Along for the Ride

Since we arrived back from our Thanksgiving away, we've had quite a bit of snow here in Michigan. Now, I really do think that it's snowing abnormally early this year - and I'm not sure I'm so excited about it. Addison, on the other hand, is SUPER excited about the "NO". That would be Addison's version of snow - silent 's' and no 'w'... not to be confused with "NO" which is Addison for "nose" even though in her world both the facial feature and the precipitation cause her to say "no" and point to her nose. Go figure. AND of course there is also "NO" meaning, 'no way' - no way am I going to eat that, no way are you going to change my diaper, no way am I going inside and no way am I taking my boots/hat/gloves off. This girl really loves the snow!

Last Sunday, we all loaded up in the car with a couple sleds and headed off to Wilcox Park to do a little sledding. The hill is small and perfect for an 17 month old and sufficient for our dog - who thinks chasing us down the hill is about as good as going for a swim in the lake. I expected we'd be there for a half hours or so and that Addison would have her fill after a few rides and want to go home. Nope, a good hour of sledding and she was still appalled when we took her out of the sled to head home.

Now that the cold and snow has taken over the outdoors. It is simply unappealing at best for me to muster up the ambition to get out there and do anything. The fact that Addison loves being out there helps matters, but I think I still fall short of her expectations. For example, yesterday, Addison insisted on wearing her hat and mittens for a good 2 hours in the middle of the afternoon. I'm certain she would have tried to put her boots on as well if she had been able to find them. It was definitely more than a strong hint that she wanted to go outside and play. I wasn't going for it though, so then she rummaged through my pots, pans and bowls...got out the largest one and tried to climb into it. Dan thinks she was trying to tell me she wanted to go sledding, but I think it's just a phase she's in since she tries to climb into everything: her toy box, her little lunchbox, my oven drawer, the laundry baskets. Whatever it is, she makes a good case for getting me outdoors.

Thanksgiving (posted a few days late)

Back in July Michelle found a great price on airline tickets to California for Thanksgiving. The travel times were not awful, but not that great. To get that rate we had to fly out on Sunday the 23rd and return on Friday the 28th. The flight out was a decent flight, Grand Rapids to Detroit, a two hour lay-over which gave us enough time to get some breakfast and feed Addison. Then the long flight to San Francisco. Addison did really well. She slept about 1-1/2 hours on the second flight. Michelle’s dad picked us up at the airport and we got in the car for 1-1/2 hour ride to the house. Addison was charming her Grandpa the whole way home.

Time with the family seemed to go by so fast. Thanksgiving Day was great. Great food, as expected and plenty of football. I was even given the assignment of brining the Turkey and prepping it for the roast, which is quite a privilege considering how much Michelle's family likes to be in the kitchen, and I must say it turned out pretty good.

Before you knew it we were packing up to head back home. We were expecting a very trying day on the way home. We planned to wake up around 3 am to leave the house for the airport around 3:45. That would put us at the airport around 5 or 5:15 am for our flight at 6:30a.m. We then went to Minneapolis for a 1 hour lay-over, on to Detroit for a 3 hour lay-over, and then arrive to our destination city of Grand Rapids at 8:30 p.m. Everything went as expected other than the fact that we expected Addison to fall back asleep after we moved her from her bed to the car at 3:40 a.m. But she managed to stay awake until we got to the airport at which time we loader her in her stroller and headed to ticketing, then off to security, and on to the departure gate. She stayed awake through our first flight, a lay-over and the majority of the second flight. She actually fell asleep after we landed while we were taxiing to the gate. We successfully transferred her to her stroller and we were able to get a bite to eat before she woke up. Then we were fortunate to find room on an earlier flight to Grand Rapids, the only draw back was that our checked luggage could not be moved onto the earlier flight. But we were heading home now so everything we really needed was there, we could get Addison home and one of us would go back to the airport later that night to get our luggage. Addison was a doll the entire flight, until about the last ten minutes of the leg into Grand Rapids, and even then she wasn’t too out of hand because all the people around us thought she was really good. She was just whining to us, it hadn’t reached an all-out cry yet. We got off the flight and were actually back at the house around 7:45. Addison was in her own bed by 8:15 p.m. I had to go back to the airport to get our luggage which came on our scheduled flight (which was delayed about an hour and thirty minutes), we were so glad we changed our flight because Addison would have been a handful if we did not get home until 10:30 p.m.

(Addison with her cousin Garrett)

Fall

Last weekend Dan headed up North for what could easily be considered the final outdoor sporting event of the season - the Iceman Cometh Challenge. I would say that I've been dormant since September, but Dan has been out on his mountain bike a fair amount in the past couple months. Now, there have been years past where Dan has spent more time training, but I would say he still got in a good amount of riding this year. This "Iceman" is a 28-mile mountain bike race from Kalkaska to Traverse City. For those of you not familiar with Michigan, this is North of us about 3 hours - usually a little cooler than here at any time of the year. So, the race is appropriately named "iceman" (Dan just chimed in saying that he thought I was being misleading, but I attempted - yes, ATTEMPTED - this race ONE TIME and it was ICE and SNOW and MISERY!!) Anyhow, he did great - finished in 2 hours and 23 minutes. I believe he would even agree that he did well...and had plenty of brew to celebrate the fact which returned him home in a worthless state...but, I'm happy he did well and had a great time :)

So, now I would say we are both in a dormant state... I think it's appropriate for the winter season. Our weather here has finally turned. I did appreciate the late tease of 70 degree weather last week, however, I think that was truly the last of the 'nice' weather for quite awhile. Today was still nice enough to bundle up Addison and walk to the Wilcox Park where Ruby could play fetch and Addison could giggle on the swing. It seems like the swings are currently her favorite playground activity. I usually try to encourage her to be social and play in the little fort-type play area with the slides etc, but tonight she took one ride down the slide and left me for the swings. Luckily for me, she still needs a push!

