Mulan Bailey

The other day Bailey was dressed in this get up, and she said, "Me Mulan."

Bailey had to see how she looked, so up to Macy's room we went.


D

Spray Scape fun

Macy, Bailey, and two of their new best friends had a great time at the park today. It is in the nearby town of Plymouth. The park has a huge playground area, a spray scape, several sand pits, and lots of shaded areas. I think both girls liked the water sprinklers the best. Bailey never did want to get totally wet. She mainly enjoyed filling her bucket with water and then swishing her hands in it. Oh, and wearing her new bathing suit!


D

I had a great time in Chicago.

Every two years the watch forum that I frequent hosts a meeting. This year it was held in Chicago. Normally I wouldn't make the trip, but I'm kind of close to Chicago (about 4 hours), so I decided to go. I made the trip by myself.

Here are some pictures I took.

Here's the Sear's Tower--the tallest building in Chicago.


Okay, I went to the American Girl store without my kids. (We have a family trip planned for this weekend.) I wanted to get Macy something, but I was presented with the problem of how to carry it around all day. The solution was this fancy little backpack. Yeah, I had to wear this pink backpack all around Chicago, but I promise you that I was not the silliest looking person in town.



Of course, for me the trip was all about the watches (and internet friends).



D

Macy enjoyed another VBS.

Macy and her friends from church attended the Vacation Bible School held by the Church of Christ West in Plymouth. They went all four nights and loved it. Macy's favorite part was getting prizes on the last night--oh, and learning about the Bible she said. ;) I'm glad they enjoyed it as much as they did.

D

Ann Arbor Art Fair

The annual Ann Arbor Art Fair was recently held. A nice couple from church invited us to join them for a stroll around the booths.


Macy was able to make a couple of crafts throughout the day. She had a great time.


Everyone got happier when we ducked into a neat candy shop.


D

Ice Skating in Michigan

Here's Macy's version of ice skating.

D

Mommy's Little Helpers

Macy has taken a special interest lately in helping me cook. Of course, Bailey cannot be left out of ANYTHING at all, so if she's anywhere around she jumps in, too. One of their favorite things to do is help roll up crescent rolls. Bailey is quite a whiz at it to be only two! Here's some cute video we shot a couple nights ago. And don't worry, if you ever come to my house and eat crescent rolls, I promise to raise the sanitary standards for their preparation. But on this night, it was just us!

J

A wrong number that turned out pretty right

Mr. Bobby from Phillips Street called us. The funny thing is that he actually intended to call someone else and dialed our number by mistake. What followed was a nice conversation between him and Julie.

It was a nice little slice of West Tennessee. When Julie told Bailey that Mr. Bobby called, she was so very happy and talked about him the whole rest of the afternoon.

D

More More Putt Putt

Tonight we went with the youth group to play putt putt. The course had lots of water features, and amazingly we all left there dry!

Julie was very happy that Bailey got a golf ball that matched her dress. Go figure! :)


Macy still has a little bit of hockey in her golf swing. She claims to have gotten a hole in one. Here's what she said--"the ball was rolling right for the hole, and I knew it was going to go in, but I tapped it one more little time to make sure." It sounds fishy to me, but she's sure it counts as a hole in one.


We have a very impressive group of teenagers at Garden City. We are enjoying getting to know them. Macy thought she was so cool being with the teenagers tonight. Here she is with one of the girls that she really likes--Kristy.


Of course, dad won. I didn't just beat my family; I beat the whole group. I shot a 44. But for a couple of holes, it could have been lots less. I scored two hole in ones. I'm the man.

D

Bailey's Sweet Tooth

One morning I went around the corner and picked up a bag of powdered donuts for the girls. Macy doesn't like them, but Bailey loved them.

In another trip to IKEA, we discovered that IKEA ice cream is still great.

D

Still kicking

Macy's name was recently officially added the her Tae Kwon Do class roll.
When she gets enough stickers (awarded once per attendance), she can receive a patch for her belt or uniform.

Macy has loved this activity. The other day she was acting a bit cantankerous (yes, it happens every once in a while), and Julie threatened to not let her go to Tae Kwon Do, and Macy improved her behavior. :)

I'm also enjoying the work out, too.

Bailey is eager to get in on the action as well. She saw Macy's white belt and starting yelling, "white." We put it on her.

I'm not exactly sure what this is, but it's Macy's favorite move. :)

Here's some recent video I shot showing off some more of Macy's moves.

D

Bargains Galore!

