2. We ate.

3. We drank.4. We played games.5. We posed for pictures.

6. We dressed up.And it was all possible because Caroline and Breanna were the super-duper babysitters of the year!

About a month ago Jared was putting Harriet to bed when she sweetly and gravely said to him, “Daddy, we need to talk.”  Thinking that she had a concern that she needed to share, and wanting to be an available Dad (which he is!) he sat next to her and said “What’s on your mind Harriet?”  She replied, “we need to talk about camels.”

Chinchillas=softest thing ever!Fun for all :-)The kids are very frightened of dogs.  We’ve trained them to be since there are so many mean dogs in our neighborhood.  Seeing the opportunity to have a positive dog experience we stopped at the therapy dog tent.  You wouldn’t believe the amount of cajolling that we had to do to get them to get this close.  This dog looks pretty threatening, don’t ya think?Okay, so they had this trailed filled with mounted stuffed animal heads, probably over 60 animals inside the trailer and another 12 large ones standing outside.  Some might think that this is weird, but there was something really cool about it.  The kids were allowed to touch and experience all of these crazy animals.  It’s one of those times where a bunch os “do not touch” signs would have really killed the fun.  They weren’t there and it was refreshing to let the kids pet the stuffed duck and shake the grizzly bear’s hand.The Fun Slide is aptly named.
Have YOU ever been in a personal sized submarine???
Harriet has!Or driven a huge snow plow, fire truck, garbage truck and ambulance–all in the same day??Really Meijer???  Every year you pull up with this LAME semi truck.  It’s a semi-truck that’s all decked out in the inside for teaching kids about new video games.  And they hand out Cheetoes.  I am SO opposed to this on all levels.  Video games, junk food, when you go in the truck you feel like you are indoors.  And all of this on KINDERPLAATS! which is a celebration of being outdoors and doing the things that you can’t do everyday.  Meijer you are a scar on the pristine beauty of this day!  (okay, I admit, I don’t care for Meijer’s “mobile playground”)
On to the chicken petting!They wen to into a large teepee and came out with tats.  The perfect spot for lunch on the perfect day.We had these alphabet cookies that we packed.  Don’t ever buy these if you are on a diet.  They are like crack (or scrapbooking)

Jan is Grandma and Goose is what the kids call Grandpa.  His name is Bruce.  The first grandkid pronounced it “Goose” and all of us aunts and uncles promoted the nickname.Winfield Benjamin Henderson made this.After lunch we walked to Windmill Island for some 1760′s fun.Dale has some well honed horseback riding skills.I really like spoons.  I bough some little hand poured and finished demitasse spoons from this guy.  :-)  Welcome to Holland in the spring.  We have tulips by the million.  This is only one small planting.
Freaking awesome picture.Walking home.One last stop at the petting zoo to feed the goats
When we got home we ordered pizza and put the kids to bed.  They slept well.

Last summer the best neighbors in the world moved into the house next door.  They happened to replace the worst neighbors in the world (we had a cop literally tell us the electrify the fence between our houses).  So we are double lucky.  Anyway they have 3 boys and a baby girl.  Their oldest is 7 and is a master weapons maker.  Last summer, at 6-years-old, we saw him build a working bow and arrow out of sticks a shoelace and a pencil sharpener.  He also built a cross-bow, canon, grenade, multiple knives and many others that I can’t remember.  I think I saw a recruiter for Lockheed Martin stop by the other day.  He is also the kindest and most well behaved little kid.

Anyway, this summer the 2 older neighor boys and Winfield have been chasing each other around with sticks and playing “war.”  When Win saw the magazine on the Civil War he thought that is might give him some tips for playing with the neighbors.  I asked him why he likes the magazine he told that he wants to know about war.  And I keep hearing him over at the neighbors shouting, “let’s play Civil War guys!”  So I’m pretty sure that my theory is right.

Or maybe he just want’s to live up to his namesake.

Again, he is just like his dad.  When Jared wants to know or do something the first thing that he does is get the 10 best books on the subject and read them.  I’ve seen him read books on how to drink beer, how to play poker, the evil genius of Bill Belichick, how to frame a house, build a business, invest, and the list continues.

He’s been doing it since he was a kid.  This famous picture of little kid Jared with the new Christmas Rubix Cube tells it all.

The motto is, “before doing anything, read the book.”  It’ll even help you know how to chase the neighbor boys around with sticks.

On Friday my parents brought the kids back to us.  It was good to have them away for the week of crazy tiredness, but it was really nice to have them back.  We had a really nice weekend as a family of 5.

I snatched this picture from my mom’s camera.

On Sunday Jared’s parents (Goose and Grandma Jan) swung by for a couple of hours.  We ordered takeout from The Biscuit, one of the kid’s favorite restaurants.  We introduced Dale and had a really nice afternoon.  The kids chased Goose around the house requesting tickles and “silly time.”

The kids stayed with Grandma and Grandpa in Detroit.  Harriet is giving me the “don’t you dare extract me from Grandpa and put me to bed look.”  Thanks so much to Grandma Jan!  Grandpa Goose had a orthopaedic convention in New Orleans diring the time that the kids were there.  Grandma wrangled the 2 kids for most of the time that we were in Vegas.  All of the reports are that they had a super fun time visiting churches, having playdates, making waffles and playing with sidewalk chalk.

The trip started off nicely when Delta bumped us up to 1st class :-)  Did you know that they served the soda in GLASS cups?!  It was like we’d never had a soda from a glass before.

We really enjoy the restaurants in Vegas.  Jared ordered this bottle of wine, it was exceptional.  (Don’t worry, I only had a couple of sips)

We took matt and Val over to Bellagio to walk around.  There’s a jewelry store there that is mind blowing.  I was ogling over a really beautiful necklace when the jewelry lady asked me if I’d like to try it on.  Everything that you see on that necklace is diamonds.  It was quite beautiful!

