with the hat! Sarah wore it the rest of the day and had fun playing under it with Clayton. They were telling secrets or something. Amanda stuck the camera under the hat and caught this image.
Sarah on the train.
Joshua looking cool by the vendors.

The wedding was definitely the highlight of the trip, but we did a lot of other fun stuff too. One day we took the train to Olvera Street with Amanda and Clayton. The kids loved the train and had fun looking around at the the souvenirs at Olvera St.

Sarah had some free time between family pictures and waiting for all the bridesmaids to arrive.
Sarah and Momma.

They had Wayne and Jolene kiss and had Sarah cover her eyes, how cute!

The Happy Couple!

Here are some more pictures from the wedding.

Wayne and Jolene's wedding was beautiful. The weather was perfect, the bride was beautiful, and the flower girl, well, she was just darling! They were married on 4-6-08 and the wedding was the main reason for our trip. At the rehearsal, Sarah was a bit timid and didn't want to walk down the aisle on her own. I was very nervous that she wouldn't follow through, but she did great. She practiced with my mom in the backyard and was very meticulous with the petal dropping. She wanted the petals to play with afterward, so when the ceremony was over, she picked them all up and put them back in her basket!

Hello,
Donald is officially stressed out with studying for his oral board exam and we have so many beautiful pictures to share that I am going to try and post to his blog. It is, for now, still his blog. I think he is thinking of giving it up, so we will see what the next few months bring. I will try and post pictures, but no promises...
Sheila