Autumn Adventure

September.

Well, it has been busy as usual! There has been a lot to blog about since our last post. Dan didn't mention that I turned 30 this July. I’m not sure whether I should view it as thoughtfulness or maybe that was just so that I wouldn't mention that he turned 39 in August! It shouldn't really bother him though, he ages well and you'd never guess he was 39 by the way he acts. I'm dreading the day we meet new friends and, when finding out that we're 9 years apart, they assume I'm the older of the two. (I know it will happen some day) For now, I'll say that 30 is just fine ;)

Addison is busy, busy, busy - she's running and climbing on everything. She's got quite the vocabulary - some of it we understand and some of it is still baffling. I know there are definitely words she says for some things but whatever her word is for it, it isn't the same as mine! I’m wondering if I’ll ever acquire that mommy trait of toddler translation.

We had some visitors in September - my parents and my younger sister, Emily, visited. They were here for about 10 days and it was great to have them around! We managed to get out (in between days of rain...) and took Addison to the zoo for her first time. She just LOVED the penguins. She squealed and giggled watching them swim around and dive under the water. She liked them so much; she kept trying to pull herself over the wall into the tank! She's quite strong for being only 24 lbs.
We also made a trip to Robinette’s apple orchards. We took a walk through the orchards there and stopped inside for some cider and doughnuts.

Also, Emily joined Dan and I in doing the Reed's Lake Triathlon this year - it was her first triathlon and she did great! In fact, we all did quite well. I was so excited to have her there - I thought it was a lot of fun, I hope she did too, despite being exhausted later that day ;) This was Dan's 10th consecutive year doing the triathlon - a goal he set a long time ago....good job, honey!

Other than these items, we have been busy fixing up our rental house. We are fairly certain we'll be selling it soon, even though it's a lovely little home. Dan spent a good amount of time fixing, painting and cleaning the house to get it ready to sell. We have some friends moving into it this weekend - they sold their home a couple months ago and have not yet found their new residence, so it works well to have them move in for awhile. Plus, it will be nice for us to have friends next door (again) and Addison will have some playmates! We’ll have to wait and see if Ruby enjoys the new neighbors…but I think she’ll have fun playing with the girls too.

It's been a busy Summer

I just noticed that it’s been a month since we made an entry. Man how time flies by. In the past month Michelle and I were both busy with helping organize on Millennium Triathlon on August 9th. I was the Run course coordinator and she managed registration pick up and coordinated volunteers. All of the proceeds are going to charity. The books have yet to be balanced, so I can't officially say how much is going to charity but I'm sure there will be some checks written and they should make a difference. An announcement should be on the website in the next couple weeks.

This past weekend I took part in the Pando 6/12 hour challenge. It’s a mountain bike race at Pando Ski Resort in located in Rockford, MI. There were two events, a 6 hour race and a 12 hour race. Participants can sign up as a 4 person relay team, a 2 person relay team or as a solo. My friend Jim and I registered into the 6 hour event as a 2 person team. We were satisfied with our results: we got forth out of five teams in our category, which does not seem that great, but we were less than 15 minutes behind first place after six hours, and only 2.5 minutes behind third place which would have gotten us on the podium, so we were happy with that considering that we did not train for the event (heck, Jim had not been on his mountain bike since last November, and I have only been on mine a hand full of times this year). It was hard, I can't imagine how it would be for solo rider. Some people just amaze me.

Addison is just so much fun these days. She going everywhere and getting into everything. She says “hi” to everyone, and lately she’s been saying “dank coo” quite frequently, which means thank you. There are a bunch of photos on the camera waiting to be uploaded to flickr, so hopefully we get to that this weekend, but with a church group meeting on Friday, a pool party on Saturday, a house warming party on Saturday evening, and a possible triathlon on Sunday I’m not making any promises.

The big ONE!

It is simply unreal to me that Addison is 1 already. Yet, looking back, it's also unreal to think about the leaps and bounds she has made in one short year. We love our little "peanut" or, (as Dan sometimes calls her) "peanut cake" - because she outgrew peanut status so fast and was more like a pound cake ;)

Addison was quite the trooper on her birthday. She napped before the party and woke up just as guests were beginning to arrive - she was her giddy, rambunctious self for most of the afternoon.

She got to play with her little boyfriend, Finnegan, and although she wasn't quite into the opening of gifts, she sure loves them all now! And, of course, there was cake...and ice cream.

We have some more pictures of her 1st birthday in the flickr account, please check them out.