Really, who needs Paris when you have Vegas? ;-) Jared and I really really like Japanese food.  We had had a very nice meal at Shibuya last year, it was really fun to go back.  Look closely at the front of that plate.  There is a one inch crab garnish protecting the dish. Here’s our trade show booth.  We got to talk with so many people.  It’s great to meet so many photographers!

We took one evening to see O. They don’t allow pictures but here we are in the seats before the show.  It was a 10:00 show, which is 1:00am Michigan time.  The athletes/performers are incredible .  Even though I was watching it I could hardly believe that people are able to do such amazing things with their bodies.  

First we celebrated Jared’s birthday.  The kids put the 31 candles in the cake.  After jared came home from work we sang and the kids had cake.  Then just before bedtime we had a sitter come over and Jared and I went to Pereddie’s for a really wonderful dinner.  It was a wonderful birthday.

Winfield has been talking about this birthday for…well…about a year.  Over the course of the last year he’s developed  a little wish list of things that he’d like for his birthday.  As we indicated approval of his ideas he noted them in his steel trap memory.

Winfield’s 4th Birthday list:

1. Daddy to sleep in the top bunk of my bunk bed.

2. Eat a Lean Pocket for breakfast.

3. Eat a Lean Cuisine for lunch.

4. Have a cow birthday cake.

On Saturday Winfield and I, with a little help form Harriet, made his cow cake.  I’m not one for fancy cake decorating.  I was a little intimated at the idea.  I looked up a pattern online and then I told Win that we would make it together.  That way, no matter what it ended up looking like, we would all enjoy it.  I think it turned out quite a bit nicer than I’d expected.

Then Jared and Winfield had a boy’s-only sleepover in Win’s bunk bed.  I have to tell you, Jared is a saint.  All that day Winfield had had a pretty persistent cough.   So that day, Jared, who is a light sleeper, had told Win that he’d try to do the sleep over, but it might have to be delayed until his cough passed.  Win was a real sport at the possibility of having to postpone.  That night the 2 boys went to bed, goofed off and discussed all sorts of potty humor and airplanes.  They had themselves a boys’ slumber party.  Then it was lights out time.  Jared endured nearly an hour of Winfield coughing underneath him when he whispered, “Hey Win.  I think that I’m going to go downstairs.  This has been really fun.  Since I’m going downstairs we can plan on having me sleep in your bunk bed again, as soon as your cough gets better.”  Silence.  Jared said it again.  Again silence.  Jared climbed down and got really close to Win.  He was silently weeping he was so sad.  Jared decided to give it another try.  He put ear plugs in and and enjoyed a long disjointed night’s sleep in the top of a bunk bed.

He very much enjoyed his Lean Pocket and Lean Cuisine.  In case you’re wondering, Jared works out at the gym in the mornings.  When he gets to work and has a Lean Pocket for breakfast, then a Lean Cuisine for lunch.  Thus Winfield’s birthday wish.

On Sunday night we went to New Holland Brewery.  Yes, we celebrated our 4-year-old’s birthday at a bar.  We’d planned on giving him his gifts there.  I snuck them in without him noticing.  But there was some sort of hockey somthin-or-another on the tv and we could barely hear each other over the volume.  We came home and he was ready for cake.  He had totally forgotten the birthday’s often involve gifts.  It was really cute.  When we told him that we had a couple of gifts for him his whole face lit up.  He opened a train jigsaw puzzle that he had wanted a month or so ago and a pair of light up shoes from Lokers basement.  Then we had a cake and ice cream with our Sunday night church group.  It was a really nice birthday!

And here’s a picture of Jared on his birthday, a couple of years ago.

I’ve had the pleasure of being married to Jared for 1/3rd of his life.  It has been an honor and a treat.  He’s the man that I’m madly in love with.  He’s a wonderful husband and a brilliant father.  When we were engaged I often felt frustrated as people would ask me about the details of our wedding.  I really just wanted to talk about how awesome the groom was.  I wasn’t wrong.

Happy Birthday Jared.  I’m so glad that we met.  I’m even more stunned at how I managed to get you to marry me.  Every year that I know you I’m more in love with you.  I look forward to sharing many more decades of birthdays with you.

Dinner is at 6:00ish because the all of the boys used to go to the Lions game.  They haven’t done that in 9 years, but dinner is still at 6:00ish.  Family comes from New York, North Carolina, and Ohio.  This year the count was 30 for dinner and lodging for 21, from Wednesday through Saturday.  It’s a really big affair.

It was dark outside and loud inside.  I didn’t get my camera out nearly as much as I would have liked.  But I grabbed some of Bruce’s pictures.  On our first day there Bruce and I went to his camera shop and picked out a new camera and lens for him.  Bruce is a diligent photographer.  He is never without his camera.  He was the first person that I knew of to own a digital SLR.  It was really big stuff when he bought it.  The problem is that he was still shooting that same camera.  If my memory is correct he purchased this for Christmas of 2003.  It was really fun to go with him.  The new Rebel that he bought is a really great camera.

I also shot a couple of images for Jared’s siblings Christmas cards.  They are in the slideshow too.

…did a puzzle.

…dined at Butch’s.

…desserted at CityVu.

…breakfasted at The Biscuit.

…played in a helicopter.

…hiked Mount Pisga.

…shopped the farmer’s market

…triumphed over the boys in canasta

…walked to The Seasoned Home.

…split ice cream at Kilwin’s.

…and had plenty of time to tickle, snuggle and play Legos with the kids.

It was busy weekend and I am full.

Thanks to Grandpa Goose for most of these images!  He’s always ready with his camera.