I've done a lot of shopping since we've been here in Michigan, and lately I've gotten some really great bargains! My first awesome finds came from http://www.disneyshopping.com/! They're having a summer sale right now, and there's even a coupon code for an additional 25% off the sale price. (Now the discount has gone up to 40%, but someone at Customer Service told me when I called that special would end Thursday night. But who knows? Maybe it will get even better.) They also have coupon codes for $5 shipping (with a $50 order) and two free tickets to wall-e. The really cool thing about it is you can use all three codes on the same order! I was especially excited about that. Anyway, I digress...back to what I got on sale. I got summer pj sets for the girls for $5.99 and gowns for $7.50. I also got several pair of flip flops for $2.24 each. (I also recently got a lot of flip flops at The Children's Place for $1.99!) They have really cute beach towels ranging from $3.74 to $4.49, too. Even Dustin got a treat. He got two new t-shirts to wear on our Disney trip in November. One is Mickey, and the other is GRUMPY! He says that he doesn't "do" Grumpy, but we all know that's not really true, now don't we? I told him of all the Disney t-shirts he's bought the last several months that the Grumpy one is most appropriate. ;) They also had several toys on sale, and I got a few things to save for Christmas. I also discovered how you can order from both the regular Disney shopping website and the outlet site and combine your order into one to further save on shipping!

Here are the girls modeling their new gowns. Bailey is also wearing some of her new too-big-right-now flip flops!

My other bargains of late are fruits and veggies! Garden City has a new farmer's market. This is the first summer they've had one here, although several surrounding towns have had them for a while. The Garden City one is pretty small, but I'm hoping it will grow if the residents here support it. The nice thing about it is everything is locally grown here in Michigan, and some of it is even organic! One of the ladies from church called me Wednesday morning and invited me to go with her. I didn't get much there (just some cucumbers, blueberries, and homemade bread), but it was still fun and the prices were good. Many of the vendors were selling beautiful plants and flowers, but we all know how well I do with those ;) so I passed on them. After we left the farmer's market, though, she took me to an awesome fruit and vegetable market in the next town over. I was totally amazed at the selection and the prices. Everything was so fresh and beautiful. Of course, not everything they sell is locally grown, but still...it was unbelievable to me. We've never lived anywhere (except maybe Memphis) that had such an awesome fruit and vegetable store. The prices were definitely cheaper than the Kroger stores here and the produce was much fresher than what Wal-Mart and Meijer (a Wal-Mart type store) seem to have.

Anyway, here is some of what I got:

• 16 oz bag baby carrots (washed & ready to eat) for $0.99
• green bell peppers for $0.50 each
• yellow onions for $0.33/lb.
• whole ears of corn were 4/$0.99 (And we even shucked them there in the store so they could deal with all the mess!)
• seedless grapes for $0.99/lb.
• plums for $0.69/lb.
• peaches for $0.79/lb.
• bartlett pears for $0.79/lb.
• large pineapple for $2.39

They had lots of vegetables and fruits that I had either never heard of or never bought (stuff used in Asian cooking). It was a really fun experience. They even sell fresh cut flowers (spring mix) for $2.99 a bunch. Now Dustin has no excuse!

Anyway, that's all for now about my bargains. Happy shopping everyone!

J

It's been a great month.

We've been in Garden City for about a month, and I'm very satisfied with the work taking place at the Garden City church of Christ. In the month that I've been here, I have had 2 meetings with the elders (one of those also included the deacons). In this time, we've also had our week of VBS, and we've had 3 baptisms and 1 restoration. Furthermore, my family and I have gotten some of the nicest comments and well-wishes from the folks here at the Garden City church of Christ.

Of course, it's the preaching of the Gospel (regardless of results--think about Noah) that equals success. Still, it's very encouraging to see fruit from hard work.

God bless us all.

D

Westland Fireworks

The holiday fireworks happened on Sunday, July 6. We went with the Grants and staked out a nice spot to view from. We had a blast. ;)

D

White Car

Walking over to the church building tonight, Bailey saw this vehicle and said, "White car." She's a smart little girl. Of course, I had to take a picture of the car.


D

Happy Birthday Mimi.

D

Happy 4th of July!

We had a great time today. We spent this holiday with the Grant family. They are some of our new friends from church. The kids swam.

They also had a great time playing.


And, of course, the food was great. We had Mexican (with the promise that we'd have burgers and hot dogs on Cinco de Mayo). :)


In the absence of fans and grapes, these goddesses had to make do with the food us commoners ate.



This Michigan Summer has been great. The weather was perfect. It was about 80 degrees with about 35% humidity.



After lunch, us dads took the kids to a nearby park.


Bailey discovered this rock wall.

She loved the swing.

The day ended the way it often does when we're with those we love--there was a lot of crying from the kids and promises that we'd see each other again soon. We hope your day was as great as ours.

D